Give me a waterwheel and I'll draw the wire on my own.
Iron and steel are not strictly necessary for the finished product, but making decent pliers out of anything else is a bit iffy.
If you don't need any fancy modulation, spark gap transmitter doesn't require the vacuum tubes. Those things are really filigree-level silversmithing inside, and getting the vacuum hard enough is going to be toughish.
Mechanical logic circuits have been suggested. I seem to recall a Scientific American article where at least gates were made of ropes and pulleys. There was another where nozzled streams of water were arranged to perform logic actions.
Some folks built logic gates out of Tinkertoys. I don't think they had to add any string, but I'm not certain. They later reproduced their device using Giant Tinkertoys for an audience.
My first computer (when I was very small) was mechanical, a DigiComp I. It was a 3- or 4-bit machine that could add, subtract, count by ones or twos (up or down) ... I don't remember whether it could multiply. It was plastic sliders and metal rods, and was operated by pushing and pulling one tab that served as what I now think of as the clock pin. All but one of the people I know who had one wish they could find another. IIRC, the one exception still has his.
It was a lovely distraction for a little while, but I was soon back to asking my father how one got from vacuum tubes, relays, and levers, to COBOL and the BatComputer. He could explain valves, binary, octal, and IBM punch-card encoding, and he could program COBOL and SOAP, but he couldn't explain the stuff in between.
I didn't think I needed steel components in the radio, but I wasn't sure whether I'd need steel tools or machines to make some of the parts.
Now I'm trying to imagine bronze or brass pliers ... Hmm.
I was also trying to figure out how to power the thing -- whether to build a battery (which means at least two types of metal, right?) or a dynamo. With a crank/pedal/waterwheel-operated dynamo, would we need any metal other than copper, except for making tools out of?
For that matter, could we get away with using a metal easier to work with and/or easier to refine?
Good point about the waterwheel instead of a second pair of hands; I should've thought of that.
I feel wet cells as the power source might be easier to attain than a generator. There are several different designs, some based on two metals, others on a metal and carbon, and then the electrolyte, sometimes alcalic, sometimes acidic. Wet cells will wear out and need replacing, but their manufacture doesn't need quite as much mechanical prowess and infrastructure as a generator.
For good decent generator, ferromagnetic metal is unavoidable. I don't, however, know the properties of natural magnets sufficiently well to give a definitive ruling on this. For a self-excited generator, only a small permanent magnet field is required. But the windings should really be supported by magnetically permeable metal.
For the electrical circuitry, almost any conductive material will do. It is only a matter of losses. Tin, brass, bronze, lead, silver, gold...
I was thinking of the vacuum. That's going to be your stumbling stone. In a vacuum tube there is a hard vacuum; even the industrial manufacturers don't get it good enough. Instead, after having exhausted their mechanical pumps, diffusion and ion traps, they seal the envelope and fire a small getter charge to trap the residual gases into solid compounds. But to get to that point, they're using technolgy that is pretty challenging to replicate.
I think I am still advocating the spark gap transmitter.
Two votes for spark gap. Generator electricity with a water wheel - so you'll need basic woodworking tools, draw the wire, insulate it with some kind of goo (some kind of petrochemical?), build an air gap capacitor (so you'll need some kind of metal there too) and let her rip!
Because if I want to get off of that *&%@ island I want to make a LOT of noise.
(no subject)
Iron and steel are not strictly necessary for the finished product, but making decent pliers out of anything else is a bit iffy.
If you don't need any fancy modulation, spark gap transmitter doesn't require the vacuum tubes. Those things are really filigree-level silversmithing inside, and getting the vacuum hard enough is going to be toughish.
Mechanical logic circuits have been suggested. I seem to recall a Scientific American article where at least gates were made of ropes and pulleys. There was another where nozzled streams of water were arranged to perform logic actions.
Mechanical Digital Computing
My first computer (when I was very small) was mechanical, a DigiComp I. It was a 3- or 4-bit machine that could add, subtract, count by ones or twos (up or down) ... I don't remember whether it could multiply. It was plastic sliders and metal rods, and was operated by pushing and pulling one tab that served as what I now think of as the clock pin. All but one of the people I know who had one wish they could find another. IIRC, the one exception still has his.
It was a lovely distraction for a little while, but I was soon back to asking my father how one got from vacuum tubes, relays, and levers, to COBOL and the BatComputer. He could explain valves, binary, octal, and IBM punch-card encoding, and he could program COBOL and SOAP, but he couldn't explain the stuff in between.
Steel
Now I'm trying to imagine bronze or brass pliers ... Hmm.
I was also trying to figure out how to power the thing -- whether to build a battery (which means at least two types of metal, right?) or a dynamo. With a crank/pedal/waterwheel-operated dynamo, would we need any metal other than copper, except for making tools out of?
For that matter, could we get away with using a metal easier to work with and/or easier to refine?
Good point about the waterwheel instead of a second pair of hands; I should've thought of that.
(no subject)
For
gooddecent generator, ferromagnetic metal is unavoidable. I don't, however, know the properties of natural magnets sufficiently well to give a definitive ruling on this. For a self-excited generator, only a small permanent magnet field is required. But the windings should really be supported by magnetically permeable metal.For the electrical circuitry, almost any conductive material will do. It is only a matter of losses. Tin, brass, bronze, lead, silver, gold...
I was thinking of the vacuum. That's going to be your stumbling stone. In a vacuum tube there is a hard vacuum; even the industrial manufacturers don't get it good enough. Instead, after having exhausted their mechanical pumps, diffusion and ion traps, they seal the envelope and fire a small getter charge to trap the residual gases into solid compounds. But to get to that point, they're using technolgy that is pretty challenging to replicate.
I think I am still advocating the spark gap transmitter.
(no subject)
Because if I want to get off of that *&%@ island I want to make a LOT of noise.
-m