kens

37 ms·

541.
by kens 2y ago
Guinness claims that the IBM System/360 (1964) was the first computer to use integrated circuits. I've tried unsuccessfully to convince them that they are wrong. The Texas Instruments Semiconductor Network Computer (1961) was the
542.
by kens 2y ago
That's a nice visual, but completely wrong. You're underestimating the accuracy by the absurd amount of roughly 10^160000000000000.
543.
by kens 2y ago
Thanks! Now the pressure is on :-)
544.
by kens 2y ago
The blog post for this is already on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899393
545.
by kens 2y ago
I figured that I would want to study the standard-cell circuits, so I made a detailed panorama of one column of standard-cell circuits with the metal. Then after removing the metal, I made a second panorama of the same column. This made it
546.
by kens 2y ago
That's an interesting thought. However, it assumes that the problem scales with the number of transistors, i.e. O(N). I expect that the complexity of place and route algorithms is worse than O(N), which means the algorithms will fall b
547.
by kens 2y ago
Having looked at a few RFID cards, there are a couple of problems. First, the dies are very, very small (the size of a grain of slat) so they are hard to manipulate and easy to lose. Second, the die is glued onto the antenna with gunk that
548.
by kens 2y ago
I'm very skeptical of this too. I don't see a mechanism where moving transistors could break the machine. Although I wonder if you could blow up the die testing machine by making a chip that was one big charge pump :-)
549.
by kens 2y ago
The blog post for this is already on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40899393
550.
by kens 2y ago
A regular biological microscope shines the light from below. This is good for looking at cells, but not so useful when looking at something opaque. A metallurgical microscope shines light from above, through the lens. They are used for exam
551.
by kens 2y ago
Personally, I think everyone should try opening up a chip. It's easy (if the chip isn't in epoxy) and fun to look inside. You need a metallurgical microscope to examine the chip closely, but you can see interesting features even w
552.
The IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer(blog.bruchez.name)
56 points by kens 2y ago|21 comments
553.
by kens 2y ago
Some existing digital storage uses multiple levels beyond 0 and 1 for improved density. For instance, the 8087 floating-point coprocessor used a ROM with four levels to store its microcode with two bits per transistor, as a regular ROM was
554.
by kens 2y ago
The headline is bogus and most of the comments are responding to the headline. Google's emissions increased 13% since last year, "primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions." It&#x
555.
by kens 2y ago
>If any of the VTOL schemes are workable... That reminds me of the "V/STOL Wheel of Misfortune", a diagram of 45 different V/STOL designs, of which four made it into service. https://www.cmlx.co.uk/haw
556.
by kens 2y ago
The other weird unit for measuring air conditioning is "tons". One ton of air conditioning has nothing to do with the weight of the air conditioner. Instead, it means the air conditioner provides cooling equivalent to one ton of i
557.
by kens 2y ago
The items are being auctioned by Christie's, closing Sept 12. The webpage gives very little information at this time: https://www.christies.com/stories/gen-one-paul-allen-history...
558.
by kens 2y ago
The article shows an interesting collection of different types of barbed wire with a name on each one. The article claims that different types of barbed wire allowed ranchers to tell at a glance if the land and animals belonged to them. Unf
559.
by kens 2y ago
No, I do not consider "disposable" to be a positive achievement. I consider it to be surprising and worthy of attention that NFC chips are so cheap that they are disposable.
560.
by kens 2y ago
The problem is that if the user tears the card away from the reader in the middle of an update, that card can end up with corrupted data. This makes implementing the increment-only counters more complicated. For instance, the straightforwar
561.
by kens 2y ago
Since they need to probe each die to test it on the wafer, they set the UID at the same time. According to the datasheet, "These bytes are programmed and write protected in the production test."
562.
by kens 2y ago
It's not as scary as it sounds :-) For a chip this small, I only need a few drops of chemical, which cuts the risk way down. I don't have beakers full of hydrofluoric acid and red fuming nitric acid, like the real decappers.
563.
by kens 2y ago
They cut the wafer apart with a diamond blade, 20 µm thick. Laser cutters can make thinner cuts, but they cost more. Die pick-and-place machines can manipulate even smaller dies at high speed: https://www.syagrussystems.com/
564.
by kens 2y ago
There are a few issues. First, you lose 20 µm due to the saw cut between the dies. I saw an NXP patent that said this was wasting 30% of the die for their tiny chips. If you made the chips smaller, you'd be wasting even more. Another i
565.
by kens 2y ago
The trick is to use a metallurgical microscope, which shines the light down through the lens. A regular microscope illuminates from below, which works fine for cells, but not for opaque chips. Specifically, I use an AmScope ME300TZB-2L-10M
566.
by kens 2y ago
I think it depends on the type of antenna. A linearly polarized RFID antenna is sensitive to the tag's orientation, but a circularly polarized antenna is less sensitive to orientation. Systems can also use more than one RFID antenna to
567.
by kens 2y ago
That seems like a question for @lxgr :-) As far as I can tell, the NFC ecosystem is a mess of competing, incompatible protocols from different companies, as well as incompatibilities for historical reasons. For example, Clipper uses MIFARE
568.
by kens 2y ago
No, the card doesn't have any symbols like that. It does have a pictogram of the card getting tapped on a reader, along with the text "Apposez sur le lecteur".
569.
by kens 2y ago
The Apollo Guidance Computer would be more radiation-hard, due to its large transistors and magnetic core memory.
570.
by kens 2y ago
I couldn't find a nice price breakdown. I'd expect the magnetic stripe tickets to be cheaper to manufacture, but since the NFC tickets cost pennies, there isn't a lot of money to save. I agree with you that magnetic stripes w

More ›