Light bulbs were such a good idea, they became the symbol for good ideas
@geoquerry Жыл бұрын
🤣🤣🤣 that's cool
@Rory626 Жыл бұрын
Galaxy brain comment
@yuanwang9324 Жыл бұрын
here before 10k likes
@octogintillion Жыл бұрын
💡
@Noname-cp3zm Жыл бұрын
Copied comment
@charliecarrot Жыл бұрын
I've lived my whole life hearing about vacuum tubes and never really knowing how they work. This was an amazing presentation connecting lightbulbs to transistors. I'm stunned.
@simonhenry7867 Жыл бұрын
Everyone understands mechanical computers, then school skips vacuum tubes because we don't use them anymore, and jumps to digital circuits, honestly if I had this video I would prob have got digiy
@Xi_Jinping_is_Pooh Жыл бұрын
@@simonhenry7867 Agreed. I know vacuum tubes was the predecessor of the transistor and functioned very similarly, but never know how it works.
@ComputersAndLife Жыл бұрын
If you've ever gotten into guitar amps, you'll still hear people say that tube amps sound warmer. Still plenty of people using tubes. Tubes are still often the best way to amplify very high wattage radio signals.
@abhishekkushwaha3462 Жыл бұрын
I think if you really want to understand something well, just start from its origin.. go to its history.
@HereToSin Жыл бұрын
@@abhishekkushwaha3462 Truly outstanding point! Personally found this method of finding out 'how or why was this thing invented in the first place?' really great approach to learning many new topics!
@JonLusk Жыл бұрын
As a Computer Engineer, I would like to thank you for illuminating the origins of my profession. This was an exceptional, historical documentary.
@arcaicoye Жыл бұрын
You’re welcome
@scrible1073 Жыл бұрын
Eyyyy illuminating! I get the joke! HAHAHA
@frostfamily5321 Жыл бұрын
What would also be illuminating is if you explain the quantum physics of transistors and maybe even laser keyboards!
@aniksamiurrahman6365 Жыл бұрын
I, personally think, a better origin of computer and automation can be found in Looms, specially Jaquered looms. And I'll also advise u to not take Veritassium seriously. I mean not even as a good entertainment.
@JonLusk Жыл бұрын
@@frostfamily5321 It doesn't take quantum physics to explain the operation of a transistor. Someone well-versed in quantum physics might have something to add to the conversation, but the operation is currently well understood.
@crawfordharris47956 ай бұрын
I designed and built my first computer with vacuum tubes in 1957. Being a ham radio operator I knew a little about electronics. Also, I was a lazy math and physics major. There were 2 computers in town. One belonged the TVA. Being a part of the government, I was refused access. The other belonged to the largest bank in town. It took up the entire 3rd floor of one of their buildings downtown. They explained how it worked. Several friends contributed tubes. Large and not exactly cost efficient, it did less than my slide rule. It did give me a bit of a leg up years later in getting a job with an airline as an assembly language core programmer on IBM 360s.
@amadzarak77466 ай бұрын
Sir, it would be an honor to hear your perspective on the history of computing. Do you have plans to create videos on the subject?
@crawfordharris47956 ай бұрын
Thank you for the kind words. I haven't considered such an effort as the major part of my work was steered into international relations and international economics. I am researching and writing two books on those subject aimed at college students, their professors and people involved with multinational corporations. I am close enough to my 85th birthday that I can see my wife counting the candles. I am just hoping to pass along my education and experience before I pass on.
@SarthakSharma-ov1zt6 ай бұрын
@@crawfordharris4795 thanks for your response, eagerly waiting for your books
@FoxWolfWorld5 ай бұрын
Why are you on KZbin? You’re like 490 years old
@brycegriffin92714 ай бұрын
@@crawfordharris4795 You designed and built one of the first computers at just 18 years old? That's remarkable
@Life_42 Жыл бұрын
My mind is constantly blown how far humans have come in the last 100 years. Edit: Great to see awesome comments here. The goal is to become a peaceful species to explore the cosmos. Let's overcome the great filter!
@salwaabusaad9819 Жыл бұрын
Same 😅
@spontaneousbootay Жыл бұрын
Thats the power of communication
@Dont_Read_My_Picture Жыл бұрын
Don't read my name!...
@HowDoYouUseSpaceBar Жыл бұрын
@@Dont_Read_My_Picture 100 years of progress and we end up with *this*
@Fantastic_Mr_Fox Жыл бұрын
It's comforting to know that for 99% of the problems humanity faces today, an amelioration or even a straight fix is due in the next century. Really makes you optimistic for the future. Do not quote me on that number ;)
@caodesignworks2407 Жыл бұрын
Seeing the progress of computers laid out in a timeline is one of the most fascinating things to me. I've probably seen/ read the story about a dozen times and it's still interesting
@cabasse_music Жыл бұрын
same!! i'm in my late 30s here and the first time i read about it was in david macauley's 'the way things work' - a book i got as a christmas gift when i was probably 8 or 9. i found the description of this early computer extremely fascinating.
@LuisSierra42 Жыл бұрын
The computer saga
@h8GW Жыл бұрын
I can barely understand the logic behind it all and *_I still_* find it interesting -until thinking about it gets too hard and something else grabs my attention.-
@monad_tcp Жыл бұрын
Its even cooler trying to replicate it, like Usagi did.
@duroxkilo Жыл бұрын
the progress just keeps going... the transistor and then the programming of the computers is probably our greatest achievement as a species. we are still in the phase of implementing this invention, we haven't seen "anything" yet. :)
@swiftmatic Жыл бұрын
I was a kid when solid-state electronics were replacing vacuum tubes in consumer products. I remember that radio and TV repair was a widespread cottage industry. The best in that field were able to adapt and stay afloat, until the advent of integrated circuits.Great video 👍👍
@TomLeg Жыл бұрын
I enjoyed taking the back off our television, gathering all the tubes, and going down to the drug store to test them on the tube tester ... even when the tv was working fine.
@terryscott556810 ай бұрын
If you could repair a TV you could work for a big name company going to hospitals installing, repairing and maintaining high end medical x-ray. You were a hero and even the Doctors worshiped you. We were networking image transfers before they knew what to call it. We could do 3D imaging using analog video. You got the image in a day or two because computers were too slow. CT, computed tomography was invented by an engineer that worked at the EMI recording studios. Then the companies handed out laptops and said figure it out. Dial up. The blood ran despite how hard we tried to reprogram those folks. Now the software and every other kind of repair are two disciplines. Benjamin Franklin was your last renascence man that could know enough of everything to function in any subject. Its only going to get worse. How long before you ask your computer "Whats wrong?' A you have to decide if you can trust it. I'm hanging on by my finger nails.
@brandonwhiting457910 ай бұрын
@@terryscott5568A lot of fields are requiring the specialties to know so much more than ever before to function. Medicine is a field that suffers this from so much advancement. It is a blessing and a curse. To graduate medical school Doctors are required to know magnitudes more than doctors just 30 years ago due to the huge advancements in research. It is absurd really.
@FlorinSutu9 ай бұрын
When you replace a vacuum tube with another of identical type (same code on label), you can be sure that the properties are the same. This is an advantage of the tubes. When you replace a transistor with another of identical type, the replacement should be first measured, if matching the properties is paramount. Also, a sound amplifier with vacuum tubes does not have that background noise notable in those using transistors, when the amplification is at maximum.
@miinyoo Жыл бұрын
I have to give mad props to your editor/animator(s). They do such a tremendous job distilling your scripts into visual language even though we all know none of this is actually classical mechanics at its roots. The classicality of it is emergent and the art style helps with that even though it is not explicitly said.
@shayorshayorshayor Жыл бұрын
OK tHERE Mr critique
@archimedus1971 Жыл бұрын
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ Bad bot...
@Kyuubey0406 Жыл бұрын
@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ goku solos
@GrugTheJust Жыл бұрын
Speaking of, let me know if that water drop bit IS in fact morse code, or am I loosing my mind.
@buth82 Жыл бұрын
5
@tobiaschristo Жыл бұрын
Dude, I’ve watched so many of your videos, and you are one of my absolute favorite channels on KZbin. Your team does such an amazing job between research, writing, producing, editing, etc… Veritasium makes GREAT content! Please keep doing what you’re doing! Thanks!
@cheeseburger9363 Жыл бұрын
Nice
@tpar2437 Жыл бұрын
Nice
@BobRoss4Life10 ай бұрын
Nice
@nolenrobinson890010 ай бұрын
Nice
@tappafam210 ай бұрын
Nice
@PrasannaMestha Жыл бұрын
Mad props to Veritassium for explaining such a complex subject in such a simplified manner. Brilliant!
@justingolden21 Жыл бұрын
Every. Single. Time.
@arcaicoye Жыл бұрын
You’re welcome
@unnikrishnanvr186 Жыл бұрын
@@justingolden21 Oh hey! Its moist critical
@RyanSchlesinger Жыл бұрын
.org!
