interesting information

Lately I've been trying to study these things. Before looking up the nand and xor gate, I tried bringing it back on paper seeing if i could come up with what those people came up. After reading the info, looks like I was thinking completely the wrong direction. Sad to know that there are people out there who got all this done and make money off this, and I can't even figure it out.

I was thinking about how would the first computer be made before the times of silicon? I was thinking maybe if computer worked more mechanically then chemicals and electricity. When studying the speakers, it seems like there is a coil of wire and if current sent through that coil, it makes a magnet. (I haven't figured out how it does it yet, but i have a chapter on magnetism in my book which i will be reading in the next days). So anyways, I was thinking if there is a permanent "natural" magnet, it would be possible to have wires sending current to the coil and the coil will move the natural magnet in the mechanism. Since magnet is metal and will conduct electricity, it will be able to connect two different wires if it moves to a new position. That is logic operating right there, and if a simple magnet "gate" could be made, it could be used for bigger and better calculations. This is probably much slower then electrons moving through chemicals, but it would be a solution. Do you know of the very first simple computers and how they were made?

Ben