Programming @programming.dev full_of_questions @programming.dev 6 mo. ago

How did CPU (and other parts) making worked in the old days ?

I just searched online and was taken aback by the lack of content I could find , there are millions of video for different small niche things by hundred of people which are right and wrong about things but the most I could even find about how chips are made today are the ones explaining how silicon works etc. LTT is the only one which even have a factory video and it is too very censored uninformative and useless for my questions .

1 - I get that light is flashed in binary to code chips but how does it actually fookin work ? What is the machine emmiting this light made up of ? How does this flashing light hold as data forever on chip ?

2 - How was program's, OSs, Kernal etc loaded on CPU in early days when there were no additional computers to feed it those like today ?

3 - I get internet is light storing information but how ? Fookin HOW ?

4 - How did it all come to be like it is today and ist it possible for one human to even learn how it all works or are we just limited one or two things ? Like cab we only know how to program or how to make hardware but not both or all ?

5 - Do we have to join Intel first or something to learn how most of the things work lol ? Cause the info available online about the software, hardware, skills etc is shit ? Not even RISC-V documentary are available .

Context - Just started learning python and got philosophical to how all things came to be ? Is just making apps or websites even a thing worth learning in the grand scheme of things ? I get that some people is just okay with that but come on have you never thought about how the deep you can go ?

anyway feel free to tell me to stfu and I'm sorry if sub=wrong and will move on request . And as the username suggest I'll be posting questions as I have them and thanks.

ALSO ELI5 everything please

You're viewing a single thread.

15 comments

Flashing code to a chip doesn't really involve light.

you used switches on the front panel to load code into the computer by setting individual bits high or low. Typically you toggled in the bootstrap loader, which was a program that read a sequence of number directly into a spot in memory. The first program loaded by the bootstrap loader was usually the absolute loader. This was another program that loaded data from some peripheral, similar to the bootstrap loader, but it could do error checking and also load to non- sequential locations.

3-the Internet isn't light. It's electricity. On fiber the bits may be temporarily encoded as light, but overall it is electric.

4- You can understand it all if you want. It depends on the depth to which you want to understand it. You can understand a mouse has a plastic shell. You need some organic chemistry and chemical engineering to understand how to design plastic.

5- I recommend Ben Eaters YouTube channel to get a good overview of the basics.
- Not to be rude but beside from saying I'm wrong which I admit I mostly am you didn't even bother to correct me or answer/explain .
  
  I think a good answer that you will understand is too long for this format. I gave a brief answer but then I went off looking for better information. Sorry to offend you.
  
  I think this course from Ben eater on how he built his own CPU from logic gates might explain a lot.
  
  I think it also covers how transistors work which is fundamental to how gates work.
  
  https://eater.net/8bit
  
  Thanks
  
  I had to find this. This explains on an atomic level how semiconductors work. For me this was important for me to gain an intrinsic understanding of what is going on in computers.
  
  https://youtu.be/33vbFFFn04k?si=5W_ymFgYJByXf3sR
  
  It is simple and fascinating and brilliantly clever.
  
  Thanks for that
  
  You will need to watch the next one to see how a transistor works. It to, is very simple and very clever. I do know how these guys figured it out.
  
  If you have questions I am very happy to try and help. Someone did it for me decades ago.
  
  I think you're asking all the right questions and I think knowledge of these things makes you much more capable.

You've viewed 15 comments.