home made cornflake box computer anyone?

The cotton reel tank I posted the other day jogged a memory in my laccy band brain.

When I was a kid I'm pretty sure we made a computer.

Now it wasn't an electrical thing but rather a cardboard one made with pick-up sticks. 

Basically if I remember rightly we punch a load of holes into a stack of plain cards like index cards. We also punched holes in the front of a Cornflakes box.

Next we made a letter box at the base of the Cornflakes box.

Then we put the index cards inside the Cornflakes box and threaded the pick-up sticks through the box and all the cards so that the sticks stuck out the other side.

The computer worked when you slid out the sticks because the cards would fall down and out through the letter box! It ended up like a Cornflake packet Ker-plunk.

Here's a diagram hammered out from my creaking memory banks:

But this is only half the story. The other half I've forgotten and can only guess at!

To make it mildly functional the contraption had to do something and I think that was to tell us answers to stuff. A bit like a Magic Robot if you remember them.

I think questions and answers were written on the cards. I also think that these cards were linked by having only certain holes punched. But that can't be right as the pick-up sticks wouldn't go through the whole stack if that was the case.

I don't recall laccy bands being involved but I'm amazed 'cos they were everywhere!

Anyway, somehow, as if by Kelloggs magic, the removal of the sticks and the combination of holes created a question and answer cornflake computer to amaze us all before the big boys gave us PC's!

Phew!

Does this ring a bell with you readers? help!