Fri Dec 20 23:42:45 CET 2024

This is a project for EU (Germany led), USA and Canada.  All three regions are involved due to key technologies
developed there.

A Commodore 64 was a computer that was made in the late 1970's to the mid 1990's.  It was the first popular
kind of computer a "family" was able to afford to have.  It had 64K bytes of memory and utilized the MOS 6510
CPU.  Most likely my generation and a generation above would program it, I'm turning 50 years old soon.

In 1995 I entered the Computer Engineering Technology program at Humber College in Toronto and continued it
at Seneca College in Toronto in 1996.  In 1997 I dropped out of the course entirely due to several factors.
However a few things remained and were learned.  The love for computer logic based on truth tables, for example
AND, OR, XOR, NOT (unary/inversion).  I personally never liked electronics for computers and as time progressed 
the idea around a "photonics" computer became more and more solid so that anyone persuing computers in colleges
today probably has a choice between classic electronic computers, photonic computers, chemical based computers
and quantum computers.

This paper details a simple photonic computer design that highschools in the aforementioned countries may
design.  Let me put out the facts needed for this project:

1. Commodore was a Canadian company (in part).
2. USA made the MOS 6510 CPU chip.
3. Germany made the ZUSE Z-3 based on relais (mechanical electronic switches).
4. Canada made a material at University of British Columbia which, when illuminated with a light source,
	would act like a muscle.  This material can contract and relax, basically paving the way for a
	photonic mechanical relais.  The material was developed in the 1990's and I read about it in a
	popular science magazine.
5. The german company of Schott specializes in making materials of glass in an industrial process.  My
	Grandfather Heinrich worked there, paving the way for my father to take my family to Canada in the first
	place, in a series of events in the timeline.  It's main competitor in the USA is Corning a glass
	industrial corporation that makes things such as "Gorilla glass" for cellphones but really specializes
	on fibre optic cabling.  These companies may be able to produce the materials needed later in this idea.

6. In an issue of National Geographic (I think) I saw a concept for fibre optics as utilized in New Mexico, USA.
	These aren't digital fibre optics but use "collectors" on roofs of buildings which have no significant
	windows.  The idea around New Mexico and Arizona dwellings is that summers are so hot that you want a
	shady place for living in.  A fibre optic cable strung up into several decimeters (10 cm diameter) can
	channel sunlight into the building during day at no cost, without the need for windows.  Later at night
	the collector can turn on an artificial light and thus provide more distribution of light to the 
	building without needing electrical cabling/wiring.

7. In Stratford, Canada i once visited a trade show of a glass distributor that filters infrared filtering glass
	windows.  The concept is the same as above.  IR does not need to go through the fibres heating homes.

8. LASER's were first made in the USA (possibly at AT&T Bell Labs?), also the transistor came from there.

So take these facts and shake them up with my history and you can build a rudamentary solar or non-solar
photonic computer based on the simple design of a Relais switching computer.  It uses light relays to
create simple transistors, the base component of computers.  It is said that the predecessor of the 6510 CPU, 
the 6502 has about 5000 transistors.  I think it would make a splendid high school project allowing students
to build a high-speed, low cost, well liked ancient computer launching their post-secondary educations or at 
least giving them a final great project for ambitions and dreams.  I would like to involve schools in Nunavut,
Canada and Schweinfurt, Germany for this project.  Nunavut can build the "midnight sun computer" running 24/7
during the summer, unfortunately though it does not run during winter.  Schweinfurt is my current residence.

The concept is this:  You need a small electric based computer for the interface, perhaps a Raspberry Pi Zero
which has a GPIO interface like any raspberry pi.  This becomes the input/output means of the photonic machine.
It drives LASERs for input, the rest of the computer is powered by light from the sun or another light source.
If 100 schools are participating in this process a million industrially made photonic relais may be feasible 
giving every school about 10,000 relais.  These don't have to be large as we commonly know relays, but they
do the basic transistor function of 2 inputs and 1 output based on a digital logic.  Next fibre optic cabling
is needed as well as fuse equipment.  The fuse equipment is not cheap, in the year 2000 it cost on the order
of 10,000 dollars plus when inquiring to a Bell Canada technician at a datacenter being set up.  It may have
to be shared around between schools in order to keep costs low.

Once the computer has been built, tested, and is working.  Software written by my generation and previous can
be passed down to the students (now 3-4 generations below) for the 6502/6510 chipset.  Interesting to see would
be if this photonic computer matches the speed, or succeeds it.  Either way, a simple new style computer is
born allowing a generational bridge between software writers covering 4 human generations.  Custom programming
may need to be done on the RPI zero to interface a software such as a C64 emulator (gutted out) to give a
LCD/LED display as well as a keyboard.  The zero then uploads the software collected from all over these
nations and maybe does benchmarking against an electronic specimen.  Many C-64 clones exist today on the
8-bit hobby market.

So anyhow these concepts have been put together by me, a computer nut who remembers the C64 days and self
admittedly I don't really like electric components but am a great fan of light based fibre and photonics.
I think for a young generation growing up this could be a wonderful project at a highschool or even a
community college.  First semester computer logic, is what I have on my belt at the above mentioned colleges 
which can easily be integrated into a highschool level course.  Maybe UBC, Schott and Corning together can stem
the industrial grade transistors and components needed for this for the 100 schools working on this.  Maybe
Bell Canada/Telekom/others can provide knowledge and materials on how to use a fusing equipment to make a 
fibreoptic splice.

All you need to do now is put it together (yes you, teacher), network, you have the power of the Internet to do
so.  Start a facebook group or something, I don't know.

This idea was finalized in 2024 to its present state, while talking shit in my kitchen/apartment.

-pjp