Dylan BrophyI got my relays in the main yesterday!
I have been waiting a long time but they're here now so I'm happy.
I was feeling inspired by @Yann Guidon / YGDES's project #YGREC16 - YG's 16bits Relay Electric Computer and it's DRAM, so I got the same relays that his project uses. Since I'm in California these Russian relays feel much more exotic to me... And I like different languages than English/Spanish that I don't see so often, so the Russian, French, and English all on the same box seemed really cool to me.
Anyways, I decided to do some tests and make a bread boarded prototype. For this one I have a video.
After running further tests I discovered that the RAM worked well. So I decided to make all the RAM I could manage: 3 bytes using 24 capacitors and 3 relays (1 relay per byte).
A few tests of this board confirmed that it works. Beautiful!
I am working on some better ways to place the capacitors. I want to get to at least 512 bytes per 100 cm2. Oh, and that's enough for a bootable drive >:D. Could this one day be plugged into a PC and booted from? Just a thought....
Yea. Now I need to REALLY increase density. I'm already thinking SMD + OSH park.
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Welcome to the club ! I'm happy you can play with the РЭС15 and use the data I collected so far :-)
Are you sure? yes | no
PS: you only bought 36 relays, this time. Beware, you're going to buy more very soon :-D
Are you sure? yes | no
Yes, I wouldn't be surprised. At 1 relay per data word (1 byte right now), to have large amounts of data I will need large amounts of relays. A KiB of this memory would require 256 relays at a 32-bit word length. Thats a lot!!!
I'm trying to get relay count down some. And 32 bit words wouldn't be nice.
Are you sure? yes | no
One relay per word ? why ?
Using a 2D (array) organisation, you should be able to reduce this, unless I missed an episode.
Are you sure? yes | no