• TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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    23 hours ago

    It never ceases to amaze me how far we can still take a piece of technology that was invented in the 50s.

    That’s like developing punch cards to the point where the holes are microscopic and can also store terabytes of data. It’s almost Steampunk-y.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      That’s how most technology is:

      • combustion engines - early 1900s, earlier if you count steam engines
      • missiles - 13th century China, gunpowder was much earlier
      • wind energy - windmills appeared in the 9th century, potentially as early as the 4th

      Almost everything we have today is due to incremental improvements from something much older.

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        More like microscopic fidget bubble poppers.

        When the computer wants a bit to be a 1, it pops it down. When it wants it to be a 0, it pops it up.

        If it were like a punch card, it couldn’t be rewritten as writing to it would permanently damage the disc. A CD-RW is basically a microscopic punch card though, because the laser actually burns away material to write the data to the CD.

        • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          They work through electron tunneling through a semiconductor, so something does go through them like an old punch card reader