iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 15/06/2026

I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with: www.instructables.com/CARDIAC-CARD... 3/

instructables.com

CARDIAC (CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation) Replica

CARDIAC (CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation) Replica: Back in the 1960's and early 70's Bell Labs made some very sophisticated educational kits available to high schools and colleges. Designed ...

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 15/06/2026

Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. 4/

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 15/06/2026

I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on. 5/

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Dr. Omed @tinydoctor.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

I remember dialing into the mainframe from a teletype. Fortran 4!

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