@Player_is_I Жыл бұрын
Ikr
@alaam.abojaish56368 ай бұрын
As a 3rd year Electrical Electronics Engineering student, I can say that this video is by far the best video that made me finally understand all these theoretical concepts we took in our lessons, you are a true genius
@dharminati7 күн бұрын
how many replys!!!!!!!!!
@Better_Call_Bulba-Saur Жыл бұрын
I have never seen the development of computers explained this fundamentally before. Thank you.
@bzuidgeest Жыл бұрын
Then you must have been born yesterday or missed a lot😂
@zefellowbud5970 Жыл бұрын
@@bzuidgeest well sir not everyone is a nerd like us.
@bzuidgeest Жыл бұрын
@@zefellowbud5970 come on, basic schoolbooks provide the same explanation. Maybe American schoolbooks are suffering from all the book banning. Turing was gay, so maybe he is forbidden as, to woke 🤣
@Sniperboy5551 Жыл бұрын
@bzuidgeest I think you hit the nail on the head. The American public education system keeps going further and further downhill. I’m a proud American, but even I know that our country is doomed if something doesn’t change soon.
@sankang9425 Жыл бұрын
@@bzuidgeest If you didn't know American School Systems were bad you must've born yesterday 😂😂
@skylon07_RAGE Жыл бұрын
As a guy who majored in computer science, I gotta say this is one of the coolest videos I've seen in the KZbin science community in a while. I never made the connection between lightbulbs and the invention of vacuum tube based machines. Thank you Derek for putting together this amazing narrative for the fundamental turning point of electronic computer history!
@thespacejedi Жыл бұрын
A little odd that they didn't teach you this in computer science
@kintamas4425 Жыл бұрын
@@thespacejedi eh, I think they just teach it to electrical engineers probably. They probably want more Software Engineers than Computer Scientists, so things like understanding the nitty gritty gets tossed aside (or I just haven't taken the relevant course. There is a course called digital circuits that I think I'm supposed to take.)
@jpisello Жыл бұрын
@@kintamas4425 Well, I _did_ take Digital Circuits (back in 1987), and we didn't learn about vacuum tubes (though we learned about transistors).
@kintamas4425 Жыл бұрын
@@jpisello oh transistors are covered? That’s good. I’ve been trying to learn about them/read up on them, and it’s been slow going. The only thing I know so far is that there are numerous kinds of transistors. So far, my understanding is that for turning off a transistor maybe the middle portion of the transistor gets a counterbalance of voltage to make it so that no difference of voltage exists for a current to run across the transistor. Is this the case? That would mean keeping a transistor off would actually cost energy. Do transistors have a capacitor be the key to whether they’re switched on or off? To switch them off the part behind the dielectric (of air or maybe silicon) would be made into whatever charge so that no difference of voltage exists for a current to flow across. And when they want it to turn on then they make a difference appear by change the charge.
@bakkeclerens Жыл бұрын
I felt exacly the same way
@hackcrew42 Жыл бұрын
As someone who works for a commercial and industrial lighting agency, I love this. Such a great history lesson. This is the kind of Veritasium video I love to see!
@JokeswithMitochondria Жыл бұрын
without a doubt
@tomhappening Жыл бұрын
@@JokeswithMitochondria funny username lol
@anameisntenough Жыл бұрын
@@JokeswithMitochondria ur username actually made me click on ur profile. Love ur content hahaha. Funny stuff
@zes7215 Жыл бұрын
wrr
@TheNeiskorisceni Жыл бұрын
🥰Thanks !!! Finally I understand how electronic works...such a simple, yet brilliant animation and presentation. This is my favorite education channel!!!
@thefpvlife778511 ай бұрын
Nice
@DarrenGedye Жыл бұрын
I was born in 1968. My mother was a Comptometer operator ( a mechanical adding machine), and my father was mad about electronics. I grew up surrounded by vacuum tubes, but I don't think I really understood them until watching this video! Thank you for your amazing content.
@unnamedchannel1237 Жыл бұрын
Your mother was a mechanical adding machine ?
@DarrenGedye Жыл бұрын
@unnamedchannel1237 I suppose that is a _possible_ interpretation of my statement. Another slightly more _plausible_ interpretation is that she was the *operator* of a mechanical adding machine.
@Robostate Жыл бұрын
I was also born in 1968. Specifically November 17. My dad first bought our (my) first computer on my 13th birthday. AI will be for STEM geeks in 2023 what BASIC was to computer geeks in 1981.
@meepferret Жыл бұрын
My mom's best friend was also a Comptometer operator for Bacardi. That helped them get hotel rooms in Puerto Rico when others were turned away!
@MarvinHartmann452 Жыл бұрын
@@unnamedchannel1237Yeah. My mother was in fact an actual mechanic adding machine, always busy with spending and budgets or something. My father called her "cranky" sometimes..
@concinnity9676 Жыл бұрын
Hi Derek, I'm a semiconductor Electrical Engineer. I also look forward to your silicon video(s). I have often imagined how to animate a Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). The electron would be a circle of one color, the hole a different color. During recombination, the colors disappear into the background. I'm sure you will explain what took me some time to learn. The reason the charge carriers get through the base into the collector is diffusion! The importance of emitter injection efficiency might be out of scope. Another in the series might show how the photo-voltaic diode works, the light making electron-hole pairs (EHP)s, and that makes power how?
@sonycans Жыл бұрын
I remember my old professor teaching me the differences in semiconductor transistors... I never fell more in love with the MOSFET and its design although delicate in nature.
@connorpage5883 Жыл бұрын
What’s your major?
@FoxMacLeod2501 Жыл бұрын
Setting aside your grammar (unless English is not your first language?), I agree: I, too, am enthusiastically looking forward to the follow-up video that, hopefully, will feature Derek explaining solid-state electronics in a similar manner!
@kamabokogonpachiro6797 Жыл бұрын
i only read till the first 5 words
@josephbigler Жыл бұрын
I too would like to see a similar video on transistors. I have never quite understood how the small current at the junction can effectively amplify the current passing through the transistor. Really enjoyed this video. I went into electronics in 1974 via the United States Air Force. This was about the beginning of the end of vacuum tube usage. Still, in some cases it was still more cost effective to maintain old equipment and perform preventive maintenance on it than to buy new. I had a piece of equipment made in 1940 that was still there when I left in 1982😊 The transition from vacuum tubes to transistors necessitated a career change for some TV repairman because some could not quite figure out how to troubleshoot transistors. I was always proud of my uncle Dave. He grew up during the depression, and with a High School education taught himself enough electronics to start a radio and TV repair shop on the side. He kept on going even with the change. I talked to him about transistors. He said it was a bit difficult at first, but he was determined to understand them. He was one of people other repairmen in the area called when they needed help with a particularly difficult problem.
@AmanVerma-iy6rv Жыл бұрын
As a electronics student I knew what vacuum tubes are but finding out the history behind them was super interesting.
@jaredf6205 Жыл бұрын
I think it’s interesting to realize that Tesla‘s invention of the radio would end up relying on an invention of Edison’s, the lightbulb, and a discovery by Edison that he only discovered because of his refusal to use Tesla’s AC, which led to first being used as a device to convert AC to DC, Lol, and then to create another device to amplify radio transmissions and then used to receive and play radio transmissions on a radios speaker.
@acewmd. Жыл бұрын
@@jaredf6205if those two had gotten along we might not have gotten as far. Ironically the competition of one upping each other’s inventions was the driving force for advancement. Like most things competition is good for advancement.
@bramfran4326 Жыл бұрын
We found the way to connect the seemingly irrelevant pieces of the puzzle.
@NunoCordeiroPT Жыл бұрын
I came here to say this. I knew about vacuum tubes and I knew they were rudimentary BJTs. But it was awesome learning the history and the details.
@Mon-gm7rk Жыл бұрын
i know about them and have even "messed around" with them, because i work with audio/music related stuff. The audio and music industry still uses them, they can produce the same quality of audio than a transistor based system, and they have a very "unique" kind of touch added to the sound. its usually described as a warm super subtle distortion in audio that's very pleasant, and its imposible to emulate trough digital stuff. even music from your phone going trough an vacuum tube desk amplifier will sound very crispy in the most pleasant way there could be. i know it sounds exaggerated, but if you got good ears and know what you're hearing, you'll see that it's different.
@badeiser4 ай бұрын
Can it run doom ?
@tahbeerhussain53173 ай бұрын
Every Comp can run Doom and Linux
@Obinomoto2 ай бұрын
it even can run you
@larrywhitneyАй бұрын
0.0018 fps
@non-human3072Ай бұрын
Awesome question 😅
@Nicholas0870210 күн бұрын
According to my calculations and observations you would need 19,120,000 of those computers shown in this scene 15:29 to run doom
@Pamudder Жыл бұрын
My father was a professor at Cornell University, and I have some memories from the early era of computers. My father acquired for his office in about 1960 a purely mechanical calculator made by Friden that could add, subtract, multiply, divide, and, COMPUTE A SQUARE ROOT. It was about twice the size of an electric typewriter, very noisy in operation, and cost the then-huge sum of $1300. I also remember being taken in about 1958, as a very small child, to see Cornell's first electronic computer, running on banks of vacuum tubes and pretty much filling a former engineering school machine shop,
@tymofei8586 Жыл бұрын
ur so lucky
@miyamoto900 Жыл бұрын
U still have that calculator?
