Kosmos Logikus

[J-F Garnier]

Anyone owned a Kosmos Logikus in the late 60's begining of 70's?
The Kosmos Logikus was a computer toy (Spielcomputer) made of mechanical switches to solve simple logic equations.
It was also available in France under the name "Ordinatron 600" (Gégé), and in the US/Canada under the names "Kosmos Logix 0-600" (Logix) and "SF-5000 Computer" (Tandy).

I discovered the Logikus very recently. At almost the same time, there was a different product in France called "Ordinateur JR-01" , based on a similar mechanical principle. It was sold ready-to-use and was simpler to program using small plugs and less wiring. It was also more limited. I owned (and still have) this JR-01.
Both were based on a sum-of-product scheme. The Logikus had 10 inputs, 10 outputs and a flexible sum-of-product matrix whereas the JR-01 had 3 inputs only, 4 outputs and a fixed matrix of 7 products of the 3 inputs.

These products were not computers as such, since they had no memory and no sequential capability at all but they were good introductions to wired programmable (combinatory-only) logic.

J-F

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(05-01-2017 01:51 PM)J-F Garnier Wrote:  Anyone owned a Kosmos Logikus in the late 60's begining of 70's?

Yes, I had one of those (must still be somewhere at my parent's place - will try to not forget to look for it on my next visit). Mine must have been bought in the mid-70ies, maybe 1974, before that I would have been too young. With all those switches and lamps it had some fascination, but I do not think that I ever "programmed" anything of my own. Maybe I slightly modified some of the examples in the manual but there was certainly no project of my own.

The German Wikipedia article has a reference to a similar product from the German Democratic Republic (very much of a clone I would say) under the name of "PIKO dat" but I have never seen one of these in real life. The few which are on eBay right now have crazy price tags.



Regards
Max

NB: Just found this website here (in English and German language) which has some information and a downloadable simulator for the Amiga and Windows. Since I have neither an Amiga nor a Windows PC I can't try it... http://www.logikus.info/index.htm

[toml_12953]

(05-01-2017 01:51 PM)J-F Garnier Wrote:  Anyone owned a Kosmos Logikus in the late 60's begining of 70's?
The Kosmos Logikus was a computer toy (Spielcomputer) made of mechanical switches to solve simple logic equations.
It was also available in France under the name "Ordinatron 600" (Gégé), and in the US/Canada under the names "Kosmos Logix 0-600" (Logix) and "SF-5000 Computer" (Tandy).

I discovered the Logikus very recently. At almost the same time, there was a different product in France called "Ordinateur JR-01" , based on a similar mechanical principle. It was sold ready-to-use and was simpler to program using small plugs and less wiring. It was also more limited. I owned (and still have) this JR-01.
Both were based on a sum-of-product scheme. The Logikus had 10 inputs, 10 outputs and a flexible sum-of-product matrix whereas the JR-01 had 3 inputs only, 4 outputs and a fixed matrix of 7 products of the 3 inputs.

These products were not computers as such, since they had no memory and no sequential capability at all but they were good introductions to wired programmable (combinatory-only) logic.

J-F

I had a couple of them. One was from Kosmos, the other was a redo from Radio Shack. It had much more reliable connections than the Kosmos and used push buttons rather than slide switches. The program wiring diagrams were identical between the two. I liked the look of the Kosmos unit much better than the RS unit. To me, it looked more like a computer.

Tom L