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The World's Smallest Computer Can Fit on the Tip of a Grain of Rice (vice.com)
Engineers at the University of Michigan have created the world's smallest computer -- again. From a report: The University held the record for the smallest computer after it created its 2x2x4mm Michigan Micro Mote in 2014. The Micro Mote (or M3) is fully functional and able to retain its programming and data even when it loses power. But after IBM debuted an even tinier "computer" in February, a 1mm x 1mm chip with "several hundred thousand" transistors.
Engineers at the University of Michigan were not about to be one-upped, and quickly created an even smaller computer, so small it could fit on the tip of a grain of rice. However, the engineers quibbled over whether IBM's machine and the new Michigan design could really be called computers, since the data gets wiped as soon as it's turned off. You can find more details on the university's website.
Engineers at the University of Michigan were not about to be one-upped, and quickly created an even smaller computer, so small it could fit on the tip of a grain of rice. However, the engineers quibbled over whether IBM's machine and the new Michigan design could really be called computers, since the data gets wiped as soon as it's turned off. You can find more details on the university's website.
I have this concept I created called "smart dust" which could be used to build swarms of mesh networks of these small computers. They could be dropped from airplanes for example to monitor oil moisture for crops. Eventually these swarms would be self organizing and AI could be introduced. If you are interested in funding my concept, please contact me.
When was persistent storage a requirement of a computer?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
BUT.....can it run Doom?
Most of the early computers had no persistent storage either. Computing is separate from storing. A calculator fits the definition of computer, just not general-purpose computer (though that's typically implied by the term "computer" in vernacular).
But after IBM debuted an even tinier "computer" in February, a 1mm x 1mm chip with "several hundred thousand" transistors. ...still waiting for the rest of this sentence. Apparently, reporters write in the new APA-clickbait format these days
Dup, this is a dup of https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/03/19/210245/ibm-unveils-the-worlds-smallest-computer
https://mashable.com/2018/03/19/ibm-worlds-smallest-computer/#F2MrGP_95gqd
Somehow this picture looks more believable to the point where I don't think this is fake, however this latest picture with the rice the size of a huge breast, I think its fake, can wires in that little thing really have tiny plugs that tiny? I think its one size and another size faked.
Is there video of this demoed anywhere, that would give us something to argue about.
But whatever.
https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers/arm-based-processors-and-mcus/kinetis-cortex-m-mcus/miniwlcspm0-plus-m4:KINETIS_MINI_SERIES
if it can run Crysis?
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Incredible
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
With more information regarding data transfer, power etc.
https://news.umich.edu/u-m-res...
Then these engineers are idiots with too much time on their hands.
Anybody old enough to remember floppy drives knew damned well that when you turned off the computer, all the data was wiped and had to be re-loaded next time.
By this bit of stupidity, the original IBM PC with no hard drive would not have been a computer. Obviously, that's not true.
Would you call a PIC microcontroller, in a SOT23-6 package, a 'computer'? It's got flash memory for non-volatile program and data storage, it's got an internal calibrated RC clock, it's got I/O (some even have ADCs), it's got other peripherals (counter-timers, PWM controller(s), and so on). Is that a computer in your opinion? Or does it have to run a full multi-tasking disk operating system wiht a GUI (or at least command line interface)? Does it have to be fully self-contained requiring no external components except connectors for peripherals, or not? Lots of wiggle-room here.
It stopped being a computer when they removed the headphone jack.
Calculators are computers. They lose their data when you turn them off.
Quit arguing semantics when you know full and goddamned well that the device is a computer.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I imagine BeauHD wishes U of M would invent a pill cam that fits on the tip of a grain of rice...
#DeleteChrome
Yes, I routinely call PIC and similar microcontrollers "tiny computers".
> Or does it have to run a full multi-tasking disk operating system wiht a GUI (or at least command line interface)?
PICs routinely have a CLI, and a GUI isn't unusual (at 128x64). It's not unusual to have a PIC read and write from a flash card disk, as well as it's built-in flash.
So even if you said "a computer must be capable of running a GUI, and having a disk plugged in", the PIC is a computer even under those terms. It can run multiple tasks, though it wouldn't be considered a multi-tasking OS, which allows multiple tasks to run *without* the tasks themselves being careful to avoid stepping on one another.
You can have a computer without having any local storage. I could rip the hard drive out of my laptop, put a LiveCD of a Linux distribution in my CD/DVD drive, and boot it up. Everything will be reset any time I power down, but I doubt anyone would look at that and say "this isn't a computer." Yes, storage is a nice feature of a general purpose computer (and pretty much a requirement for any laptop/desktop/tablet computer), but it doesn't mean that storage-less computers don't have a purpose or that computers without storage aren't computers.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Why would a grain of rice need a computer???
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Yes. Yes it is.
