🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <kYtuglW00V4G01l=ZK@andrew.cmu.edu>, jk3k+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
> Here's a possibly stupid question, but i've never seen anything about this.

I do not believe that there are NOW any machines that have complex number
operations in the hardware. At Bell Labs, either just before, during, or
slightly after World War II they built a series of computers, using electro-
mechanical relays as the logical elements. These machines were known as the
Model I, II, ... VI. I think they built 2 of one of them. Since they were
interested in calculating electric wave filters, and such things, they had
to do a lot of complex number operations. At least one of these machines
supported complex arithmetic directly. I do not suppose these machines
exist any more. They were probably faster than the desk calculators
(also mechanical) of the day, but were nowhere near as fast as the vacuum
tube machines that replaced them.

-- 
Jean-David Beyer
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733
attunix!beyer