10 ms·

This is a tangent, but could you point me towards delay line + amplifier literature? Would be much appreciated.

• jacquesm 6y ago
  That's how the very first computers worked: https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/edsac-computer-employs-delay-line-storage/ https://www.computerhistory.org/storageengine/edsac-computer... Not optical, but piezo electrical, usually with a crystal or air as the medium instead of mercury. Optical is much the same principle, a feedback loop incorporating the delay line, so the same bits get re-injected over and over again and can only be read out at specific points in time.
  • hinkley 6y ago
    I thought the mercury delay lines were the craziest thing I’d heard about in computer evolution until I learned about using a cathode ray tube as memory.
    • jacquesm 6y ago
      In a way that is a delay line too, the phosphor decay time allows you to read out the bits a bit later than you put them in. The big advantage is that it is theoretically random access.
  • miscPerson 6y ago
    Yep, and I was looking for something applied. Like most things, the concept is much simpler than making one work — and I was hoping I could find some papers on the applied side of photon delay lines. (Since OP commented it was related to his/her PhD.)