According to Google, the search term “sexy calendar” frequently resulted in hits for galacticstudios.org. So to satisfy all you vintage computer pr0n fiends out there, here’s 12 more lovelies for 2011. And you can print them out to make your own calendar!
Last year, I assembled a calendar of vintage computers. I titled the article “Sexy Computer Calendar”. I was amused to see in January and February that Google listed “sexy calendar” as the leading search terms for galacticstudios.org.
In a shameless attempt to boost my hits, and to satisfy my urge for a nerdy 2011 calendar, I’ve assembled 12 more pictures of vintage computers. You can see them below, download them, and use my free calendar program to print your own calendar.
January: The remains of the Antikythera Mechanism, a mechanical computer built by the Greeks over 2,000 years ago. Its purpose was to predict astronomical events. The black and white inset is a CT scan of the largest piece. Look closely and you can see the gears that did the calculations.
February: A replica of the Hollerith Census Machine, which used punched cards to tabulate U.S. census results in 1890.
March: The PDP-1, Digital Equipment Corporation’s first computer. The great video game, Space War!, was originally written for a PDP-1.
April: The Heathkit EC-1 Analog Computer. If a computer doesn’t have blinking lights (like mine), it should have plugs, dials, and meters.
May: A modern (2006) mock-up of the die for the Intel 4004 chip, the world’s first microprocessor, first made in 1971.
June: The HP-35 calculator, the first scientific calculator that could fit in a shirt pocket (specifically Bill Hewlett’s shirt pocket).
July: Paper tape, a common storage medium for computer programs and data in the 1970s. When I left high school, I punched out all the programs I had written in BASIC Plus onto paper tape, figuring it was a universal medium that I would be able to use anywhere I went.
August: Wow. The billboard sort of says it all. In the 1970s, IBM ruled the computer industry with its mainframes. There was a saying that no one ever got fired for buying an IBM computer. It looks like there might’ve been an exception to that rule. And if you think waiting on the phone for tech support in India is bad, what do you think this customer must have gone through to be driven to do this?
September: This is the CPU board of my first computer, a Southwest Technical Products 6809. Now there was a beautiful 8/16 bit microprocessor: relatively orthogonal instruction set, advanced addressing modes, hardware multiply, and 16 bit arithmetic.
October: The HP 64000 was a special purpose computer designed for developing embedded systems (devices like medical equipment or microwave ovens that have computers inside them). It had a built-in PROM burner, in-circuit analyzer, and logic analyzer. It had cross-compilers for a variety of microprocessors. It was the machine I used at my first job after college.
November: Another Heathkit, just because I miss that wonderful company so much (not that I could afford to buy all the stuff I wanted from them at the time). This is their HERO-1 robot kit. Its descendant is still for sale today by a company that owns the Heathkit name.
December: A wafer of integrated circuit chips for digital cameras. Ain’t it purty?
