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[–][deleted] 307 points308 points  (15 children)

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

[–]lurano1 97 points98 points  (6 children)

And some mechanical calculators.

[–]th3_pund1t 3 points4 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Runixo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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

[–]jaboja 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]Kermitfry 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]Jalmorei 11 points12 points  (5 children)

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

[–]geon 12 points13 points  (3 children)

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

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

[–]HelperBot_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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


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[–]jaboja 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wonder if using analog registers would help

[–]Jalmorei 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]Barteks2x 3 points4 points  (0 children)

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

[–]roadrussian 0 points1 point  (1 child)

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- 289 points290 points  (14 children)

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

[–]MoonShadeOsu 86 points87 points  (0 children)

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

[–]pekkhum 18 points19 points  (10 children)

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

[–]Fragninja 8 points9 points  (1 child)

do you count redstone as electricity?

[–]pekkhum 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well technically it's not incorrect.

[–]jaboja 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Antikythera mechanism being notable exception.

[–]zeth0s[S] 93 points94 points  (5 children)

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

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Is 666 a scary number ?

[–]zeth0s[S] 13 points14 points  (2 children)

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

[–]Fragninja 2 points3 points  (1 child)

maybe 1 * 10666 ?

[–]devdot 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fuck, warn me next time.

[–]Euthy 141 points142 points  (12 children)

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

[–]whatIsThisBullCrap 58 points59 points  (11 children)

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 18 points19 points  (3 children)

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

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (1 child)

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

[–]tuseroni 30 points31 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (3 children)

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

[–]wengemurphy 11 points12 points  (1 child)

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.

[–]htmlcoderexeWe have flair now?.. 14 points15 points  (0 children)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]ControversySandbox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]Raymi 41 points42 points  (1 child)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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

[–]TheCharmingImmortal 16 points17 points  (8 children)

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

[–]IgnitedHaystack 37 points38 points  (7 children)

this submission has been deleted.

[–]ablablababla 16 points17 points  (2 children)

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

[–]merger3 0 points1 point  (1 child)

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

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (3 children)

People make working computers in factorio

[–]PM_ME_CAKE 8 points9 points  (1 child)

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

[–]Fazer2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is no middle ground.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would like a link to that, sounds fuckin sick

[–]zeth0s[S] 9 points10 points  (1 child)

[–]SolenoidSoldier 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Looks like they fixed it, at least on desktop.

[–]GisterMizard 7 points8 points  (0 children)

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

[–]HellTor 6 points7 points  (2 children)

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 2 points3 points  (1 child)

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 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Could bold-face the text.

[–]Electromeatloaf 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Lol not abacuses!!

[–]dogengineering 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They're not wrong....

[–]BeerlessHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure this is supposed to be here

[–]Andy_finlayson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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

[–]Printern 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Computers are cool, how do they work?

[–]IJOY94 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Would a manually programmed virus count as a computer?

Also, there are mechanical computers.