@Pamudder Жыл бұрын
@@miyamoto900 Heavens no. To start with, it was always property of the university.
@miyamoto900 Жыл бұрын
@@Pamudder can we steal it ? What would it take ? Please make a plan and inform me at earliest. Yours truly, Miyamoto.
@2nostromo Жыл бұрын
@@miyamoto900 I have a tesla model 3. I'll drive getaway, deal?
@old-moose Жыл бұрын
The memories: In high school 4 of us tried to build a "computer" with pinball game relays. Load &slow. We got it to add, subtract, & multiply. We graduated before getting it to divide. Later as a college instructor, I built a spreadsheet to demonstrate how computers calculated. It still amazes me how computers can do anything with such a limited number of basic tricks. My head is hurting again!
@lavishlavon Жыл бұрын
well you tried and you failed
@realtechhacks Жыл бұрын
@@lavishlavon Bro got three out of 4 operations working. I won't assume, but I'm betting more than you could do as a highschooler.
@Wulthrin Жыл бұрын
my grandpa called them "confusers"
@lavishlavon Жыл бұрын
@@realtechhacks and whose fault is that? 3 out of 4..the guy failed and he failed hard. nothing to go bragging about
@colbyboucher6391 Жыл бұрын
@@lavishlavon Lmao what??
@CrippledMerc Жыл бұрын
This makes me think about the people who built calculators and computers in Minecraft using the in-game “electricity” system called Redstone. It started as just making switches that could automatically open doors when you hit a button or stepped on a pressure plate to trigger it, but it eventually grew into more and more complicated electric systems until people eventually built calculators and even computers in the game. I remember seeing a video where someone built a computer in Minecraft that was running Minecraft itself in a scaled down version, on a screen made of Minecraft blocks. Someone even built a computer that was able to connect to the internet and they were able to order a pizza through the game that then was delivered to their house. I’m sure by now people have built huge and even more complex computing systems in the game and I have no idea what their capabilities even are at this point.
@TheOriginalMacOS Жыл бұрын
the pizza thing was a mod called web displays. you cant connect to the internet using minecraft redstone
@CrippledMerc Жыл бұрын
@@TheOriginalMacOS I’m aware they can’t connect directly to the internet through in-game stuff alone, but they still had to build the thing in the game to interface with it.
@TheOriginalMacOS Жыл бұрын
@@CrippledMerc it was just a portal frame thing, it was just like lighting a nether portal, the mod was what did the web browser
@CrippledMerc Жыл бұрын
@@TheOriginalMacOS Pretty sure in the video I saw years ago they built a computer in game that used the mod to show the web browser and connect to the internet.
@tomlewis4205 Жыл бұрын
😮🤯😳
@gkossatzgmxde Жыл бұрын
The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse in 1938, and completed in 1941. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Z3 was built with 2,600 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5-10 Hz.
@myid9876543 Жыл бұрын
The Japanese also developed a relay computer very early on
@bsadewitz Жыл бұрын
@@myid9876543IIRC the Japanese one is the most advanced relay computer ever produced.
@scopestacker978710 ай бұрын
But not Turing complete
@FlorinSutu9 ай бұрын
The smart German guy who created Z3 was very young, a fresh graduate. He was conscripted and sent to the front line! After a few months, it was realized that he was more useful back home, as engineer, than on the front line as soldier. Fortunately, he did not die during his deployment.
@klausstock80209 ай бұрын
@@scopestacker9787 The Z3 was not designed to be Turing complete; they didn't need it. In 1998 it was discovered that the Z3 was actually Turing complete. As it wasn't designed to be Turing complete, coding branches is unintuitive and complicated.
@BBROPHOTO Жыл бұрын
This is one of your videos that could have been 2 hours and it wouldn’t have felt long enough! This was amazing! Thank you so much.
@DaanBrandt Жыл бұрын
Amen yess a three hour movies would maybe be enough it really was great.
@Justmebeingme37 Жыл бұрын
Hmm...I felt he rambled on too much already
@captainoates7236 Жыл бұрын
The title made me think that the light bulb had some relavance in todays world apart from the historical progression thing. Does anyone know where this technology is still current?😁 Apologies if I missed something, I promise I watched the whole thing.
@bbjygm Жыл бұрын
@@captainoates7236 based on the video, he spent a lot of it showing how the light bulb was one of the milestone inventions along the path toward computers. He didn't show a lot of other ways it's used which is a shame because he could pick any other invention along the chain and do the same thing as this video and have the same basis to call that thing the greatest invention.
@Player_is_I Жыл бұрын
Ikr
@PresTeddy1901 Жыл бұрын
One thing I really appreciate about Veritasium is how it explores the history of science; highlighting the people who made these discoveries. It's a great reminder that our modern world didn't just randomly pop into existence one day.
@muraliavarma Жыл бұрын
I firmly believe that the best way to truly understand something is to learn its history because that helps us understand it’s evolution and the reasons for why things are the way they are. And I always love the way you take this approach in most of your videos and the bravery with which you approach and easily explain such complex topics. Thanks again Derek and team!
@Mariano.Bernacki Жыл бұрын
The absolute best way to understand some technology is to build yourself a rudimentary version to play and tinker with if such a thing is plausible.
@cykeok3525 Жыл бұрын
While it is not strictly necessary, I agree that it is a very good way to gain a solid understanding.
@donavan10109 ай бұрын
For the record I have worked in IT for over 30 years and this is the first explanation of how we got from light bulbs to circuits that actually made sense. Showing the model K went a long way to understanding it.
@gamersincepong Жыл бұрын
I look forward to the next video in this evolution, because after this comes the transistor. I think it could be argued that the biggest milestones in human history are the mastery of fire, the printing press, the discovery of penicillin, and the invention of the transistor. There are literally billions of transistors used in our everyday life, yet very few are aware of how much they have changed the world.
@photonjones5908 Жыл бұрын
They have all certainly hastened the end of our trajectory on this planet. It is interssting you left out the internal combustion engine.
@renerpho Жыл бұрын
About 10 sextillion transistors have been made since they were invented in 1947.
@a.t652 Жыл бұрын
Don't forget the disco ball
@glitch1182 Жыл бұрын
Discrete transistors have nothing on integrated circuits.
@doomtho42 Жыл бұрын
I would probably add internal combustion and agriculture (I’m not 100% certain here, but I believe it was the advent of crop rotation that first enabled long-term/perpetual human settlement), but yeah, you’re definitely not wrong!
@MonkeyJedi99 Жыл бұрын
When I was a kid in the early 1970's, our Zenith TV had a LOT of vacuum tubes in it. We even had a monthly (I think) visit from a technician who would check the condition of each of the vacuum tubes and replace the ones that were failing. I was very young and dumb and assumed that he was putting new television programs in the TV for us. I held this belief until I saw "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (the one with Gene Wilder in the title role). That movie had a scene that explained how TV programs got to your TV and Wonka's invention of sending chocolate bars via a similar technology.
@raffriff42 Жыл бұрын
In those days hardware stores sold replacement tubes, and they would have a "self service tube tester." (I'll pause while you do an image search…) You would yank all the tubes out of your broken radio or TV, bring them into the store, test them, and of course, replace any the machine told you was "bad."
@h8GW Жыл бұрын
And people today complain that modern microprocessor-controlled electronics are unreliable.....🙄
@stevesether Жыл бұрын
@@raffriff42 I recall a hardware store that had one of these giant testers in the hallway of the mall it was located in up to the early to mid 80s. I can't say I ever saw anyone use it back then of course, as nobody used vacuum tube TVs by then. But the device sat their in disuse for quite a while.
@Zyo117 Жыл бұрын
Back in the day before things were made intentionally difficult or impossible to replace or fix. Nowadays, if something goes wrong in your TV even finding a repairman would be difficult. Most people just get a new TV.
@Hawk7886 Жыл бұрын
This story becomes a fanciful "grandpa tale" if Right to Repair fails =(
@arjara85 Жыл бұрын
I remember the headaches from understanding logic operators when I was a student, circa 2006. This is so beautifully explained and easy to understand that I wish I could have seen this back then.
@yoface25378 ай бұрын
As someone who programs, the title made absolute sense to me, as anyone who codes knows you almost never know what actually is going wrong when something does, so writing code that gives you cues of at which point the code breaks, in a more analog design, using lightbulbs as status indicators makes a lot of sense
@EspiritualidadCiencia Жыл бұрын
Thank you Derek! This video filled the gaps I had in my knowledge of the history of the things I love the most. Big hug from Canada 🍁
@bob456fk6 Жыл бұрын
Over the years I've designed circuits with vacuum tubes, transistors and integrated circuits. It's incredible how rapidly technology has evolved.
@Soul-Burn Жыл бұрын
Interesting trivia: The first "computer bug" was a literal moth stuck in a relay in one of these relay calculators!
