What is new?

• Resurrecting a Siemens gamma spectrometer from the late 1950s/early 1960s (not sure about this).

• An AVR-based video controller.

• Slide set for my talk Mit Lötkolben, Wire-Wrap-Pistole und Assembler, Z80 Selbstbaurechner, delivered on March 6th, 2014 for NERDIFIZIERT?.
• Slide set for my talk Analogrechnen, delivered on March 6th, 2014 for NERDIFIZIERT?.

• Debugging and repairing a TM990/100M computer.

• Building a TMS9995 single board computer.

• Updated the list of publications.

• Building a really tiny Z80 computer.

• Added some recent publications.

• The odyssey of repairing a HP3330B.

• Restoring a wonderful PDP 11/34.

• After quite some years my friend Ingo Klöckl and I met again for a weekend full of programming. We managed to implement a skeleton of a FAT file system for a Z80 based computer - I am quite surprised by the difficulties we encountered in doing so, but the resulting monitor code runs like a charm and the Z80 system can now read FAT disks and load data from such a disk.

• During my Christmas holidays I installed a BSD 2.11 UNIX on one of my PDP11 systems. Since there were quite a lot of pitfalls, I wrote down the necessary steps to bootstrap and configure such a system here.

• The tinyZ80 computer has been extended with an IDE interface, the monitor now supports basic disk functions etc. Have a look. :-)

• How to build a simple Z80 computer!

• Build your own yarnmeter!

• On December 10th, 2010, I delivered a talk The Power of Analogs at the Winterkolloquium of the institute for process control at the RWTH Aachen (the set of slides is quite large - 11 MB all in all).

• On October 29th, 2010, I will deliver a short talk about the current state of the 5-interpreter at this year's OpenVMS-Technical-Update-Days in Bad Homburg. The slides for this talk can be found here.

• I bought a wonderful Fluke 8300A DVM in an online auction for a mere 18 EUR - although it still is a bargain, it took me quite some time to find and fix all faults in the instrument. The repair of this DVM is described here.

• One of my beloved Telefunken OMS 811 oscilloscopes died some time ago - no trace, nothing. This page describes how the device was repaired.

• I bought a Tracor 527E Frequency Difference Meter which I use to compare various oscillators to my homebrew Rubidium oscillator. The page linked to above describes this interesting device as well as the steps that were necessary to get it up and running again.
• I enhanced the homebrew Rubidium oscillator by adding a quad D-flip flop to reduce phase jitter.

• On the last day of this year's YAPC::Europe 2010 which took place in Pisa, I gave a talk 5 - a stack based array language implemented in Perl (and Larry Wall attended the talk! :-) ).

• Since being a child I have dreamed about having my own atomic clock - not necessarily a cesium primary standard, but maybe a rubidium oscillator controlled device. This dream has now come true! :-)

• Last year in August I started developing a simple Perl based interpreter for a stack based array language called 5. This project may now be found at http://lang5.sourceforge.net/.
• Another project which was on hold for quite some time is a new processor design, called QNICE, which borrows heavily from my NICE processor, has now found its way to Sourceforge, too.

• During the Connect symposium 2009 which took place in Darmstadt, I delivered two talks: One about my new toy, a stack based array language called 5, and one about an agile method for software development which gains more and more momentum: Scrum.

• Inserted a great idea from Noud into the page describing the simple DCF77 antenna.

• Cleaned up some pages, especially the about and publications pages.

• On 08-JUL-2008, I delivered a talk entitled "How to get to the moon and back -- The Apollo onboard computer AGC" describing the way to the AGC, its development, usage etc. The slides for this talk can be found here (ca. 43 MB).
• On the following day, July 9th, 2009, I had my final examination for my Ph.D., my disputation, the slides for which can be found here (ca. 35 MB).

• On 27-MAY-2009, I will deliver a talk entitled "Think Different - Think Analog" at the Kolloquium des Lehrstuhls Medientheorien on the HU-Berlin. The slides for this talk can be downloaded from here (ca. 700 kB).

• The analog computer pages have now really been migrated to a new location, namely to http://analogmuseum.dyndns.org where you will quite a lot of new documentation for download.

