Chapter 38 Passion for Computers

One of the rooms in the Winter Palace has been repurposed for Alexander’s work. It was a newly-installed drafting room, where he spent most of his time working on a new design he’ll introduce in this technological dark age alternate world.

Inside the drafting room, Alexander was busy doing business as usual. Drawing on a bond paper that varied in different sizes.

For now, he’s designing what would be the first most reliable, and efficient computer in the world.

Leaning over to his paper, Alexander drew across the paper with a T-square straightening the line he had drawn. t’s a schematic view of the computer he was designing

The current computer he’s working on was as tall as a person and consume a lot of space, similar to the computers that existed in the 1940s and late 1950s.

With a single stroke, he had finally done it.

Alexander stretched his arms outward and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. Even though the weather is cold, he can’t help but sweat when he’s at work.

“Okay! Twenty redraw to go!” Alexander said enthusiastically but deep inside, he was slowly dying.

The fact that he has to redraw the schematics 20 times is really killing him. Without the Computer-Aided Design software, he’ll have to design everything in an old-fashioned way until he makes one.

There is no zoom in or zoom out. Working on complex machinery such as the second generation computers involves small parts that need to be enlarged in order for other engineers to have a clear view of it. To do that, he’ll redraw it again.

This process is repetitive and tedious. And that’s also the reason why he respected engineers, architects, and designers who weren’t born in the computer age where one won’t have to suffer from this process.

He’ll eliminate that by creating a computer similar to the electronic drafting machine that was created in the late 1950s and a sketchpad, the first computer-aided design software, but in his own version, which will be faster, easy to learn, and cheaper than the old model in his past world.

To give you an idea of how a computer was used in the past, allow me to tell you a story. From the 1930s to the 1950s, engineers communicate with the computers using punched cards which are coded to perform a specific task such as calculating the trajectory of naval artillery to create a firing table during world war. And in the postwar, new technologies such as jet aircraft, helicopters, and new engines are born. Now that is something that can’t be done by hand, well they did but there were a lot of mechanical failures and design flaws, even killing a pilot that test-flight a helicopter. The reason helicopter blades were complicated is that the balance weight was installed on the front end of the blade to help with the tilt-up for the pitch angle.

So in the late 1940s. The United States Air Force needed help with ultra-precise wing construction, Sir John T. Parsons pitched his design of a machine that will help them create helicopters rotors and aircraft wings that is entirely made by machines and free of human intervention, he won the contract and was tasked to make it a reality.

And in reality, he did, in 1952 a machine named “Motor Controlled Apparatus for Positioning Machine Tool” was born.

However, there is a limit to that. You see, the machine gets its order from punch cards, which are just a set of instructions, now why am I making a big deal about this? Because numerically controlled machines ran on data from punched cards largely made using a painstaking manual process. They have to develop something new to reduce this tedious process. Introducing an EDM or Electronic Drafting Machine created in 1962.

It was a revolutionary step toward the progress of CNC technologies. You see, people can write programs using letters and numbers with punch cards as their medium. Each group of holes represents one letter in a word that you tell a computer what to do next. However, there are so many things that people do when they communicate with each other that don’t fit into a computer too well.

Want an example? Here we go. Let’s assume that we’re talking on a phone and I wanted you to draw an American flag. Now you know what I’m going to tell you since you’re familiar with it. But if we’re going to discuss this over the telephone, I would have this problem of saying…

Well, first you have to pick up a pencil and go to the left low hand corner of the screen and start drawing a horizontal line. Draw eight inches then go up a quarter of an inch and draw a horizontal line in the other direction. As I tell you these detailed instructions as you go up through the flag and where the stars were and so on and eventually you’d be able to draw the American flag from my instructions…or not.

You see what happens is probably you’re going to call me back and say why don’t you draw the US flag on a piece of paper, mail it to me, so I’ll know how to draw it more easily. And here you see a man needing to use graphic communication to tell another man what he wants.

Fun fact, they actually did draw an American flag using codes and it takes a lot of pages to get there.

And that is the very thing Alexander has to create. Now there is a prerequisite, he has to improve the designs of the current cathode ray tube televisions which will be a crucial part of the design.

To fund this project and not be completely reliant on his annuity or royal treasury, he has to set up his own manufacturing plant under his name in all aspects of the industry: the raw materials industry, manufacturing, and construction, service industry, everything!

The income generated from those business will be used to fund his next projects.

It’ll be a waste if his million of money will just sit there in his bank account after all.

He desperately needs this machine to make some of his designs into reality. It’s the reason why a Bell UH-1 is only just a dream to him because of the lack of modern computing equipment.

It took him six hours to complete his initial designs and then a television that he’ll plan to commercialized…He got carried away and designed more such as the heat pump, microwave ovens, refrigerators, and toasters, which are more advanced than the current ones.

His lips curled into a grin as he finished the designs that were spread across the drafting tables. As a businessman himself in his past life, he knows how to exploit the system. Invent something new that is considered rudimentary and every year, introduce new kinds of stuff or innovate what was created to make customers come back for you. Just like how Apple introduces a new brand every year.

The handheld phone is a thing of the future, there’s no infrastructure in this world that can support that tech such as cellular tower. At least not yet.

He’ll take it slow and work his way up, making the Ruthenia Empire a producer of better technology and machinery that will dethrone the Deutschland Empire as the world’s science finest.

He looked at his wristwatch and saw the time. It was nine p.m. in the evening. Only thirty minutes left before his date with Sophie started.

‘Shit..’ He cursed inwardly and headed to the door, grabbing a coat from a clothes hanger and leaving the drafting room.

He took a hot bath to wash the grease off his body and to warm himself up and donned his expensive suits that are tailored by Sardegna Empire and his recently bought diamond ring as a gift to her for Christmas.

Her Christmas specifically, Ruthenia celebrates Christmas on a different date.

This is to respect the customs she had grown accustomed to. As a man, he must be considerate when it comes to his partner, especially if that girl will be the most important person in the future of the Ruthenia Empire.

Combing his hair in a formal style and making sure his suit is impeccable and also pairing it with some very nice shoes, he noticed his reflection in the mirror and smiled in satisfaction.

He’s ready for this.

Leaving his bedroom, Rolan, who was stationed by the door, handed him a bouquet of roses, Sophie’s favorite.

“Just in time Rolan,” Alexander smiled as he received the flower. Sniffing it and a fragrant aroma filled his nose.

She’ll surely like this.

“Looking great today sir, you look handsome,” Rolan praised, making Alexander winked in pride.

“I get that all the time, making me used to it.”

They laughed at one another.

“So, good luck out there, Your Majesty.”

“I got this,” Alexander smiled and head out towards the special dining hall of the Winter Palace.