Minivac 601 Simulator - a 1961 Relay Computer
Hey HN! I'm very proud of sharing this project with you all, after ~2 years of starts and stops, and about 5 different attempts at making it. Context/history: In 1961, the Minivac 601 [0], an educational electronics kit - somewhat similar to those "300 circuits in one" you may have had growing up as I did - was created by none other than Claude Shannon. The Minivac is disarmingly simple: it consists roughly speaking of 6 relays, 12 lights, 6 buttons, and a motorized wheel. You'd think that it couldn't really do much. Well, amazingly, it can do a lot. You can wire up the components in a…
Minivac 601 Simulator - a 1961 Relay Computer launched on November 16, 2025 with 21 votes, #602 of 9,796 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.
In plain words
The Minivac 601 Simulator is a digital recreation of Claude Shannon's 1961 educational electronics kit, which used relays, lights, buttons, and a motorized wheel to perform computing tasks. The simulator allows users to wire up components to build functional circuits, such as binary counters, tic-tac-toe players, and digit recognition systems. It is designed for educators, hobbyists, and anyone interested in understanding how simple relay-based systems can accomplish complex computational tasks, drawing inspiration from Shannon's original manuals.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
implemented using 1465 relays on 248 simulated Minivac 601s
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN! I'm very proud of sharing this project with you all, after ~2 years of starts and stops, and about 5 different attempts at making it. Context/history: In 1961, the Minivac 601 [0], an educational electronics kit - somewhat similar to those "300 circuits in one" you may have had growing up as I did - was…
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Lots of fun to do. I would have not taken the time without the speedup provided by Claude. https://andyrosa.github.io/Sinclaude/simulator.html
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