Maker
D Reigdi-uCxomp
A maker in the middle recreates a kit classic.
By Tim Walker
Photograph courtesy Tim Walker
I N EARLY 2005, I STUMBLED UPON A YAHOO actually program it to do arithmetic, solve logic
group called FriendsOfDigiComp, where several puzzles, and even play a mean game of Nim. Along
hundred members were reminiscing about the the way, it could teach you a whole lot about binary
Digi-Comp I, a toy computer from the early 1960s. operations and Boolean logic. Priced at about five
In messages archived back to 1999, writers sung its bucks, some 250,000 Digi-Comps were purchased
praises in posts such as: “I was 11 years old ( 53 now) by parents through Sears and Edmund Scientific
when I received a Digi-Comp I for Christmas. I was catalogs, and by their geeky offspring through
fascinated with it from a mechanical standpoint .... innumerable comic book ads.
Even when I had mastered all the programs, I would The idea of remanufacturing the Digi-Comp I
still get it out and see what it could do. ... I think of it in some form was a recurring thread in the Yahoo
as the spark that got me interested in computing, a group. Members posted photos of physical models,
career that has been and remains a lot of fun.” hand-sawn from wood or assembled (enormously)
The original Digi-Comp — a “visible computer” from K’Nex pieces. Debates ensued over the relative
with a three-bit readout invented by a small New merits of materials and techniques: laser-cut Lexan,
Jersey company called ESR — was one of the most polycarbonate, acrylic plastics, or nylon? Plywood,
influential educational toys of its era. You could Masonite, or Honduran mahogany? Sheet metal cut