@Dont_Read_My_Picture Жыл бұрын
Don't read my name!...
@ELBARTOmovies Жыл бұрын
I've waited for the moment that this fact gets dropped in this video! Thx for mentioning :D
@RecursiveTriforce Жыл бұрын
Nope. That's most likely myth. Research it! The name was probably around earlier. But the moth incident is most likely real.
@kealeradecal6091 Жыл бұрын
It was grace gopper, and coined this malfunction as bug
@daviddavidson2357 Жыл бұрын
The term was around before computers were a thing. It had to do with buzzing interference noises on phone lines which sounded like buzzing insects. Debugging referred to fixing the interference.
@JunkyardDigsКүн бұрын
Usagi! Hell yeah what a surprise. Love his channel
@alkaline3mc Жыл бұрын
This was a cool video. As a computer engineer who designed my own tube guitar amp in college, you basically just did a summary of my education experience. Very rad deep dive into the world of tubes!
@timfarmer1125 Жыл бұрын
A great video, and yes Matthew Connolly... guitar amps!!! a fantastic use for tubes that continues to be used today to make the best sounding amps.
@JoFreddieRevDr Жыл бұрын
Colossus was a set of vacuum tubes based computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943-1945 BEFORE ENIAC. Colossus is regarded as the world's first PROGRAMMABLE, electronic, digital computer, it was programmed by switches and plugs
@Dont_Read_My_Picture Жыл бұрын
Don't read my name!...
@abarratt8869 Жыл бұрын
That's true, but I note he carefully said "programmable" computer. Colossus wasn't programmable. However, Colossus would have been worth a mention, simply because it was that endeavour that worked out how to reliably use thousands of valves in a single machine (i.e. never turn it off). I don't know if Eniac benefited from this or whether they had to work it out for themselves. Arguably, demonstrating that electronics could be reliable enough for practical use was as important as being the first electronic computer. Had it been built and been impractical because tubes kept blowing, maybe no one would have bothered to build another. What Colossus was was fast. When the designs finally became public, sometime in the late 1990s I think, the first thing someone did was write a piece of software for a PC to emulate it. I can remember reading that it ran not significantly faster than a real Colossus, even though a mid-1990s PC had 50 years of computation development in its favour.
@k4it4n Жыл бұрын
It was kept secret until the 1970s though, so it didn't have as much of an impact on the development of computers as ENIAC
@nedolium Жыл бұрын
And before both was the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (or the ABC for short) built over at Iowa Stat University.
@JoFreddieRevDr Жыл бұрын
@@abarratt8869 Colossus is regarded as the world's first PROGRAMMABLE, electronic, digital computer, it was programmed by switches and plugs
@UsagiElectric Жыл бұрын
Thanks so much for coming to hang out, I had an absolute blast!
@sciencepluspotato1294 Жыл бұрын
Im really happy that you'll be covering transistors. As soon as you mentionned the "grid" of the vacuum tube, i knew that was coming. This winter semester i had a course on electronics, and something that i was wondering is why the "grid" input is called just that. This was really informative, well done!
@robertoricardoruben Жыл бұрын
It is a quite literal grid haha
@sophiophile Жыл бұрын
Haven't watched the vid yet, but they are often literally a mesh/grid. Sometimes they consist just of a loop of wire, but usually it's a screen mesh/grid.
@sciencepluspotato1294 Жыл бұрын
@@sophiophile When i asked my professor why, he said it's a mix of practical and historical reasons. Now i know why.
@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Жыл бұрын
I find it awesome that Stibitz built his circuit in his kitchen out of some spare parts he had lying around. The DIY spirit is what gets things done.
@pickleballer1729 Жыл бұрын
When I was a kid in the early 60's my father was an Air Force officer connected with electronic warfare and computer development. HE had shoe boxes full of old, dead vacuum tubes. I loved to play with them; they made great space ships. Kinda wish I had gotten him to explain to em how they worked. I was only 6 year sold, so I guess I can forgive myself for seeing them as only toys. What I REALLY wish I had gotten him to explain was all the papers with programming on them.
@lucasrem Жыл бұрын
Brilliant fuckers ... Help me, i need money NOW !
@Rastamanas Жыл бұрын
I wish you understand how stupid that sound
@pickleballer1729 Жыл бұрын
@@whatshumor1 If you're referring to the fact that I use capital letters for emphasis instead of italics, it's because KZbin doesn't enable italics if you enter directly. Not all of us are willing to go to a third party app or learn some kind of obscure tag in order to make italics. In this case, I did go to a third party app and type with italics, but when I pasted it into KZbin, the italics were gone. Kudos for you for figuring out how to do italics. That definitely makes you superior to the rest of us.
@DavidArnold67 Жыл бұрын
Given the circumstances, we should be happy that Kevin is even able to use KZbin!
@wesleyrm Жыл бұрын
@@pickleballer1729 Use underlines, (_): _Hello World!_ Do not put characters before/after the symbols, it will break the effect: ._Hello_ Also works in WhatsApp and similar chatting applications. For bold, use (*): *Hello World!* Strikethrough (-): -Hello!-
@jaykaramales30873 ай бұрын
In the early '70s a lot of the businesses in my town--restaurants, bars, grocery stores--were starting to replace their tube-based in-store music systems with solid-state systems, so they were happy for me to take their old machines off their hands so I could tinker with them. In a lot of cases, the tube systems had already failed, but since the owners already planned to replace them, they didn't bother to fix them. I took them back to my "workshop" (the shed in my parents' backyard) and worked on them myself. I made uncounted bike trips to the local drug store, which had a tube tester in the back at the end of a row of bins of different tubes, to get replacement parts. But I never knew until now exactly *how* the triode tube worked. Thanks for the great video!
@pantheis Жыл бұрын
While I was a kid, my dad had an old FM radio and a separate audio amplifier that used vacuum tubes. Today I learned how they worked. Simply amazing! I hope you do the follow up video on how this works in silicon.
@RideAcrossTheRiver Жыл бұрын
Guitar amplifiers use vacuum tubes today.
@Sepherisal Жыл бұрын
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Only some of them. Others are solid state, including the one I have.
@RideAcrossTheRiver Жыл бұрын
@@Sepherisal The current Fender 'Custom' models are all-tube. Superb amps.
@jasonhildebrand1574 Жыл бұрын
Great video Derek ! I love this story and you did a great job telling it ! Its worth mentioning that Claude Shannon's 1937 thesis was originally to be about using boolean algebra to simplify existing switching circuits but by accident discovered that these same circuits could be used to solve boolean equations. Thus it all began
@lavishlavon Жыл бұрын
well he didn't, so its not
@jasonhildebrand1574 Жыл бұрын
@@lavishlavon what did Derek not do ? Lol
@lavishlavon Жыл бұрын
@@jasonhildebrand1574 mention what Claude Shannon's thesis was originally to be about
@Deathbyfartz Жыл бұрын
always found early breadboards extremely fascinating. as someone who repairs electrical devices daily, and is used to circuit boards, i really appreciate all the work that went into old circuitry with vacuum tubes, and electromechanical engineering, the best days are the days i get a old appliance from before i was even thought of.
@bryanpritchett3 ай бұрын
This is the best explanation of tube amplifiers, diodes and triodes that I've ever seen. Very nicely done.
@JK50with10 Жыл бұрын
The first electronic programable computer was COLOSSUS built by the British code breakers at Bletchley Park in 1943 to decipher the German Lorenz cypher. However as the project was classified, the existence of COLOSSUS was kept secret until the 1970’s.
@jamesc3505 Жыл бұрын
Although Colossus was the first programmable electronic machine that was called a "computer" at the time, I don't think it was a computer in the sense that we use the word "computer" today, since it wasn't general purpose, and wasn't a stored-program machine. That said I don't think ENIAC was a computer in the sense we use the word today either, as although it was general purpose, it wasn't a stored-program machine either. I think the first computer, in the modern sense of the word, was the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), also known as the Manchester Baby.
@DrRusty5 Жыл бұрын
I guess it depends on which history books you read. Furthermore, the existence of Colossous was keot secret until the mid 1970s and it wasn't really public knowledge until the early 1980s. Therefore, the history books would not have known to mention Colossus when considering ENIAC as the first computer.
@davidmackenzie9701 Жыл бұрын
@@jamesc3505 Made by one of the few who knew about Colossus, and who was able to take what he knew of Colossus with him.
@magarinemarmeladen647 Жыл бұрын
And again nowbody thinks about the Zuse Z3 wich could also be arguably the first Computer. Yes it wasn't natuarly Turing compleet, but could bei withe trixe. And it was a lot more programebel (you didn't need to rewire it for evry programm). Manny germans would say the Z3 was the first Computer and mit the ENIAC.
@brucemanly Жыл бұрын
Thankyou Americans are always trying to re write history and say they invented the computer. Colossus was built by Alan Turing also of Turing test fame. It was built to crack enigma which it did amazingly well, another thing Americans like to claim they did. They only got away with it because it was classified.