• Someday in November 2008 (I really forgot the exact date) I had a talk at the University of Hamburg titled "Von der Raketensteuerung zum Analogrechner - Helmut Hoelzers Peenemünder Arbeiten und ihr Erbe". The slides for this talk can be found here (ca. 1 MB).

• On July 19th, my friend Dr. Matthias Koch came with a mathematical question to my birthday party. We solved the problem first analytical and on the following day I did a small analog simulation to confirm our findings. Read more here.

• On June, the 5th, 2008, I held a talk about Thomas Samuel Kuhn's seminal book "Die Struktur Wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen" at the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. You may find the accompanying slide set here.
• On the very same day, June, the 5th, 2008, I also had a talk about Perl and OpenVMS at this year's DECUS symposium which took place in Frankfurt. The slides which give quite some examples of the practical use of Perl in an OpenVMS shop may be found here.

• Yesterday (06-FEB-2008) I gave a little talk at the University of Hamburg with the title "Faszination Analogrechnen". The slides for this talk are available for download here (ca. 2.9 MB).

• Important: In the future all pages covering analog computing, its techniques, technology, application etc. will slowly be moved to a new location at http://www.analogmuseum.org. This is the result of the growing size of the collection and documentation and the wish to have a central point in the web to gather information about analog computing. Please note that the URL mentioned above will redirect you to FAFNER, my VAX, which may be a temporary solution, but the sheer amount of scans, pictures and videos has reached a dimension which exceeds the file space limits imposed by my provider, so it might be a permanent solution as well. Please tell me ( ulmann@vaxman.de) if you find any errors, broken links (the German pages are currently not very complete, so only the English pages are representative at the moment) or have suggestions. I hope you will enjoy the new structure and style of these pages (is the frame OK or do you think it is a NO-NO?).

• Have you ever wondered who a rendezvous in space is performed when two space craft shall be coupled together like the CM/LEM or a Space Shuttle and the ISS etc.? If so, you might want to have a look at a simple orbital rendezvous simulation I programmed this weekend (12/13-JAN-2008).

• On December 1st, 2007, I finished a more complex program on the Telefunken RA 770 analog computer to display a so called Joukowski airofoil with lines of airflow around this profile. The first video clip (about 8 MB!) shows a single line of airflow around this airofoil under manual control while the second video clip (about 2 MB) shows the automatic generation of a family of 16 curves using the very same program which is described in more detail here.
• About two weeks ago, one of the dreams of my childhood came true: I got a Telefunken RA770 analog computer - one of the finest systems ever made (IMHO).

• A couple of days ago I reimplemented the vehicle simulation listed below on my EAI 580 analog computer using no special external equipment like the four channel oscilloscope multiplexer, etc. This was possible since the EAI 580 features quite a few electronic analog switches which can be employed to implement a display multiplexer on the computer itself. This new simulation is more realistic than the old one below and shows the car frame, the wheels and the road itself in motion. Read more about this simulation here.
• On September 22nd, my friend Dr. Karina Schreiber (a mathematician, too) came for a visit and we had lots of fun creating some artwork using an analog computer. Some of the pictures we created can be seen here.

• Thanks to Mr. Böhringer from the Universität Karlsruhe you can find here a so called "Studienarbeit" describing the development of a control system to implement a magnetic suspension (a hovering metal ball :-) ) - about 3.3 MB.

• Last weekend I developed a small analog computer program to display rotating three dimensional figures on an oscilloscope screen - this program together with a short movie of a rotating spiral can be found here.

• Reference and maintainance manual (about 22 MB) for the EAI-180 analog computer.

• On 29-APR-2007 my wife and I were invited by Prof. Dr. Meyer-Brötz, the father of the first transistorized analog computers made by Telefunken. His first two machines were the RA 800 and the RAT 700, developed in 1959/1960. Prof. Dr. Meyer-Brötz left the area of analog computing in 1966 when he realized that digital computers would eventually supersede analog computers in terms of computing power. His interests shifted to electronic character recognition and the like in the following years. It was a wonderful experience and a gift to meet him and his wife in person. He has lots of memories of the time of his analog computer developments at Telefunken and is a truly wise man. This picture was taken by his wife at the end of our visit. He sent it to us with this short handwritten note.

