Empire of Electronics

Chapter 1.6 - Parametron Computer

The next week, when I visited the Electrical Testing Laboratory in Gotanda, I was greeted by several scientists. Among them was Dr. Takeshi Takei, whom I had met during the ferrite-related visit. Captain Sanada promptly greeted the welcoming party.

"Today, we have come to visit the new type of computer. High-speed computers are of great value to our military. Please explain to us what kind of device it is."

"Without a doubt, we believe that the new computer will be beneficial to your work. We refer to this electronic computer as a parametron computer."

Dr. Takei pointed to two shelves of electronic equipment resembling large bookshelves. Instead of books, numerous circuit boards were inserted vertically into the shelves. Each Bakelite board seemed to be equipped with numerous electronic components. If they were similar to the boards Dr. Takei showed me last time, they would contain dozens of components each. Looking behind the electronic shelves, I saw wiring densely covering the back, resembling more a spider's web than simple wiring. It looked like rough embroidery with a high density of threads. Upon closer inspection, there were two types of wiring: thin wires forming most of the circuit connections, and thicker wires connected via connectors. Although there were significantly fewer thick wires than thin ones, there were still hundreds of them.

Lieutenant Commander Mochizuki, who had been involved in equipment development in the communications field, had seen similar devices before.

"At first glance, it looks like a telephone exchange, but it seems to have a higher density of components. Is there a reason for the two types of wiring for circuit connections?"

"Impressive. Structurally, there are similarities to a telephone exchange. However, while exchanges use mechanical relays to switch signal paths, this device utilizes parametron elements with ferrite magnets for electrical signal processing. In fact, the side densely covered with what appears to be wiring is the front of this device. The reason for the two types of wiring is that the thin wires are for inter-circuit connections, while the thicker wires are for connector connections, allowing for detachable changes. When changing the calculation formula, it's inevitable to modify some of the wiring, so by placing the wiring on the front side, it makes it easy to change the connections between the arithmetic circuits."

A young engineer in his twenties began to explain. His name was Rikurō Umino, a recent graduate from the Department of Science at the Imperial University. Remarkably, it was revealed that Umino himself had conceived the parametron elements that formed the basis of this computer.

. . .

Engineer Umino explained the principles of parametron elements and their application in calculations. He provided materials and explained the principles of parametron elements as follows:

A parametron consists of a single device with multiple wires wound around a ring-shaped ferromagnetic ferrite with a hole in the center. When an alternating current of a circuit-determined frequency is passed through the first wire wound around it, the device resonates at half that frequency. Moreover, it can maintain this resonant state even after the input is removed. Additionally, this resonant state has two states with signal phases 180 degrees apart. Defining these two phases as 0 and 1, a single parametron element can process one digit of binary.

By winding four signal wires in a coil around the ferrite ring and inputting three alternating signals from these wires into the parametron element, the resonant state of the element changes to match the majority phase state of the three, and the result can be output as an alternating signal from the remaining single wire. In other words, a majority voting operation is possible for three inputs.

With the ability to perform majority voting, for inputs A, B, and C to the parametron element, fixing the input of C to 0, if both A and B are anything other than 1, then all become 0. This calculates the logical AND operation of A and B. Similarly, fixing C to 1, if both A and B are anything other than 0, the result becomes 1. This corresponds to calculating the logical OR operation of A and B.