MetaFilter posts tagged with electronics and computers

Deep Geek: Understanding Memristors

NortonDC — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:54:57 -0800

The coming memristor revolution in electronics and how it works. The newly created memristor, only the fourth fundamental fundamental type of passive circuit element, has the promise of computing advances both prosaic (faster, cheaper and "bigger" flash drives) and momentous (relatively effortless mimicry of brain cells and their activity). This is the story of the memristor's genesis, told by R. Stanley Williams, the leader of the team that created the device. Being deeply geeky myself, I've read about memristors before, but reading this article and sidebar finally let me understand how the memristor works and what happens inside it. And that felt pretty damn good. The article is fantastic, but it does leave one key connection unmade. To create a practical memristor, the team "needed [a] mechanism by which we could change the effective spacing between two wires in our crossbar by 0.3 nm. If we could do that, we would have the 1000:1 [variation in conductivity] we needed... Where would we find a material that could change its physical dimensions like that?" They did create a way to vary that spacing, in a controllable, repeatable, and extremely fast-acting manner, but Williams doesn't directly explain how the internal actions of the switching layer meet that requirement. The payoff for that setup is missing. When electrical current pushes the conductive impurities in the layer of titanium dioxide toward the other wire, the conductive portion of the layer grows toward the other wire, and the insulating portion of the layer thins. That thinning is described, but the article never tells the reader that expansion of the conductive layer is that long-sought means of moving the wires. If you read the article and made that connection before I described it, then you might have felt as smug about it as I did. Williams gets to feel more smug.

The Birth of the Ipod

mattholomew — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:45:47 -0800

You may have never heard of Kane Kramer, but it's likely you use the product and online store he patented. In 1979.

The TV Typewriter

braun_richard — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 19:45:06 -0800

Typing...on a screen! Text (and cover image) of a 1973 issue of Radio-Electronics mag, showing a new fangled way of typing with a TV screen. I like how the mag is billed as "for MEN with ideas in electronics." Heh...

RylandDotNet — Tue, 17 Sep 2002 06:38:22 -0800

Nüp2 Incorporated will revolutionize the electronic memory business. Using our patented memory technology and our patent-pending "Topolithographic" manufacturing process, we will develop and produce solid-state electronic memory having gigabytes of storage in a tiny package for just a few dollars per Gigabyte. Hoax? Vaporware? Revolution in data storage? You decide.

jhiggy — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 03:06:43 -0800

This nonsense has to stop: " One of the most heavily guarded secrets in the computer business and the closely related consumer electronics industry is how many products are returned by customers because they are defective or the customer cannot figure out how to use them."

shauna — Mon, 05 Mar 2001 09:38:50 -0800

In what appears to be a suicide mission, Gateway announced it is backing away from lucrative services and software (which accounted for 100 percent of its fourth-quarter earnings) in favor of refocusing on computer sales, an area that recently has not made a dime for the company.