Toy Computer Restored

A well-preserved Digi-Comp I, a 1963 mechanical educational toy computer sold by E.S.R., was restored to working order using rubber bands and a bit of 3D printing. The device uses soda-straw tubes on sliding rails interacting with spring-loaded levers to form simple mechanical logic gates, functioning as a binary state machine rather than a Turing-complete computer, with 16,777,216 possible states. It offers a glimpse into early educational computing before home computers existed.

Source: https://hackaday.com/2026/08/17/looking-at-an-old-toy-computer. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.