• In a rather sleepless night I wrote a small, but quite useful program to factor numbers on the TI-59 which can be found in the example programs section of my TI-59 page.

  And I wrote a small page about the HP-28S pocket calculator, one of my absolute favourites. This page contains a clock program as well as a handy routine for playing with the Ulam series (more to come, I think).

• With several weeks of delay I eventually found the time to write a bit about my (succesful) repair of a wonderful HP 67 programmable pocket calculator including some hints on repairing the built-in card reader/writer.

• Since today was such a beautiful day that even I decided to go out for a walk with my wife, I began thinking about measuring distances using a modulated diode laser while walking with her. This led to the development of a very simple TTL modulated diode laser which I built the very same afternoon after we came home.

• At this year's VCFE in Munich I bought a HP 41C pocket calculator - a machine I dreamed about when I was 13 or 14 years old. Since the calculator was not working, the page linked to above describes how I repaired it.

• Today I prepared some slides for this year's VCFE taking place in Munich from April 29th to April 30th 2007. These slides describe my favourite programmable pocket calculator, the TI-59.

• Today I prepared some slides for this year's VCFE-8.0 taking place in Munich from April 29th to April 30th 2007. These slides describing the well known bouncing ball in a box at greater detail.

• The TI-59 page now contains a second example program to perform decimal -> binary conversion and vice versa.

• In reminiscence of the 30th birthday of my favourite programmable pocket calculator, the TI-59 I begun a page describing and celebrating this work of art.
• Last year (2006) I started the design and development of yet another homebrew processor, a simple but elegant 16 bit architecture called QNICE. A slide set describing the machine can be found here.
• At the IT Symposium 2007 I will deliver a talk covering database proxies written in Perl. The slides for this talk can be found here.
• At this years Vintage Computer Festival Europe I will deliver a talk about one of my favourite programming languages, APL.

• The analog computer simulation of a two mass vehicle suspension system has been considerably extended by a detailed description of the computer circuit and the basic differential equations which were derived for this problem.

• Today I programmed a (simplified) car suspension system simulation on one of my Telefunken analog computers. The page describing this small project contains links to three worthwhile AVI-files showing the overall setup of the simulation and the output of two simulation runs performed with different parameters.

• PACE TR-10 analog computer brochure (about 14 MB).

• Since we (Rikka and I) were invited to a new year's party which required all of the participants to give talks about paranormal phenomena and the like, I decided to talk about the random number generator experiment which was conducted in 1998. The slides for this talk can be found here.

• Hitachi Technical Information Series No. 8, Analysis of Rolling Theory by Analog Computer - Karman's Differential Equation (about 10 MB).
• Hitachi Technical Information Series No. 9, Introduction to Simulator (Part 1) (about 10 MB).

• Brochure introducing the Dornier 720 analog computer (in German, about 2.8 MB color pdf).
• Hitachi Technical Information Series, TIS No. 2, 1967, 2nd edition, Information on Hybrid Interface (about 12 MB!)

• Here you can find the description and schematics of a (rather simple) control stick adapter to be used in conjunction with an analog computer. Having a control stick connected to an analog computer is an invaluable tool for man in the loop simulations where someone has to control some simulated device like a spacecraft, etc.

• The OMS 811 pages have been updated with six additional pictures showing the various printed circuit boards of this wonderful dual channel X/Y-oscilloscope.
• A few weeks ago I bought another OMS 811 oscillocope which was in need of some restoration and repair. A short story of this restoration can be found here.

• Mr. Bruce Baker, a former employee of Martin-Marietta and analog computing kindly scanned some pictures and papers related with his work on aerospace simulation using analog computers.
• Thanks to Heribert Müller who lend me the Bedienungsanleitung for the EA-22 analog computer manufactured by the small company GTE, you can download it here as a 17 MB pdf-file (in German).

• Thanks to Mr. Knut Rothstein I am able to present the scans of the EAI-brochure Simulation by Hybrid Computer - the Unbeatable Competitive Edge which he generously donated to the collection.

• Eventually I finished my four channel X/Y oscilloscope multiplexer which I intend to use in conjunction with my analog computers to display up to four distinct figures simultaneously on one screen.

