Relay computers - OR functionality - symbology

[Steve Thatcher]

from a self documenting sense, it makes no sense...

when someone can pick up a logic description and understand it WITHOUT having to figure out what each sytmbol means in the context of the usage, then it is simply more understandable. If I picked up something that had two binary numbers wiht a PLUS sign inbetween, I would not assume that it meant OR, only if you would dig further does the PLUS sign make sense. If you simply said OR, then there is no confusion and it is self documenting. I think Sellam was trying to make this point with regards to symbology.

I agree with Sellam about the insanity part... The symbols are arbitrary and WORK as long as you have your language description at hand.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Dwight K. Elvey" <dwight.elvey at amd.com>
Sent: Sep 28, 2004 3:07 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Relay computers - OR functionality

>From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com>
---snip---
>
>None, I just felt like pointing out that whoever decided to use the plus
>sign for OR was most likely insane.

Hi
 Actually from a mathematical sense, it does make sense. The
OR operation can be mapped to the plus operation and the
AND operation can be mapped to the multiply operation. One
finds that when doing this, many mathematical rules correlate
nicely. That is why it was done. Rules like associative and
communicative make sense. It wasn't just wild insane mad men.
 When one understands the reasoning fully, one can except
the choices made. It is just that in your schooling, you
were never exposed to much Boolean algebra. That is too bad
because so much of what we do with computers requires a
level of understanding of how it works.
Dwight