Cardboard Computer

Bell Labs made an education tool for teaching about computers and programming. CARDIAC. Boing Boing posts about a closeout sale of this inventory. [Link]

Elizabeth sez, "In the 1960s, my husband's dad taught him to program computers with a Bell Labs Science Kit called the CARDboard Illustrative Aid to Computation (CARDIAC). My husband was so nostalgic for his first 'cardboard computer,' that a couple of years ago I tracked down a guy who still sells the kits - manufactured in the '60s but still brand new and unopened - and bought my husband a new CARDIAC for Christmas. Today, I just found out that the owner of Comspace, the lone remaining dealer of original Bell Labs Science kits (they also have lots of other cool stuff besides the CARDIAC) will be closing his business at the end of this month and is selling off his inventory.

That would have been fun to play with when I was a kid, but I didn't get in to programming until I was in college.