• Some pictures I took during the YAPC2006 in Birmingham.
• During the YAPC 2006 Marty had a talk about "Lithp" where we (Marty and I) got a bit of an argument about LISP and APL, so I decided to prepare a lightning talk during the night. On the next day I learned that one speaker did not show up so there was a regular slot available for a real talk, thus I expanded my slides a bit and delivered a talk APL - one of the coolest programming languages ever ...inspired by the 'Lithp' talk.... Enjoy...
• Kurzbeschreibung Hybrider Präzisionsanalogrechner RA 770, a wonderful brochure containing some really nice pictures of the RA 770, in German, about 62 MB!
• Kurzbeschreibung, Tischanalogrechner und Zusatzgeräte, a wonderful brochure covering the RA 710, the RA 742 and lots of peripherals for the Telefunken analog computers.

• Perl on MVS and the Art of Parsing and Generating SWIFT Messages, paper for the YAPC 2006 conference.
• Slides for my Talk "Perl on MVS and the Art of Parsing and Generating SWIFT Messages" to be held at this year's YAPC 2006.

• A little page showing my HP 1000 model A600 computer.

• Thanks to my friend Hans Kulk who sent me some wonderful manuals and thanks to my beloved wife Rikka who devotes much time to the scanning of documentation, you can now download a wonderful brochure of Hitachis 200X analog computer (38 pages, English, about 60 MB).

• Lots of new detail photos of the Dornier DO 80 analog computer.
• The MEDA 43 analog/hybrid computer. This machine was designed and built in the former czechoslovakia and found widespread use in the countries behind the iron curtain.
• The EAI TR-10 analog computer. This is the first transistorized table top analog computer built by EAI (1961).

• On 29-MAY-2006 my wife and I had the pleasure to have Prof. Giloi with his wife and Prof. Lauber with his wife as our guests. Some photos of this event which was very significant for me can be found here.

• Thanks to Dr. Willi Frisch here is a very interesting document covering digital simulators for analog computation: Dynamische Simulatoren in der Reaktorentwicklung -- Ein Vergleich , by W. Frisch, G. Wilhelmi, Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Januar 1969, Externer Bericht, 8/69-1 (German, ca. 3.4 MB).
• Kurzbeschreibung - Hybrides Rechnersystem HRS 860 , AEG-TELEFUNKEN, Fachbereich Informationstechnik, N41 AC 52 0473 (German, about 22 MB!).

• Bringing Seismic Data to the Web with OpenVMS, slides (about 1.4 MB) for my talk covering the usage of LAT-devices for the transmission of binary data from a seismometer system to an OpenVMS system, etc. This talk was given at the DECUS-Symposium 2006 in Düsseldorf, Neuss.
• Bringing Vegan Recipes to the Web with OpenVMS, slides (about 300 kB) for a talk given at the DECUS-Symposium 2006 in Düsseldorf, Neuss. This talk covered a Perl based database proxy for RDB on OpenVMS as well as the benefits of the RTE technology of the WASD web server for OpenVMS to speed up the execution of CGI scripts and a lot of other topics like an intelligent method to bulk copy data from a MySQL system to a RDB database, etc.

• Telefunken RA463/2:
  • Bedienungsanleitung - (quite preliminary) manual of operation, about 1957/1958. In German, 23 MB!
  • Mechanical drawings , about 16 MB!
• Drawings for the 1054.2 operational amplifier as used in the Solartron Analogue Tutor, about 3.6 MB.
• Hitachi quad operational amplifier DA163 (used in the Hitachi 240 analog computer):
  • Principles of operation , about 35 kB.
  • Schematics , about 4.2 MB.

• Telefunken Analog and Hybrid Computers - a short history of Telefunken's developments in the area of analog and hybrid computing (about 4.5 MB). Slides for a talk to be given at the VCFE 7.0 2006 in Munich.

• Analog and Hybrid Computing - an introduction to analog and hybrid computing. Slides for a talk to be given at the VCFE 7.0 2006 in Munich.

• Added some remarks about building an analog computer using modern parts to the Analog Computing page (below the documentation part).

