Chown ???

[Les]

On Sat, 2009-04-11 at 11:09 +0930, Tim wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-04-10 at 10:27 -0400, Peter Neilson wrote:
> > Once knew someone who built himself a computer out of old pinball 
> > machines and an Oliver typewriter.
> 
> Reminds me a story we were told while we were supposed to be studying
> audio electronics:  Gutted pinball machines were discovered near a
> Russian embassy, the reason being that they contained integrated
> circuits that were on the embargo list of things not to be sold to them.
> Naturally, some wag at the back of the class couldn't resist play-acting
> how the Russians would launch their missiles, to everyone's amusement -
> miming pulling back the spring loaded rod that fires the ball off onto
> the table.
> 
> > I also remember when I walked to school through snow deeper than I was
> > tall, and it was uphill both ways.
> 
> Bah, we didn't even have snow back then...  ;-)

I used to help my Uncle run a pinball route.  But I don't remember them
having I.C.'s.  Must have been after the 60's.  The ones I worked on
then had accumulators made up of rotary solenoids, and stepper switches
(not motorized, just a solenoid pulling on a ratchet or ratchets to
advance the counters.).  The randomizer for the match number play was
simply another ratchet mechanism that would run for a set period of
time, but the steps were intermittant, yeilding a sort of psuedo random
generator.  There were some that had sequential relays to control some
of the kickers, and advance the score mechanisms.  They were really
interesting electromechanical bits of work.

Regards,
Les H