@mabonora Жыл бұрын
I have an Associate degree in Electronics Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, and this is the video that finally made me understand how vacuum tubes work...
@MyIncarnation Жыл бұрын
Same here , but I don't have any degrees.
Жыл бұрын
Yeah, first it was "oh that's like a diode" and then "oh just like a transistor" 😅
@shouldent Жыл бұрын
@ Actually at first it was a diode, and then it became a transistor...
@faccc Жыл бұрын
…alla bon’ora! 😂
@alexcrouse Жыл бұрын
So glad to see David getting attention for his awesome work!
@nysaea Жыл бұрын
Same, I did NOT expect this collab! This is great!
@FreelancerFreak2 ай бұрын
3:18 FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER
@JeordieEH Жыл бұрын
That was pretty cool to see UsagiElectric featured in this. His videos are pretty awesome and I am glad I discovered his channel awhile back. He is brilliant and has a lot of fascinating videos. Glad he was getting some well deserved praise and attention from this video.
@johnlee4897 Жыл бұрын
With my computer science background, this is truly one of my favourite episodes. Thank you so much.
@roberttrautman2747 Жыл бұрын
Thank you! That was fascinating. As one who grew up in the 1960s & '70s, and who was an electronics hobbyist at that time (now an engineer), I played with a LOT of vacuum tubes. My first introduction to transistors in school - specifically field effect transistors - was through learning about triode vacuum tubes, as they translate very closely. Again, thank you. This brought back many neat memories.
@thesnowman2509 Жыл бұрын
hey im 15 and considering becoming an engineer. I'm pretty good at math and physics, but I'm worried that being an engineer might be dull. What do you think?
@roberttrautman2747 Жыл бұрын
@@thesnowman2509 "Dull" is not a word I would ever apply to electronics engineering. Fun, exciting, lucrative, challenging, ever-changing, and fun (yes, fun x2!) are far more applicable. If you have a passion for electronic circuit design now like I did when I was in my teens some 50 years ago - and I STILL DO - then every day of your engineering career will present new and intriguing challenges. At its root, engineering is just problem-solving using math, physics and electronics theory, which is really just a specialized area of physics. If you enjoy figuring out how things work, an engineering career might be for you. Because of engineers we've seen computers go from 27 tons filling a space the size of a medium-sized home to something that's 24,000 times faster and incomprehensibly more versatile that fits in our pocket...all in just about 75-years. With quantum computers just now emerging, the careers of new and future engineers is guaranteed to be a breathtakingly exciting ride!
@thesnowman2509 Жыл бұрын
@@roberttrautman2747 yeah engineer sounds super cool but I’m worried because: A. Don’t want to end up in an office job like some engineers do B. It’s so fascinating but it’s so complicated and I don’t see how I could ever retain that much knowledge in my head haha. I perform really well in school but when seeing the work some engineers do it’s kind of overwhelming. Did you ever have a point where you thought you wouldn’t be be able to continue? (Sorry to bug you)
@roberttrautman2747 Жыл бұрын
@@thesnowman2509 Not a problem. I'm pleased to offer advice to those potentially interested in becoming engineers. I'm a frequent mentor at work. To address your concern about "ending up in an office job"...I'm not sure what you'd expected for the work environment of electronics engineers, but we (at least most of us) don't dwell in secret cavernous lairs. ::Evil Laugh:: Truthfully, I don't know why an "office job" would be considered a bad thing. It's warm and comfortable, and in most situations you'll have a semi-enclosed office, a private office, or a cubicle. Despite how the media portrays cubicles there's certainly a large degree of privacy while supporting creative collaboration with those around you. It also depends on what you've been hired to do. If you're designing computer-like electronic equipment you'll very likely be in an office most of the time - although since COVID many companies now allow their engineers to either work exclusively from home, or in a hybrid home/office situation if they're not 100% in-plant. But, if your position is a field representative or you're working on high-voltage power substations or something, then you'll likely spend a fair amount of time on-location outside of your office. In reference to your concern about being able to fit so much complicated knowledge in your head, I won't pretend that there isn't a lot there. But, it's infused over the course of several years while you're at school, and even further once you're working under more experienced engineers so it becomes MUCH easier to store away without becoming totally overwhelming. Also, while some circuits might at first look completely incomprehensible, once you start working with them (after you've learned the basics from school), then they become almost like child's-play. That said, I will fully acknowledge that it's FAR simpler to design a complicated circuit totally from scratch myself than it is to try and figure out what some other engineer was thinking in an existing complicated circuit design - if, for instance, you need to troubleshoot it or change the design in some way. I began designing semiconductor circuits as a natural part of my electronics hobby when I was 13. I worked as an electronics technician from 16 through 21, when I graduated college. I've been working as an electronics engineer for 44 years. In ALL of that time the thought that I wouldn't be able to continue has NEVER EVEN ONCE entered my mind. I'm even more excited about electronics theory now than I ever was, since I now have a lot of experience of successful circuit designs to look back upon and to draw from.
@thesnowman2509 Жыл бұрын
@@roberttrautman2747 thanks for all the advice! It’s really cool that you were making circuit designs at 13 btw. I’m just a beginner but you’ve helped me narrow what I’d like to do down to just a few things. You explained everything really well and now I’m super interested. Thanks again!🙏 P.S i also noticed you watch veritasium too haha, we have that in common :)
@ojbeez5260 Жыл бұрын
this has to be one of the most underrated videos on YT....amazing when you think about it! YT and entirety of modern life inc. social media would not be possible without it!
@CaptainJuiccy Жыл бұрын
As an eager mechanical engineering student, your videos always leave me in awe, feeling calm and hopeful. Your videos are beautiful and brilliant!
@taiguy53 Жыл бұрын
It's crazy to think that calculators and computers used to fit in a room. Now, it fits into our pockets and are way more powerful. On top of that, it comes fitted with a camera, a flashlight, ability to make international calls, as well as access to the world's knowledge without having to seek it in a library or be taught it in school, plus a whole lot more. All easily accessible in a few taps and swipes of a finger, and it hasn't even been 100 years. I can only imagine how fast the world seems to be changing for anyone born in the early 1900's.
@eritain Жыл бұрын
When I was a kid I read about the world's fastest computer in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Cray-2. I wanted to have one when I grew up. No idea what I was going to use it for, but, you know, computers were exciting, right? Welp, IIRC the iPad 2 has about the same processing power as a Cray-2 supercomputer, so ... *lots* of people got my childhood wish.
@taiguy53 Жыл бұрын
@@eritain That is insane
@eritain Жыл бұрын
@@taiguy53 Just checked the processor in my lil' Chromebook from 2017 that I take with me everywhere. With the throttles wide open it is 10 Cray-2s of CPU and 60 Cray-2s of integrated GPU, at a power drain of 6 watts.
@taiguy53 Жыл бұрын
@@eritain Just wait til you see quantum computing. It's exponentially more powerful than the tech currently out in the market
@another3997 Жыл бұрын
@@taiguy53 Not exactly true. Quantum computing has fairly specific use cases, and limited number of real world applications. They also require incredibly low temperatures to work. It's therefore unlikely to ever replace conventional computers. You won't be playing games, typing emails or browsing the Web on a quantum computer.
@Dadofer1970 Жыл бұрын
13:17 was a nostalgia moment for me. I started my career in the early 90s, replacing old telephone switching systems in telephone company central offices. That constant clicking of the relays was what we were replacing. It is amazing to me that we were still using that technology so many decades later, and even more amazing to me how much it has changed in the 30 years since.
@werwerwer60 Жыл бұрын
No mention to Konrad Zuse? He did even relay computers with floating point numbers. See the Z2 from 1940 and Z3 1938-1941. He made the Z1 mechanical computer in 1936-1938.
@slevinchannel758910 ай бұрын
Lets say im Timetraveler: How do i BEST explain the Ancient-People (lets say Medival Times) the Concept? Not the Details, but the Concept
@everettputerbaugh3996 Жыл бұрын
I noticed that you properly called ENIAC the first "general purpose" computer. Something outside the scope of this video is that the British government was using a "special purpose" computer to decrypt German radio communications as fast or faster than the Enigma machine at the receiving end prior to ENIAC. (A side note: The Poles had already broken that code by hand.) Excellent work. And don't forget that nearly home in the first world still has at least one vacuum tube in occasional use: a magnetron in the microwave oven.
@stephenhill4492 Жыл бұрын
I’ve seen a reconstruction of the UK machine, which was known as Colossus, at the National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park. Astonishing stuff!
@danoprea3066 Жыл бұрын
The first version of ENIAC was not a general purpose computer. It was specifically built to compute ballistic tables. In 1946, John von Neumann proposed a modification of ENIAC that repurposed the memory for storing tables of values for various functions (like the trigonometric functions) to store a small program. This modification of ENIAC (completed in 1947 iirc) was an intermediate step toward a proper stored-program computer, the EDVAC (completed in 1949). Another interesting thing about the second version of ENIAC is that it had the first Turing complete instruction set (also proposed by von Neumann).