• The operating manual for the DEX100: DEX100 Beschreibung , German, about 1.5 MB.
• Hitachi, TIS No. 1, 1967, 2nd edition, Additional Elements of Hitachi 505 Necessary for Hybrid Computing System (about 600 kB).
• Hitachi, TIS No. 10, 1969, Introduction to Simulator (Part 2) (about 900 kB).
• Hitachi, TIS No. 11, 1969, Partial Differential Equations for Heat Conduction Analysis of Frozen Layer Shifting (about 340 kB).

• Informationsblatt zum "Elektronischen Resolver ERV801" (German, about 250 kB).
• Bedienungsanleitung zum "Elektronischen Resolver ERV801" (German, about 250 kB).
• Schematic Drawings zum "Elektronischen Resolver ERV801" (about 2.8 MB).
• An interesting application note covering the external control of the R-, H- and P-control jacks of the RAT700, RA710, RAT740 and RA741 table top analog computers: Programmierung der Steuerbuchsen R, H und P bei den Tischanalogrechnern RAT700, RA710, RAT740 und RA741 (German, about 240 kB).
• Einige spezielle Kunstschaltungen bei Benutzung des Tischanalogrechners RAT700 (German, 250 kB).
• Einfache Darstellung einer Planetenbahn (German, 170 kB).
• Zwei-Massen-System (German, 170 kB).
• Erwärmungsvorgang in einem Kabel (German, 190 kB).
• Transformator (German, 160 kB).
• Beschaltung von Parabelmultiplizier-Netzwerken, this paper gives some very interesting and sometimes quite strange hints concerning the use of parabola multiplier networks (German, 1.3 MB).
• Die Lösung partieller Differentialgleichungen und ihre Darstellungsmöglichkeiten auf dem elektronischen Analogrechner, "elektronische datenverarbeitung", Heft 5/1962, pp. 197-215.

• After three days of hard work I got my TELEFUNKEN RA741 analog computer up and running again - about 30 years after the system had been sitting in various storage locations.

• Programming a bouncing ball in a box - this link leads to a page showing the overall program, setup and an AVI-file showing the bouncing ball.

• All of the scanned documentation is now available via ftp, too. The ftp-server is fafner.dyndns.org. It supports anonymous ftp; do not forget to switch to binary mode prior to get-ting pdf documents. Please note that FAFNER is connected to the internet by a simple DSL line so upstream bandwidth is very limited. Please do not attempt to fetch all documents at once!

• Hitachi Analog-Hybrid Computer, Technical Information Series No. 3, 1967, Double Integral (Calculation of Volume of Cone) (about 700 kB).
• Analogrechner Dornier 240, brochure (German, about 5 MB).
• Beschreibung des Digitalzusatzes DEX(802), written by K. Fay, 1971, (German, about 121 MB!).
• A very interesting paper from Roland Konkard covering the use of self adaptive systems for the determination of the parameters of processes: Ermittlung der Kennwerte eines Prozesses mit Hilfe selbsteinstellender Systeme, (German, about 800 kB).

• I have been busy during the last weekend and built a small speech synthesizer for my VAX FAFNER - you may find more information about this device, including the complete schematics, on the Dragontalk page.
• Hybrid Precision Analog Computer System RA 770 D, Operating Manual, Part 1 (English, about 6 MB, 40 pages) and Part 2 (English, about 19 MB, 75 pages).
• A short operating guide for the RA770 analog computer (in German) which is based on a thesis written by R. Aderhold: Kurzgefasste Bedienungsanleitung für den Telefunken Analogrechner RA 770 , about 3 MB.
• Thanks to my friend Hans Kulk who sent me a copy of the following, you can now download the complete TELEFUNKEN ZEITUNG, Jahrgang 29, 1966, Heft 1, Herausgeber Prof. Dr. W. T. Runge (German, about 17 MB!). This wonderful publication describes the development of a high precision operational amplifier as used in TELEFUNKEN's analog computers, it covers the RA 800 Hybrid, describes in detail the technology of function generation, etc. A truly remarkable publication and a must read for anyone interested in analog computing.

• Thanks to my friend Christian Peters who worked hard for many hours the wonderful EAI lecture Understanding the ANALOG/HYBRID Computer is now available as podcast including audio and synchronized video (slides :-) ) here (about 17 MB). If you are interested in the audio data only, you can find a 16 MB mp3 coded file here.
• A new page describing some General Dynamics analog computer modules which have been used in the control of a nuclear power plant.

