Logikus
The Logikus is a "toycomputer" / "learningcomputer", made in 1968 by Kosmos-Verlag.
It consists of a plastic-case with a row of 10 lamps at the back, 10 switches and a pushbutton at the front, and a breadboard with contacts between them. Power comes from a battery inside the case (4.5V). The switches are toggle switches (i.e. with an on- and off-position) that connect a number of contacts on the breadboard.
Logikus, with lamp-cover for Wolf, Goose, Cabbage -Problem.
"Programming" is done by sticking wires thru holes on the breadboard, to connect those contacts, e.g. the electric source with (some of the) switches and the lamps. The lamps and switches can be annotated with a strip of paper.
So, without electronic parts (and no memory, other than the switches), it is not a real computer as we know it.
The instruction-book had a lot of small, fun applications, that also gave you an introduction to electric wiring and boolean logic.
Descriptions:
Some very similar devices were the PIKOdat, the LOGIX and the Tandy "Science Fair Digital Computer Kit":
- http://braadspitt.nl/piko/
- http://wwwtcs.inf.tu-dresden.de/~humann/Privat/pikodat/www.html
- http://www.samstoybox.com/toys/LogixComputer.html - the picture shows the wiring for the "Cross the River" (Farmer-Wolf-Goat-Cabbage) problem.
- http://www.digibarn.com/collections/games/science-fair-digital-computer/
The east-german PIKOdat, in addition to supporting 2 different types of battery (4.5V, and 3 * 1.5V), had 3 additional lamps, and a timer: One lamp, labeled "Timeout" was mounted on the left, in the very first lamp-case and was connected to the 20-second-timer. The other two lamps, labeled "correct/wrong", were both mounted at the right in the very last lamp-case. They could be used for timed quiz-games etc.
There is a simulator for the Logikus, written 1990 by Franz Xaver Dimbeck, for Amiga. This can be run on a PC using an Amiga-emulator, but that also needs the Kickstart-ROM and Workbench-Disk. You would need to purchase these, for about 30$.
That strikes me as a bit of overkill, for simulating such a simple device. So I decided to make my own simulator using Tcl/Tk.
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A note for users:
If you want to run this program ("tcl-script"), without a full installation of Tcl/Tk:
- Save this wiki-page to a textfile, e.g. "Logikus.tcl"
- download a Tcl/Tk-runtime, e.g. from http://code.google.com/p/tclkit/wiki/TclkitDownloads .
The old version 8.4.17 will do, i.e. for windows: tclkit-8.4.17-win32.upx.exe (950 kb). You need a runtime with "Tk", as in "Toolkit", because that is the part that gives the programming-language Tcl its support for graphics.
Run this, and in the Console-window, use File/Execute to select this script, then minimize the console.
Or just drag and drop the script onto the exe-file.
If there is interest, i.e. someone feels that this is still too much hassle, I could provide a version of Logikus as a ready-to-run, standalone-starkit.
#!/bin/sh
# Restart with tcl: -*- mode: tcl; tab-width: 4; -*- \
exec wish $0 ${1+"$@"}
# Logikus.tcl - HaJo Gurt - 2012-04-04 - https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/36471
#: Simulates the "Spielcomputer Logikus"
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