3 ms·
Quote: "Here’s the list of the underlying technologies: (1) Electromechanical; (2) Vacuum Tube; (3) Relay; (4) Transistors; and (5) Integrated Circuits."
by lutusp 10y ago
Quote: "Here’s the list of the underlying technologies:
(1) Electromechanical;
(2) Vacuum Tube;
(3) Relay;
(4) Transistors; and
(5) Integrated Circuits."
Surely not in that order? Because Relay = Electromechanical. The "Relay" item is certainly out of place. In the history of computing devices, relays (and purely mechanical computing devices like the Difference Engine) predated vacuum tubes, which predated transistors, which predated integrated circuits.
- unlikelymordant 10y agoPerhaps electromechanical is in reference to something like the enigma machine. Characters light up on a board, but the character that lights up is chosen by a purely mechanical process that selects the current path. I'm just speculating.
- lutusp 10y ago> Perhaps electromechanical is in reference to something like the enigma machine. Yes, I agree, good example, but that also predates vacuum tubes as computing/logical elements. So the temporal order is still wrong. Maybe the author didn't really intend that the list be temporally ordered -- but it seems as though that was the intent.
- dogma1138 10y agoI think by relay they are referring to reed switches: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_relay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_relay Which were used for memory and other computing tasks after tubes were already obsolete.