The CPU: From Conception to Birth 179
CrzyP writes "Most of us have seen flowcharts and heard lectures on how a CPU functions in a computer. What a lot of us do not know, however, is how a CPU is created. Sudhian describes the step-by-step process of how a CPU is made, from grains of sand to a wafer of circuits. Ahhh sand, the building block of life...in the tech world!"
how to make a cup huh? (Score:0, Insightful)
Link? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm... Sand
Summary (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot: News for dorks who try to pass off as nerds.
Re:So dull... (Score:4, Insightful)
Its really annoying.
Specialization, optimization, and crisis (Score:4, Insightful)
Vinge [sdsu.edu], and others, have played with this concept in a sci-fi arena, but I wonder - what happens when, to take your example, garbage men hit the wall on efficiency at disposing garbage? (This implies the whole supply chain - or perhaps I should say the removal chain - of garbage mitigation specialists hitting a limit, including recyclers, dumpers, shippers, lobbyists, specialist accountants, etc.) Inputs to the garbage industry will likely be still capable of increasing demand (or, again oddly for this example, an aspect of supply), so economics start kicking in, raising costs of disposal. With garbage, we're seeing the start of this already, and in some extreme cases, lots of noise (a certain mountain in Navada [yuccamountain.org], for instance).
This has, in turn, second order effects for lots of other industries and people, and almost nobody understands the problem, other than the people who are the maxed out specialists, for a given social, technological and economic milleu. Problems, solutions and examples of poor communication and scams start to multiply.
It is fun stuff to think about, especially because I think we're getting a little close in certain areas. I hope to have a paper out on this soonish.
Re:Starting from scratch (Score:4, Insightful)
It sure brings me to a realization of just how far we have come from slogging about in mud and eating rats like we did in the dark ages.
"Oh, Denis, there's some lovely filth down here!"
It only takes a few days in complete, freezing electrical darkness to realize how dependent and utterly helpless big cities can be (and therefore its citizens) without technology [imiuru.com].
Luckily in 1998 there were lots of people less troubled to help us out, and people mobilized from everywhere possible.
Re:"Build Your Own Metalworking Shop from Scrap" (Score:4, Insightful)
Following Gingery's book, you can create nearly anything. However, where are you going to get the metal from which to create these works of art/machinery? You have to find and dig ore and refine it into metals. What do you start digging with?
I think the original bootstrap for metal (used for work, not money) was copper found in nuggets. These days it's much harder to find natural nuggets of metal -- everyone who came before has already found them!
So you need to dig with wood, stone, and flesh tools. Find enough ore to make a shovel's worth of metal. Grind a large stone into a bowl and melt the ore. Hot fires can be created with coal and hollow reeds blowing air into them -- make sure you have plenty! Once your ore is melted, drain off the top stuff and you're left with the metal. A shovel can be hammered out of your ingot with a stone, so that's essentially the starting point of your metal tools.
Using your more efficient metal shovel, dig more ore -- make more shovels -- find friends to help dig.
Now, let's say you've obtained enough metal to build your lathe. How do you get it to turn? Steam engine? Nope, you don't have a running lathe yet to help you build one! One could create a large, cast metal flywheel and have your friends (and how gracious you must be to have friends like this!!) keep it going -- that will give you enough power (or rather momentum, stored energy from your friends) to turn metal on your lathe. Your two choices of high-density material are metal and stone. If you choose a metal flywheel, you and your friends have got a lot more digging to do! If you choose stone, you have to cast a few stoneworking tools, but that's probably easier than digging enough ore for 100 lbs of metal.
Gingery's book just has you go find/buy an electric motor.
In other words, if you *really* want to re-enact the industrial revolution, you need to be patient and have plenty of labor. The key is all in the raw materials and the labor to extract it.