• An information leaflet about the RA742: Informationsblatt zum RA742 , German, about 600 kB.
• An information leaflet about the DEX102: Informationsblatt zum DEX102 , German, about 400 kB.
• Sonderdruck "elektronische Datenverarbeitung (1968) 6, S. 293-297", Optimierung eines Regelkreises mit Tischanalogrechner und Digitalzusatz by H. Kramer, German, about 1 MB.
• TELEFUNKEN, Demonstrationsbeispiel Nr. 5, Ball im Kasten , German, about 300kB.
• TELEFUNKEN, Perspektivische Darstellung von Rechenergebnissen mit Hilfe eines Analogrechners , German, about 200 kB.
• TELEFUNKEN, Simulation von Schwingungssystemen mit Analogrechnern by H. Kramer, German, about 1.5 MB.
• TELEFUNKEN, Schwingungsberechnung eines Zwei-Massen-Systems , German, about 300 kB.

• Handbook for the OMS811 oscilloscope, in German, about 1 MB.
• I found a wonderful picture from 1965 showing a TELEFUNKEN RAT700 analog computer simulating the suspension system of a car. This picture is shown on the page mentioned above or can be retrieved here.

• A wonderful "multimedia" lecture from EAI titled Understanding the ANALOG/HYBRID Computer from 1969.

• A brochure featuring the EAI-231R and accessories: That New Idea from EAI (about 13 MB!).
• EAI Application Bulletin No. 1 (about 18 MB!).
• EAI Application Bulletin No. 3 (about 1.2 MB).
• Introduction to the Analog Computer DO80, in English and German, ca. 2.8 MB.
• A two page brochure showing the TELEFUNKEN RA463/2 electronic analog computer, in German, 3.6 MB.
• Bedienungsanleitung zum BBC Tischanalogrechner - handbook in German, ca. 5.5 MB.
• TELEFUNKEN manual for the RA 800 used drawer Nichtlineare Netzwerke NN 800, in German, 1.8 MB.
• Annotations for an ancient slide collection covering the TELEFUNKEN analog computers - Dia-Reihe Analogrechner, in German, 27 MB!

• Hitachi 505E System brochure (about 41 MB!).
• Hitachi Analog-Hybrid Computer, Technical Information Series No. 5, Program Manual for Hitachi Analog Computer, Automatic Programming (about 2 MB).

• Chapter 0, about 0.5 MB.
• Chapter 1, about 0.7 MB.
• Chapter 2, about 1.6 MB.
• Chapter 3, about 2.2 MB.
• Chapter 4, about 4.5 MB.
• Chapter 5, about 3.9 MB.
• Chapter 6, about 9 MB.
• Chapter 7, about 1.8 MB.
• Chapter 8, about 8 MB.
• Chapter 9, about 6 MB.
• Bedienungshandbuch (German, about 23 MB!).

• Solartron Analogue Tutor TY1351 Instruction Manual, 1.2 MB.
• Solartron Dual Operational Amplifier AA1054_2 Instruction manual, 1.6 MB.
• Solartron Computer Power Supply AS1104_2 Instruction Manual, 1.2 MB.
• The Solartron Analogue Tutor analog computer.
• Dornier DO240/270 Programmierfeld (about 1.9 MB color pdf).
• Flyer Simulationssystem Dornier 960 (in German, about 21 MB color pdf).

• The Dornier-80 Analog Computer.
• TELEFUNKEN DEX102 Beschreibung und Bedienungsanleitung (handbook in German, 2.4 MB) and
• complete schematics (about 11 MB) for the TELEFUNKEN DEX102.
• Analogrechner Dornier 80 - handbook (in German), 6 MB.

• The Dornier DO-960 Analog Computer

• The Analog Computing Pages
• The TELEFUNKEN RA742 Analog Computer
• The TELEFUNKEN OMS 811 Oscilloscope
• The TELEFUNKEN DEX102 Digitalzusatz

• The TELEFUNKEN RA 1 Analog Computer

• An active antenna for receiving DCF77 signals