@Algernon1970 Жыл бұрын
Collossus was made to decrypt Lorentz Cyphers, not Enigma. They used an electro-mechanical machine called a Bombe to decrypt Enigma. The Poles had not broken Enigma, they had captured an intact machine, which they eventually gave to Britain (after the Brits and the Yanks had initially turned it down I believe). Collossus was the worlds first Electronic Programmable Computer, but that fact was kept very secret until the mid 1970's, which is why it was widely believed that Eniac was the 1st.
@jmacd8817 Жыл бұрын
@@Algernon1970 Thanks for this. I couldn't remember the name, and am a bit annoyed that it wasn't mentioned in the vid. Then again, not surprised; this channel has become the early 2000s version of Discovery Channel. Some interesting content, but rarely much below the surface.
@thetron9333 Жыл бұрын
@@Algernon1970 One minor point. The Poles did crack enigma. They had a captured (thanks to French intelligence), reverse engineered and were able to produce replicas of the first commercial version of Enigma, and in doing so they had learned how to crack the Enigma code mathematically of those first machines. The Germans then later added more security features to subsequent versions and better information security practices, meaning that cracking enigma by hand became an ever intensive and impractical task. However, the Poles shared the replicas, plans and means of cracking the early models with the Brits, significantly reducing the time they needed to get a more industrialised industrial code breaking operation set up.
@Celastrous Жыл бұрын
You're making us Electrical Engineers so happy with these video topics - I cannot wait for the solid state video, whether it be germanium, BJT, FET, or anything in between.
@FlammableElectronics Жыл бұрын
Yess, I collected a bunch of those germanium diodes and their 0.3v voltage drop is impressive! I am also waiting for when he will cover FETs, BJTs etc
@Archgeek0 Жыл бұрын
And us Computer Engineers! 2s Complement was my bread and butter in college. As were BJTs, MOSFETs, and friends.
@novuml1690 Жыл бұрын
03:18 THE FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!!!
@AnujSharmaArchives9 күн бұрын
every child deserves a teacher like you 🙏
@ironcito1101 Жыл бұрын
In my humble opinion, the transistor (hinted at the end of the video) is among the most important inventions in human history. It's up there with the wheel, the steam engine, gunpowder, penicillin and the like. The lightbulb, too.
@jonathanthomas2449 Жыл бұрын
Gunpowder is not a good invention.
@ClipsCrazy__ Жыл бұрын
Personally I think it was one of the most destructive inventions. Humans were wholesale happier, healthier, and more connected before the invention of the computer which led to the internet which led to social media which led to destruction of real connection and localized groups and culture and the creation of photoshop, fake faces and bodies, and tons of misinformation which all together in turn led to fatter and unhealthier humans who are less connected, less motivated (due to dopamine overdrive), and far far far more depressed and anxious. Correlation does not equal causation but with the obvious connections and cause/effect groupings I see I believe it is completely to blame for being the majority of the causation of each of those three main detriments to humanity/society along with tons of other detriments and while being the cause of TONS of good I still think humanity would be better off with a FAR slower progression in computing power so we had time to adapt and see the negatives thus setting up defense mechanisms for everyone especially Thresh defenseless like kids who have been ravaged by dopamine overdrive and the many negatives of social media.
@ironcito1101 Жыл бұрын
@@ClipsCrazy__ I think you're romanticizing the past. Before computers, we had everything from witch hunts to nazism, racial segregation, oppression of women, slavery, torture and public executions. I think the present, even with all its flaws, is the best time for humanity overall. Computers have allowed countless advances in fields like medicine, and brought the world closer together with essentially free, instant global communications. It's not perfect (we're human, after all) but we're doing pretty well, compared to centuries past. I'd say it supports my point that your biggest worry seems to be social media.
@ClipsCrazy__ Жыл бұрын
@@ironcito1101 na I’m just referencing data. All that horrible stuff “before phones and computers” actually proves my point even more. Humans are more depressed now than EVER before. More depressed even though things are “better” than they’ve ever been in endless different ways.
@ClipsCrazy__ Жыл бұрын
@@ironcito1101 social media is definitely the worst thing to come from this advancement so far but again we’re still hurling ahead in record time and AI is the next thing in the horizon. Social media causing political polarization and/or deep fakes representing a political party/leader could literally be the start of the next civil/world war which would create a world that with no doubt would’ve been better without computers but I’d argue we’re already in one that would benefit greatly from the throttling of computer advancements by 1/4 to 1/10 15 years ago.
@TechMeldOfficial Жыл бұрын
I would highly suggest that you do a second part of this topic, it is very interesting and it explains how we achieved this level of computing power today
@trif55 Жыл бұрын
this also makes light of the lightbulb, it was a key invention to enable the modern world, it'd be great to see a long form video, say 2 hours, covering key technologies from history, starting from speech/writing/fire via maths, zero, metalworking, into some modern ones. Maybe making it a series would be better
@Li01018 Жыл бұрын
Up vote
@A453 Жыл бұрын
Yes
@lidianemonteiro7168 Жыл бұрын
UP vote
@garyantonyo Жыл бұрын
I hope you eventually collab with someone like Ben Eater to explain at least some of the basics of how a processor actually works in this "series" of topics. When I was a kid this was the biggest mystery for me and no one could really explain it well (mostly because it is a complicated topic), but now as an adult this is something that I think is not so complicated that child me could not understand, there just was a lack of easy to access and understand material. Ben Eater's videos really helped cement that knowledge and build an intuition for it even after taking college undergrad courses that touched on the subject.
@eddill26388 ай бұрын
As an EE student, it was amazing watching this video. „Ain‘t that a Diode?“. Turns out to be its first concept. „Damn and that‘s the same principle a transistor also uses“. Turns out to be it‘s predecessor. Since we meager learned about a theories history, it was great to watch this! Top content
@louwrentius Жыл бұрын
Usagi is awesome ❤ I’m so happy he’s featured in this video.
@trumpio Жыл бұрын
Came here to post the same thing!
@UsagiElectric Жыл бұрын
It was so much fun hanging out with Derek!
@ananttiwari1337 Жыл бұрын
@@UsagiElectric Wow it's him
@sonycans Жыл бұрын
Crikey Derek... You basically placed my Basic Electrical Theory... The very first block of my electronics engineering degree in a 19 minute program... Your analogy of the vacuum tube is better than what my old professor taught me back then.
@xavergaver Жыл бұрын
Nice video! But I would have liked a mention of the zuse Z3 wich was build in 1941 in germany. In contrast to the design and use of the ENIAC, the Z3's design did not meet the later definition of a Turing-complete computer, and it was never used as such. But in 1998 it was found out that, from a theoretical point of view, it still has this property due to the tricky use of some detours. There were also the special-purpose machines Colossus (England 1943) used for dectyption and the turing-bombe (England 1940) which was used to decrypt enigma.
@corneliusbessler9994 Жыл бұрын
Agree, the video would have benefited from a broader view rather than American -only.
@joajojohalt Жыл бұрын
even the z1 was years ahead of the model k or 1 and it were released in 1938 one year after the model k. the Z3 was as much as i knew the first of its kind with a Ram.
@Merilix2Ай бұрын
@@joajojohalt Z1 already had a 64 word RAM (I think 22 bits each word as its arithmetic unit used 22bit binary floating point values).
@martinhertog53572 ай бұрын
Around the same time in 1937, Konrad Zuse created the first mechanical computer called aptly 'Z1'. It could process instructions, perform arithmetic using floating point registers, had input, output and memory.
@Merilix2Ай бұрын
... and was already based on binary system.
@TheOriginalFaxon Жыл бұрын
This is really dope. As a tube audio amplifier enthusiast this was a great video to watch, you nailed this one man. Usually channels cover a topic I don't understand well, and I see all kinds of flaws in how it's covered, and it ruins a channel for me, because you wonder what else they're getting wrong. This is the opposite experience, bravo dude! Also listening to your videos on a tube amplifier is something special, your audio quality really shines through, it's truly like you're in the room explaining it with me because tubes better replicate the natural harmonics of the human voice due to their resonance harmonics, when compared to solid state amplification
@JacksonKillroy Жыл бұрын
Tube amp worship is like astrology.
@0rogontorogon Жыл бұрын
@@JacksonKillroy Hating on someone else's hobby is like infidelity. A dick move.
@HAWXLEADER Жыл бұрын
Liking a distortion and admitting its there is ok, thinking that the thing that can't distort is inferior is less so.
@yellowest_ball Жыл бұрын
You showcased you still need to get your facts checked out; I personally recommend you read mostly just Wikipedia instead of watching KZbin videos, when it comes to looking for truthful information.
@No-pm4ss Жыл бұрын
I don’t understand how it would sound better with tubes. The audio still comes as a digital signal from the KZbin-video and it’s still just an electromagnet speaker that produces the sound waves so how could your sound experience be better than mine for example?
@optimusmaximus9646 Жыл бұрын
Just love your videos - you have a knack of distilling the most complex things down with easy-to-understand concepts and articulating ideas with clear, concise language that everyone can understand.
