An astonishing old calculator - Numberphile
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Date: 2022-04-08
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Comments and reviews: 9
Nothing\
Most transistors today are used in memory chips. I tried to find out a while ago how many transistors exist in the world and I found that out in the process. I guess it's not surprising considering each byte requires probably 10-30 transistors. That number's gonna be different depending on whether it's SRAM or DRAM or uses CMOS or TTL or some other weird logic family like ECL. It's a really neat thing to learn about memory and how transistors can be used to store information.
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Most transistors today are used in memory chips. I tried to find out a while ago how many transistors exist in the world and I found that out in the process. I guess it's not surprising considering each byte requires probably 10-30 transistors. That number's gonna be different depending on whether it's SRAM or DRAM or uses CMOS or TTL or some other weird logic family like ECL. It's a really neat thing to learn about memory and how transistors can be used to store information.
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monoamiga
OMG I don't remember when was the last time I was ASTONISHED SO MUCH! I've heard of many inventive types of memory, but an acoustic mem? COME ON!
And I absolutely LOVE the joy and enthusiasm of Cliff. I feel the same - trying to understand such machines inspires deep admiration and respect for genius of the creators. I also design circuits and digital devices but would I come up with such ideas? Probably not. RESPECT again.
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OMG I don't remember when was the last time I was ASTONISHED SO MUCH! I've heard of many inventive types of memory, but an acoustic mem? COME ON!
And I absolutely LOVE the joy and enthusiasm of Cliff. I feel the same - trying to understand such machines inspires deep admiration and respect for genius of the creators. I also design circuits and digital devices but would I come up with such ideas? Probably not. RESPECT again.
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Warren
Why didn't this just use magnetic core memory? I would have needed what? 800 bits of memory? Transistor based memory would not have been needed. Acoustic memory was used in the Lion computer in the 1950s. My guess is that he thought of core and rejected it because he felt this would work better? Core memory would have been more stable. Remember it was core memory that got us to the moon. Magnetic core memory dates to 1953.
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Why didn't this just use magnetic core memory? I would have needed what? 800 bits of memory? Transistor based memory would not have been needed. Acoustic memory was used in the Lion computer in the 1950s. My guess is that he thought of core and rejected it because he felt this would work better? Core memory would have been more stable. Remember it was core memory that got us to the moon. Magnetic core memory dates to 1953.
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AssemblerGuy
During technical college, when learning about microcontrollers, I happened to read about the ROM memory of a programmable calculator from the late 1960s called Wang 700: It was made from thousands of diodes and about a mile of enameled wire. All of a sudden, programming an EPROM felt almost unsportsmanlike!
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During technical college, when learning about microcontrollers, I happened to read about the ROM memory of a programmable calculator from the late 1960s called Wang 700: It was made from thousands of diodes and about a mile of enameled wire. All of a sudden, programming an EPROM felt almost unsportsmanlike!
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Vivek
I take an interest in programming and computers. I'm very thankful I was born in the golden decade for it. If this is what I would have had to work with, I would've been intimidated and probably never get into computing. If it was any later, then programming could probably have been automated out lol.
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I take an interest in programming and computers. I'm very thankful I was born in the golden decade for it. If this is what I would have had to work with, I would've been intimidated and probably never get into computing. If it was any later, then programming could probably have been automated out lol.
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Christian
It's so wonderful. Reminds me that we had similar delay lines/ring buffers in early color TVs too, to -calculate- the phase shift between two lines (automatic color correction in PAL Systems. But instead of a wire they used a crystal in conjunction with a piezo resonator.
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It's so wonderful. Reminds me that we had similar delay lines/ring buffers in early color TVs too, to -calculate- the phase shift between two lines (automatic color correction in PAL Systems. But instead of a wire they used a crystal in conjunction with a piezo resonator.
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tr1p1ea
I don't get why people scoff at old tech (and always go on about their phones) - imagine what these engineers could do if they were around today.
I am however thankful that they were around in the 60's to literally put us on the path to today.
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I don't get why people scoff at old tech (and always go on about their phones) - imagine what these engineers could do if they were around today.
I am however thankful that they were around in the 60's to literally put us on the path to today.
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the
If cliff stoll is our universes version of doc brown then bradey is Marty well stoll fits his roll badey not so much idk trying to compare real people to characters is hard but cliff stoll really does act like a cartoon character though
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If cliff stoll is our universes version of doc brown then bradey is Marty well stoll fits his roll badey not so much idk trying to compare real people to characters is hard but cliff stoll really does act like a cartoon character though
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Gary
Cliff, I haven't seen you since you were visiting at MIT sometime in the 1980s, but as soon as I heard that voice, I recognized you. All these years later, you've still got that infectious happy enthusiasm. Wonderful!
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Cliff, I haven't seen you since you were visiting at MIT sometime in the 1980s, but as soon as I heard that voice, I recognized you. All these years later, you've still got that infectious happy enthusiasm. Wonderful!
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