My first computer. Inspired me to becomes a computer scientist when I was 10, in the early 1970s. I still have mine but the accumulator is burned out after too many write/erase cycles and I may have lost the "bug" (memory pointer). It's probably the only computer I have from last century that still works.
Me too! My mother sent me to an enriched program on Saturdays, and one of the “classes” they had was called “Queries and Theories” after a very interesting game.
That class introduced me to Mathematical Recreations, Raymond Smullyan, and computing. We had a CARDIAC we played with, and later went to the University to write FORTRAN programs on punch cards.
It was a match that burned twice. First, you could play with the cardboard computer then you could use it as a prototype to make a software version. In my case it was a gateway into 370 compatible assembler on an rca/univac.
