/tech/ - Technology★

https://youtu.be/DD2dtAqJcJ4

https://youtu.be/FdZZuteFZfo

A 2-part youtube series on how WW2 anti-aircraft fire control computers work

Does /tech/ not allow embedding?

>>1010831

Probably because of the Youtube thumbnails.

Has /tech/ ever made their own PCBs or electrical components?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWnfnt2rNO0

>>1010831

Thank you, anon. I enjoyed these videos greatly. It amuses me how easy certain computations are when you can effectively let nature do the computations for you.

Any good tutorial series on basic eletronics?

I bought some stuff to mess around with PCBs.

First I'll do a simple half adder (schematics and all are done already, I just need to buy a few switches and solder it), then I'll try doing an arcade stick with a UART to USB or serial to USB if I give up and decide to make it even easier because fuck doing the USB protocol with transistors alone.

It sucks that chips costs literal millions to make, so you can't autistically optimize shit and the only options to do physical stuff are buying general chips or making 60's computer rooms with transistors.

>>1010839

I have not. I usually desolder all components and repurpose old PCBs. I just trace the lines and try to match it with the schematics that I have. Sometimes it requires a bit of creative wiring, but it works fairly well.

Id like to have some way of making my own, but I havent yet found a cheap solution that works without chemical baths and other messy stuff.

I imagine you could lasercut some kind of foil that is being held in place with glue and some kind of plastic that doesnt get cut. Im not exactly sure how that would work though.

>>1011040

>It sucks that chips costs literal millions to make

Why not use FPGAs then. If you actually need a high clock speed for something use a separate chip someone else has made.

>>1011048

Why not just get your own PCBs fabricated?

>>1011070

Mostly because I dont want to either wait 2 weeks for my PCB to arrive from china or pay 40 yuro in shipping. I have gotten custom boards a few times for more serious projects and its a good option, but sometimes recycling is just easier and quicker.

>>1011070

>Why not use FPGAs then.

Because I didn't even know those existed. I'll look into it, thanks anon.

>>1011594

If you want to use a toolchain that is completely free software I'd recommend taking a look at the ice40 ones. They aren't the strongest ones on the market, but they are affordable and seem to be enough for hobby projects. I'm looking to get the https://www.tindie.com/products/Folknology/blackice-ii/ for Christmas.

>>1010829 (OP)

about as analog as it gets:

https://newatlas.com/crab-computer-kobe/22145/

analog computers arent that complicated. you can make some some basic shit with op amps, resistors, and potentiometer. its not that special.

>>1011617

Ah that's interesting, I didn't know there was a free alternative to Altera/Xilinx.

Are these as suitable for beginners as those Digilent boards (Basys, Arty) used in many classes?

>>1011635

>Are these as suitable for beginner

Probably. I haven't had an actual one on hand, but I did mess around with the toolchain a bit and it was pretty simple turning my verilog (it doesn't support vhdl btw) into the bitstream.

>>1010956

It's not nature, it's the design of the mechanism and the behaviour coded into its design. It's no different from a digital computer which is also just a bunch of matter following the laws of physics. It's all the work that went into setting up all the matter in just the right way that did the computation, not the matter itself.