Incoming links: Computer History Museum
The 1890 US Census and the history of punchcard computing by Stand-up Maths (2020)
Source. It was basically a counting machine! Shows a reconstruction at the Computer History Museum.It is quite amazing to read through books such as The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray by Charles J. Murray (1997), as it makes you notice that earlier CPUs (all before the 70's) were not made with integrated circuits, but rather smaller pieces glued up on PCBs! E.g. the arithmetic logic unit was actually a discrete component at one point.
The reason for this can also be understood quite clearly by reading books such as Robert Noyce: The Man Behind the Microchip by Leslie Berlin (2006). The first integrated circuits were just too small for this. It was initially unimaginable that a CPU would fit in a single chip! Even just having a very small number of components on a chip was already revolutionary and enough to kick-start the industry. Just imagine how much money any level of integration saved in those early days for production, e.g. as opposed to manually soldering point-to-point constructions. Also the reliability, size an weight gains were amazing. In particular for military and spacial applications originally.
A briefing on semiconductors by Fairchild Semiconductor (1967)
Source. Uploaded by the Computer History Museum. There is value in tutorials written by early pioneers of the field, this is pure gold.
Shows:
- photomasks
- silicon ingots and wafer processing
Marc Verdiell is a human electrical engineer best known for being the creator and host of the CuriousMarc YouTube channel.
Marc made $58.4m from the sale of LightLogic, an optoelectronics company he founded, to Intel in 2001:
- www.courthousenews.com/inventor-barred-from-proceeds-of-intel-buyout/. His full name is actualy Jean-Marc Verdiell. ppubs.uspto.gov/dirsearch-public/print/downloadPdf/20160274316 also suggests he may have a seldom used middle name "André", though that would be unusual in French custom
- mergr.com/intel-acquires-lightlogic
Profile of Marc Verdiell by Gizmodo (2018)
Source. youtu.be/tJ2-kkhghD4?t=74 gives his house's location Atherton, California, part of Silicon Valley. youtu.be/tJ2-kkhghD4?t=279 shows his amazing garden a bit more.
A quick look on Google Maps show that that area is full of some incredible mansions. They managed to keep the entire place green, every house has a pool. Wikipedia comments web.archive.org/web/20220906010554/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/most-expensive-zip-codes-us/:.
and Forbes confirms it for 2022: web.archive.org/web/20220906010554/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/most-expensive-zip-codes-us/, by far on top.
Atherton is known for its wealth; in 1990 and 2019, Atherton was ranked as having the highest per capita income among U.S. towns with a population between 2,500 and 9,999, and it is regularly ranked as the most expensive ZIP Code in the United States [(94027)]. The town has very restricting zoning, only permitting one single-family home per acre and no sidewalks. The inhabitants have strongly opposed proposals to permit more housing construction
and Forbes confirms it for 2022: web.archive.org/web/20220906010554/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/most-expensive-zip-codes-us/, by far on top.
youtu.be/ZgAreiFXhJk?t=253 lists some famous people who live there. It's like a micro heaven.
And a person who makes open educational content like Marc, truly deserves it.
Soyuz Clock Part 4: How accurate is it? by CuriousMarc (2020)
Source. The timestamp youtu.be/HKsjwT53yXw?t=580 mentions that his wife is called "Laurie", and that she escaped the Soviet Union, and two of her brothers went to jail in the escape process.