Windell at Evil Mad Scientist Labs has dredged up an amazing project book from the Internet Archive: How to Build a Working Digital Computer (1967)
(by Edward Alcosser, James P. Phillips, and Allen M. Wolk) contains a
full set of instructions for building a working computer out of
paperclips and various bits and bobs from the local hardware store. You
can even use paperclips for switches (though, as Windell notes, “Arrays
of paperclip logic gates can get pretty big, pretty fast.”)