@sepplee5812 Жыл бұрын
I’m a pro computer nerd and naturally know all the history of computers but I still feel fascinated every time I am reminded of it. Your video was one of the best ways I ever learned about it, really a great presentation of a great history and the most impressive inventions in the history of mankind. ❤
@Player_is_I Жыл бұрын
I am full heartedly waiting for part 2 ❤ such a nice video explaining a lot in just 18 mins, What a context and way of explaining and how much one could understand and gain knowledge from these 18 mins instead of watching brain rotting reels, I have been searching for such a video on this topic from a long time. I can write a book on this but I don't got time and no one got to care 😊
@javierrevellosanchez4010 Жыл бұрын
You are a true gem of a channel. What you do for science and knowledge is incalculable. Thanks for this :)
@ElectronicEnigmaZone Жыл бұрын
The British Colossus should be considered as the first or even Konrad Zuse Z1, which was considered the first electronic computer. ENIAC gets all the glory simply because it was well-published and made a big splash in the papers. The British did not declassify their systems till well after ENIAC was a household name. There was another British computer after Colossus that had a programing language, screen and keyboard, but I cannot remember its name, and it was also before ENIAC.
@Finkelfunk Жыл бұрын
It's great how he didn't even care to mention Zuse in an 18 minute video about the history of computers.
@halfsourlizard9319 Жыл бұрын
Further evidence that it doesn't matter who gets there first ... just who markets the accomplishment better. (c.f., Rolex)
@robertoricardoruben Жыл бұрын
The Zuse was very much erased from history, as it was a german development. History is usually written by the victors.
@bzuidgeest Жыл бұрын
No surprise there, typical American with an American version of history
@halfsourlizard9319 Жыл бұрын
@@bzuidgeest I thought Derek was born in / retains Australian citizenship!?
@SurnaturalM7 ай бұрын
When I learnt electronic, vacuum tubes/valves were still widespread, so we learnt to fix both solid state and tube decices. The first thing I learnt was that it was rarely a tube that was wrong, often it was a resistor or a paper capacitor, but since the customers complained about how a small part was so expensive, we also replaced a few tubes, even if they were fine, so they won't complain too much. The customers didn't pay me for parts, unless it's a crazy expensive one, they paid for the knowledge I have accumulated over the years. It takes time to be a good electronic technician, that's why I demand a certain price. I had the chance to learn both solid state and tube so I could fix both.
@michaelbraxner7781 Жыл бұрын
Voicing a pet peeve ... the world's FIRST programmable, Turing-complete computer, the Z3, was created by Konrad Zuse in 1941 ... give the inventor of the modern computer the credit he deserves.
@stischer47 Жыл бұрын
As a computer scientist, I had never heard of him. Thanks for the clue.
@Soken50 Жыл бұрын
Nah, he can stay in his NSDAP infamy.
@Soken50 Жыл бұрын
@@TheRenHoek Nah he requested funding from the NSDAP for his computers and initially got denied until they realised they could use it for primitive guided missiles. Bro wasn't drafted at gunpoint, he happily took their money and helped build weapons.
@abarratt8869 Жыл бұрын
It's a bit of a stretch to describe the Z3 as Turing complete. It had no conditional branching, so could only be considered Turing complete if it propagated all branch results. I'm not sure how one then would choose the "correct" result of a program.
@michaelbraxner7781 Жыл бұрын
@Soken50: Alan Turing's work was used to kill more enemies efficiently, ENIAC was essential to complete the work at Los Alamos, and hence, the mass murder of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... no one walks away from war unsullied. This is not about cheering on Nazis, but to acknowledge the intellectual achievement that Z3 embodies. Failing to do so, in my opinion, is to elevate fairy-tales above reality, propaganda above history, whitewashing lies above considered debate, ignorance above insight ... to me, that's the road to mindless bigotry, indifferent 'othering', and the self-righteous arrogance that birthed so many horrors our history is splattered with. We can do better than that, we deserve to do better than that, we ought to do better than that ... because we can BE better than that. @A Barratt: True, Z3 didn't have conditional branching, and Zuse didn't know anything about Turing-completeness when he built Z3, since he didn't know of Turing's work, and it wasn't until 1998 that Z3 was shown to have been Turing-complete. In a way that makes it even more remarkable THAT Z3 actually WAS Turing-complete. Again, credit where credit is due.
@mcintoshdev Жыл бұрын
As a software engineer for over 30 years I was fascinated that I just learned of ENIAC from you! Just proves that learning is 4ever. Thanks!
@walperstyle Жыл бұрын
you'd like the book 'The Innovators'.
@autohmae Жыл бұрын
If you are not familiar with computing history, it's important to also see the role of women. Far to often these days women are a minority in the field of programming. The hardware design was done by men, the programming was done by women on the ENIAC. But rear admiral Grace Hopper was the one who came up with a lot of concepts/created a lot of first.
@davidyoung2990 Жыл бұрын
@@autohmae no one wants your identity politics here
@ace9xx Жыл бұрын
Coder, not software enginer... Because if you didn't at least briefly read/heard about ENIAC, then I guess you also don't know anything about the work of Blaise Pascal, Charles Babbage, Konrad Zuse, John von Neumann or John Nash. You probably just vaguely recognize the names like George Boole or Alan Turing, but do not actually know more about their work either. So, no, you are not a true software engineer...
@autohmae Жыл бұрын
@@davidyoung2990 it's not identity politics, it's surprising how rolls have changed.
@davidfaraday7963 Жыл бұрын
I'm disappointed that you made no mention of Colossus. It may not have been a programmable computer, but it was an electronic logic machine that used thousands of vacuum tubes to statistically analyse encrypted teleprinter messages at a very high speed. It came into service a whole year before Eniac and it made a very significant contribution to the success of the invasion of occupied France in June 1944.
@PaulLemars01 Жыл бұрын
It was programmable.
@davidfaraday7963 Жыл бұрын
@@PaulLemars01 It was a special-purpose machine built to do one job and one job only.
@Kellysg126 Жыл бұрын
Im very glad someone has mentioned colossus as i feel alot of history is "america washed" which is quite upsetting to see.
@gustcles22 Жыл бұрын
Atanasoff-Berry computer out-dates them both
@davidfaraday7963 Жыл бұрын
@@gustcles22 Thanks for drawing my attention to this, I'd not hears of it before.
@ashesdowns9635 Жыл бұрын
Most Excellent Vid, concise and very informative. Born in 1963 I grew up when vacuum tubes were still in use (but then again, so were silk top hats) and witnessed the transistor age come into being. This vid helped me to understand WHY. Many, many thanks! Well done!
@awacsmye3 Жыл бұрын
I found it fascinating back in the early 2000s when I worked on C-130 aircraft that still utilized vacuum tubes in the compass amplifiers for the navigation system. Your explanation of how they amplify signals, like earth's magnetic field, helped close the gap on my understanding of that navigation system. Those airplanes used a device called a Magnetic Azimuth Detector in the wing tips or in the top of the vertical stabilizer to sense magnetic heading and transmitted a very low voltage signal to the navigation computers for heading reference. Before the signal could be utilized effectively, though, it had to be amplified. Enter the humble light bulb 💡
@38911bytefree Жыл бұрын
Some FM transmite still using 1KW tubes as output. Tubes still good on RF applications.
@richvandervecken3954 Жыл бұрын
The first production C-130A came off the production line in 1955. I know they have had several upgrades to the airframe and systems over the years but it still amazes me that a plane designed and built in the 1950's is still in service today. The B-52 is another plane that still in service that was first built in the 1950's. I worked in PMEL witch was renamed TMDE when I was in the U.S.A.F. and I was shocked by how many pieces of test equipment we had in Germany that were built in the 1950's and 1960's and used vacuum tubes and all the wires used silver solder on ceramic bus strips for connection points. I was over there from 1982 to 1984. I was surprised when the government decided to make all the military calibration labs totally civilian contractor jobs in the 1990's.
@michaeledwards2251 Жыл бұрын
One of the reasons for retaining valves was resistance to emp.
@rogerphelps9939 Жыл бұрын
Field effect transistors are the solid state analogue of the thermionic valve. I wonder if, for very high temperature applications in the vacuum of space, very tiny valves, without envelopes, might make a comeback.
@michaeledwards2251 Жыл бұрын
@@rogerphelps9939 The idea has definitely been investigated. The main problem being launch shock.
@guarmiron555710 ай бұрын
I visited a Dew Line radar base just after they had switched from vacuum tube computers to new computers for the time (1980). They took us (Air Cadets) into a gymnasium size room filled with tight pack rows of vacuum tubes reaching to the ceiling. After they took us into another room and showed us this small refrigerator size box and told us that it did the same job as the gymnasium size computer. It was an amazing vision of the future of computer miniaturization.
@trtoms Жыл бұрын
Ahh they should teach this (in highschool). I spent nearly 40 years doing CMOS design but in my undergrad school the vacuum tube basic operations were not covered. I guess in the 80s they were considered obsolete.
