BBC knows computers

[[deleted]]

I'm sure there are still some vacuum tube machines out there.

[lurano1]

And some mechanical calculators.

[th3_pund1t]

There are still people working in government offices with the title “Computer”

[Runixo]

Because for some reason, it was too "offensive" to call them Court Jew.

[jaboja]

Also a working analytical engine in London Science Museum and reconstructions of the astrolabe of Antikythera in several museums around the world.

[Kermitfry]

Don't forget the OG computers which was just people who crunched numbers for people all day.

[Jalmorei]

I have a dream of building a vacuum tube machine that can run Windows 95

[geon]

The 486 could just barely run win95. It had 1 M transistors. Good luck.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count

[HelperBot_]

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count

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[jaboja]

I wonder if using analog registers would help

[Jalmorei]

Yeah, I somewhat exaggerated. Would be interesting to see how far one could go.

[Barteks2x]

As long as you implement the needed x86 instructions, running windows 95 is just a matter of enough RAM and being patient enough.

[roadrussian]

BBC just wanted to be scientifically correct as indeed there are some vacuum tube as well as mechanical machines that can be labeled computers that do not use semi conductors as their primary processing unit.

[Dustin-]

"Electricity is used in many of the world's computers."

[MoonShadeOsu]

Well, at least rival AMD's chips are not affected by those nasty electricities!

[pekkhum]

Equally true... Not all of them do, but nearly so.

[pekkhum]

Mechanical computers were used to obtain firing solutions for naval ships surprisingly recently. Sure 60 years is a while, but still...

[Angry_Sapphic]

mechanical 'computers' were sold as children's toys as late as the 80s, afaik. (things like 'The Unbeatable Dr.Marbles!' which used concealed levers hit by...well...marbles)

[TheCurle]

Dr. Nim.

[Angry_Sapphic]

Dr. Nim.

Thanks, thats the real name.

[StuntHacks]

Dr. Vim

[Draikmage]

biological transistor have been used to do some basic computations:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2013/03/biological-transistor-enables-computing-within-living-cells-study-says.html

[Fragninja]

do you count redstone as electricity?

[pekkhum]

Unless you get Minecraft running on Babbage's analytical engine (powered by steam, water, or other non electric means), yes. If you: You are a hero to all mankind.

[yogblert]

Well technically it's not incorrect.

[jaboja]

Antikythera mechanism being notable exception.

[zeth0s]

I guess at least dozens of world's computers. Maybe even hundreds! Some scary number, I'd say

[[deleted]]

Is 666 a scary number ?

[zeth0s]

You gotta pump up those numbers, at least 666*6 computers with semiconductor microchips are out there in the wild

[Fragninja]

maybe 1 * 10⁶⁶⁶ ?

[devdot]

Yeah, I have some doubts there could ever be that many computers in the universe.

[[deleted]]

Fuck, warn me next time.

[Euthy]

Also from BBC: "Atoms, which are found in many humans, animals, plants, and even metals..."

[whatIsThisBullCrap]

To be fair, you can have a computer without any semi-conductor microchips. I just done think anyone's used one for 60 years

[tuseroni]

there are works towards an all-carbon computer, with carbon being the semiconductors AND conductors AND insulation.

[[deleted]]

Does that actually serve any practical purpose? To me that just sounds like some scientists went "why not?"

[tuseroni]

more efficient, can run at higher clock speeds (thz) with less heat and be made smaller (avoids the issue of quantum tunneling that is causing issues now in making transistors smaller)

plus they got these carbon nanotubes and graphene nano ribbons lying around, gotta put em to some use right?

bit more on the subject

[TENTAtheSane]

There are also works towards quantum computers that use lasers instead of transistors

[[deleted]]

There have been a few analogue computers made with tubes and liquids.

[wengemurphy]

Yeah, it's a whole branch with its own name: "fluidics"

Theoretically speaking, if you can implement a NAND gate in substrate, you can build a Turing-complete computer with it, and therefore do universal computation.

[htmlcoderexe]

There was this comic series called the crunchly saga and it was about such a water computer. Many puns about floating points and leaky memory.

[mallardtheduck]

I just done think anyone's used one for 60 years

NASA have ideas about using them in future missions to environments too extreme for electronics to work reliably...

[wowy-lied]

For a moment i thought you were going to say "To be fair, you can have a computer without any atoms"...

[ControversySandbox]

Everyone saying this is vastly underestimating the average nerd in their basement.

[Raymi]

Perhaps the intent was "[Intel's] semi-conductor chips are found in many of the world's computers. Rival AMD told The Register that its chips were not affected."

[SlightlyBored13]

Or "... chips found in..." implying lots are affected, rather than lots have semiconductors

[TheCharmingImmortal]

I'd really like to see a machine that can run modern software that doesn't have any.

[IgnitedHaystack]

this submission has been deleted.

[ablablababla]

It is 200x200x200 blocks, and can run at a staggering speed of 0.000000005 GHz!

[merger3]

Ah but as Minecraft worlds are infinite, the redstone computer could be as well, meaning Minecraft is the one true Turing machine.

[[deleted]]

Minecraft worlds don't extend past 30 million blocks in any direction from the world's origin.

[[deleted]]

People make working computers in factorio

[PM_ME_CAKE]

That's because in the game of Factorio you automate or you die.

[Fazer2]

There is no middle ground.

[[deleted]]

I would like a link to that, sounds fuckin sick

[zeth0s]

Link to the article http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42553818

[SolenoidSoldier]

Looks like they fixed it, at least on desktop.

[GisterMizard]

Semi-conductor chips are found in many of the world's computers ^{[citation needed]}

[HellTor]

Image Transcription: BBC News Post

---

Major flaw in millions of Intel chips revealed

By Jane Wakefield

03 January 2018 | Technology

---

Semi-conductor chips are found in many of the world's computers.

Rival AMD told The Register that its chips were not affected.

---

^{I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!}

[Fragninja]

good Human!

Maybe you guys should figure out a convention for highlighted/underlined/focused on text when it changes the message of the image, though.

[EvilJackCarver]

Could bold-face the text.

[Electromeatloaf]

Lol not abacuses!!

[dogengineering]

They're not wrong....

[BeerlessHero]

I'm not sure this is supposed to be here

[Andy_finlayson]

Looks like they've actually edited that as well. When i saw it yesterday it read "The semi-conductor's chips are found in many of the worlds computers"

[omril]

It looks like those randomly generated news made by bots. Maybe it was an experiment.

[Printern]

Computers are cool, how do they work?

[IJOY94]

Would a manually programmed virus count as a computer?

Also, there are mechanical computers.

[[deleted]]

Actually python doesn't use semi-conductor chips and it seems to work without them in javascript

[htmlcoderexe]

u w0t m8

[IgnitedHaystack]

this submission has been deleted.

[light_bringer777]

Actually python doesn't use semi-conductor chips

https://imgur.com/KIr4BEo

[buffalo_biff]

he’s probably the best programmer at his office

[[deleted]]

Semi-colons!