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Re:1958 Facom 128B Japanese Relay Computer, Still Working [v... by angrygoat on Sunday December 01, 2019 @06:39AM (#21675002)
A little bit blown away by the biquinary coding used by this machine: at first it seems like a really odd design choice, but as the video explains at ~ 12:00 it makes fault finding for stuck relays much easier.

A really neat example of a design choice which makes a lot of sense for the problem domain in question, but it's also just so awesome that someone could actually see this solution: I can't imagine I would have!

Re:1958 Facom 128B Japanese Relay Computer, Still Working [v... by Aardwolf on Sunday December 01, 2019 @07:01AM (#21675071)
The coding is just like a Japanese abacus!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soroban

Re:1958 Facom 128B Japanese Relay Computer, Still Working [v... by tgv on Sunday December 01, 2019 @09:00AM (#21675506)
This, or possibly a variant, was also used in early electronic circuits, because the it would keep the load constant, if I remember correctly.