@gw6667 Жыл бұрын
Excluding the history, this was basically the first month of my intro to electrical engineering class. Not sure how much this would be needed for general education
@Songfugel Жыл бұрын
Semi-conductor transistors are trillion times better, there is absolutely no reason to teach any of this stuff outside of historical interest
@94D33M Жыл бұрын
How did the software used for CMOS design transition during your career? Nowadays mainly Cadence EDA and then Synopsis custom compiler, Tanner EDA, etc are used industrially. Back then what was used?
@alistairmackintosh9412 Жыл бұрын
@@Songfugel Vacuum tubes are still used in audio amplification and microwave ovens.
@photonjones5908 Жыл бұрын
@@Songfugel the history illustrates the law of unintended consrquences. The greatest advance in human history began with a simulated candleflame that utilized electricity. People back then could not imagine smart phones or flatscreen TVs, or almost any of the things that these rudimentary devices would lead to. It makes me wonder what the next great advance will be, and what accidents will lead up to it, and how long until that happens? There are no answers to these questions of course, until it happens. But this history is real and we are all living the results of it, every day and in every way..
@peterstrong772 Жыл бұрын
Excellent, a part 2 with the rise of microchips in the same style as this would be brilliant
@PramochanYaan9 ай бұрын
I've seen videos about vacuum tubes before but the story at the beginning of this video got it so intuitively!!
@adiutama Жыл бұрын
It's incredible how these two seemingly unrelated things are intertwined. Thank you Veritasium.
@strangelyrepulsive77 Жыл бұрын
they are related because they are things
@williamhoward7121 Жыл бұрын
My father had an electronic shop back in the '70s and I would assist him in going to houses and doing in home television repairs. We had a tube tester that allowed you to put in the tube number and it would tell you if it was good or bad. We also had a television picture to rejuvenator which he did the picture to filaments up burning off any buildup. It always amazes me the amount of heat that came off these things. You didn't awesome job of presenting this by the way!
@Skybird_ Жыл бұрын
It never ceases to impress me what great quality content there is on KZbin. This was all kinds of awesome. 👏 🎉
@N0N0111 Жыл бұрын
The sad part is kids will not learn about this in schools anymore.
@marieascot Жыл бұрын
You mean biased and historically inaccurate?
@ellis443810 ай бұрын
In addition you should look at the work done by Allan M. Turing and Tommy H. Flowers (at the British Post office research facility, Dollis Hill in London) during World War 2 to decipher German encrypted radio signals using the Colossus computers which predates ENIAC. These machines used 1-2 thousand thermionic valves (or vacuum tubes) and are recognised as the first semi-programmable computers. A rebuilt Colossus is on display at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park in England, where it is operational. War time security meant that Dr. Turing and Dr. Flowers were not recognised for their contribution to computing until the 1980's, even today some of their work remains classified.
@0z3k Жыл бұрын
Both the subject and it's presentation were amazing. Very high quality content. Thank you
@scotty2307 Жыл бұрын
My father worked for the California Department of Water Resources. When I was a kid, they were still operating a UNIVAC computer. It took up a large room which had to be independently air conditioned. It could only do one function at a time. In order to change functions the programmers would have to come in and program the thing. The funny thing was that their desktop calculators were many times the computing power of the "Computer"
@hassaanbukhari517 Жыл бұрын
From Lightbulb to AI, the so short yet such exquisite journey of human inventions.
@photonjones5908 Жыл бұрын
"Exquisite" is not the word I would choose. The reality is too much for one word to describe.
@Argoon1981 Жыл бұрын
The diference with lightbulbs is that humans weren't afraid of them, we immediately embraced them but with AI... with AI everyone is sh***** their pants!
@fagelhd Жыл бұрын
@@Argoon1981 Because we control the lightbulbs
@notjeff7833 Жыл бұрын
@@fagelhdwe also control AI. Anyone who believes the crap that AI will go sentient needs to learn the basic facts that AI does what it is told to do. If it causes harm, it is because of the person that worked on it or by someone that managed to get access to it with malicious intent
@wasd____ Жыл бұрын
@@notjeff7833 The difference is that you can't use lightbulbs to flood the world with vast quantities of propaganda and misinformation and faked photorealistic images. Lightbulbs were never easy-to-use limitless garbage content factories that posed an existential threat to democracy and an accurately informed public.
@davidespinosa191025 күн бұрын
This video covers relays, light bulbs, vacuum tubes, boolean algebra, radio, telephone, and computers. Each of these topics deserves its own video !
@sysbofh Жыл бұрын
There are several great KZbin channels, but Veritasium always - and I mean ALWAYS - delivers! It is amazing how he can make videos of such different subjects, and are always on point! Never dull, never stretched out, never compromising. A real gem this channel.
@coldfisao Жыл бұрын
Absolument incroyable la manière dont vous avez réussi à condenser cette évolution complexe en une vidéo de moins de 20 minutes. Merci beaucoup, vous contribuez magnifiquement à enrichir nos connaissances avec chacune de vos contributions
@danieleascione Жыл бұрын
Translation: Absolutely incredible the way you managed to condense such a complex evolution in a video less than 20 minutes long. Thank you so much, you contribute beautifully to enriching our knowledge with each one of your contributions.
@MarvinHartmann452 Жыл бұрын
Oui c'est vrai. J'aimerais qu'il y ait une traduction de ce vidéo en français et allemand pour le montrer à mes proches. Je suis un technicien en électronique depuis 45 ans et quand j'essaie de leur expliquer c'est très rare qu'ils comprennent.
@UndefinedEssence Жыл бұрын
That was excellent. While working on my 2 year Electrical and Computer Eng. degree, I had an Instructor that was really fond of vacuum tubes and I learned a lot from him. The origins of modern computing are fascinating.
@kintamas4425 Жыл бұрын
Could you explain 9:15 to me? I don't get why closing both circuits would prevent a current from running through the solenoid.
@kintamas4425 Жыл бұрын
Someone else said it’s because when both switches are flipped no difference of voltage exists for the Solenoid to get a current run through it. I guess differences of voltage is if not *the* core of how the binary machine language works then it’s one of the cores.
@MudasirAliKhanAfridi7 ай бұрын
Vote for making video about silicon computers😊
@serae61846 ай бұрын
Linus tech tips has hundreds of those
@welovfree Жыл бұрын
Studying the history of learning disciplines is a must for people studying that discipline, because it puts them inside the head of pioneers of that discipline which will in turn render learning materials and subjects more easy to infer. Understanding the way people thought about a subject to come up with amazing ideas will make learning those ideas more alive and appreciative by anyone learning that subject. Whether it's history of mathematics, or computer science... etc students will always benefit from it.
@gw6667 Жыл бұрын
New developments commonly come from thinking about things in novel ways. "Getting in the minds of the people" who built the fundamentals doesn't really do that. Knowing some of the building blocks is crucial but recreating the wheel from the beginning seems like not a great idea
@gw6667 Жыл бұрын
"Standing on the shoulders of giants" doesn't include becoming a giant yourself
@welovfree Жыл бұрын
@@gw6667 >recreating the wheel from the beginning seems like not a great idea Do you think the speed at which the wheel is being recreated is the same? How do you think we can avoid recreating the wheel without studying the work of previous people? How can we effectively study what other came up with if we can't understand the circumstances and knowledge nuances that lead to those new ideas?
@crusaderACR Жыл бұрын
@@gw6667 In software development we are indeed taught from the proverbial invention of the wheel. You aren't considered competent until after you either learn of or make your very own compiler and also learn at least basic OS functionality. 99% of people won't even touch a compiler or the code of an OS, yet it's fundamental. Because it's the basis of everything we do.
@NoJeansNoGenes Жыл бұрын
ENIAC wasn't first with being programmable - Colossus, co-developed by Alan Turing, predated it by years and did a lot of heavy lifting for the Bletchley Park codebreakers during the war.
@Finkelfunk Жыл бұрын
He didn't even care to mention Konrad Zuse, the father of the modern computer - not even ONCE. This is such a poorly researched video.
@abarratt8869 Жыл бұрын
Colossus was not a general purpose Turing complete stored program computer. ENIAC was. However, 10 Colossii clustered together could in theory be made to be Turing complete, according to Benjamin Wells at University of San Francisco. Turing didn't really "co-develop" it - it was Tommy Flowers with Sidney Broadhurst and William Chandler. Colossus was pretty much an application specific machine. Outside of the world of cryptography, it's enduring contribution was to show that valve electronics could be reliable enough at that scale to be useful. Had it been a total failure in that regard, possibly no one else would have tried again until the transistor became a viable component. Arguably, those early days of valve computers (fixed or general purpose) gave computer science a 10 year head start.
@beelseboob Жыл бұрын
He didn’t say Turing complete. He said electronic, and programmable. Colossus was both of those.
@mariacheebandidos7183 Жыл бұрын
are you british? because british people seem to have this... tendency to find a way to claim credit for American inventions, innovations.
@boian-inavov Жыл бұрын
To be fair, the first general purpose computer was the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer) which was built 3 years before ENIAC, but history sometimes forgets this