this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Programming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALSO ELI5 everything please

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[โ€“] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 38 points 6 months ago (1 children)

1, These days the machines used to etch chips (flash light onto the chips to carve them out) are mostly made by ASML. The most modern machines are the ASML Twinscan NXE and Twinscan EXE. The raw silicon is coated with different chemicals that react to light, and when the light patterns are flashed onto the silicon, it carves physical arrangements of atoms on the silicon that forms complex electrical circuits.

  1. CPUs were literally drawn by hand, and then the drawing was shrunk down with a magnifying glass back in the day. Programs could be written into electrical memory with physical switches (think 100 light switches), punch cards, or electric typewriters. You could pause the computer so that it would wait for you to type in the next program for it to run. By the time we had kernels, we already had large memory banks in the kilobytes that could store the OS between program runs. So you'd type in the OS once when you turned on the computer, and it would keep in in memory until you turned the computer off again.

  2. The internet is different computers connected together. This website is just data sitting on a server somewhere, and your computer connects to the server over the internet and asks for the data.

  3. Everything is built on the shoulders of giants. There is plenty to learn, but there will always be something you don't know.

  4. There's tons of information online if you know where to look. There's also some good courses out there to understand more specific things like cpu design, networking, programming, etc. In university these sorts of questions fall into the field of Computer Engineering, if you're looking for a university program to get into.

With regards to the limits of programming: Making websites is already challenging enough, but the cutting edge can be rewarding too :) Software Engineering is a massive field with infinite opportunities. Start small and work your way towards more complex projects with larger teams.

Here's a good 20 minute video about the history of making microchips: https://youtu.be/Pt9NEnWmyMo