#DeleteFacebook
The UM folk are way ahead of you. While that version has a near-field radio, this version has an optical wake-up receiver.
The Apollo Guidance Computer had no permanent storage, either, and is still studied in some computer science classes.
Well, to be completely correct, it's software was hard-wired (literally, using rope-core memory) but there was no persistent user storage.
The tip of grain rice would be 2 x 2 x 2mm maximum, otherwise it would fit over a grain rice, not in its tip.
Yeah, I assume you're talking ENIACs and stuff, but even in the relatively modern age persistent storage wasn't really a feature of most home computers for several years. Many hobbyists bought disk drives, but there was no storage built in to computers like the VIC 20/Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and so on. Many (oddly, not including the 6502 Commodore home computers - I'm not counting the PET as the latter) came with the ability to hook up to a cassette recorder, but that was it - anything more advanced required buying additional hardware.
It seems to be that if the thing at least includes RAM and the ability to execute programs from RAM, is Turing complete, and has the ability to communicate in both directions with a user, it ought to be classed as a computer given the common usage of the term.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Vernor Vinge's localizers, maybe?
First in A Deepness in the Sky, then again in Rainbow's End.
"Localizers were a basic tool of a technical civilization. The tiny devices chirped their impulse codes at one another, using time of flight and distributed algorithms to accurately locate each participating device."
They could work like a mesh-networked computing cluster too.
It seems to be that if the thing at least includes RAM and the ability to execute programs from RAM, is Turing complete, and has the ability to communicate in both directions with a user, it ought to be classed as a computer given the common usage of the term.
Really, it's an incredibly low bar. You can build a Turing complete processor with a one bit state register, three opcodes and RAM. Add a couple of opcodes for I/O, and you have a computer. It would be *very* slow (possibly, something that simple you could probably run at an insanely high clock rate) but it fulfills the definition of a computer.
Okay that particular chip it's hard to call that a computer. Unless you're a 1980s car manufacturer and want to sell replacements for $399.
That's a logic gate, I'd say.
However, if that PIC had its single IO pin connected to a specialized memory device it would be a Turing Machine, capable of emulating a 486 or any other CPU (slowly).
Never believe Vice... whether technical or political, they get it wrong every time with blatant bias or misunderstanding the subject matter.
It's a Liberal blog and nothing more and as a gay black man I'm tired of how they claim to represent us all. They don't.
So how many daemons can fit on the head of a pin?
Inspired by: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entire_History_of_You
And
https://www.netflix.com/title/80074220
Sorry, no carbs, please. At least bring us one that fits on a quinoa seed.
"engineers quibbled over whether IBM's machine and the new Michigan design could really be called computers, since the data gets wiped as soon as it's turned off."
Um, that was normal for almost all computers until not too long ago. Loss or retention of data at power off is not part of the definition of being a computer.
100% this. It's silly there's even an argument. Perhaps the arguers weren't around when computers had to load the OS from disk - every time you turned it on?
I know that Slashdot no longer uses the tagline "News For Nerds: Stuff That Matters", but while it still maintains pretensions of being a website for tech news, can you please refrain from posting stories from Vice's Motherboard?
It targets a demographic that is more ignorant than Wired's and is staffed by people who came down in the last shower, whereas Wired's came down in the shower before that.
If you can't run Doom on it it's not a computer.
This seems a bit silly without a common definition. The IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits is probably full of things like this. Note that an 8- or 16-bit microcontroller core only requires about 12kgates (NAND2 equivalent), and in 65nm or 40nm CMOS that fits in something like 200um x 200um, and adding a few data registers, a small program RAM or ROM, a ring oscillator for clocking and some ESD IO pad cells would keep the whole thing well under 1mm x 1mm. In one minute of Googling I found this example:
"The programmable processors occupy 0.055 mm2 each, contain no algorithm specific hardware, and operate up to an average maximum clock frequency of 1.78 GHz at 1.1 V."
in
"KiloCore: A 32-nm 1000-Processor Computational Array," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits ( Volume: 52, Issue: 4, April 2017 )
From the conceptual look... While this ideology would be a good stepping stone to microcomputer design, and maybe even push to smaller transition design, this from a consumer standpoint will most ironically give people a better way to hide their porn.
The other day you had a submission about a RAID enclosure. You didn't say how many drives, or talk about budget. I used some large ones, 12-16 bay.
Enclosures are very simple devices. It's a metal case, a power supply, connectors, and optionally a SAS expander card. So there's not a WHOLE lot of room for one to be that much better than another.
These are a great value. With the right card and firmware, they handle large drives.
https://www.servethehome.com/s...
If you don't want to buy pre-owned stuff off eBay, check out the Rackable Systems web site, or for a more prestigious brand, Supermicro. Supermicro makes some really nice storage.
If you use RAID 5, make sure it's set to check / re-sync the RAID weekly and your email address is set correctly to be notified of RAID and SMART errors. You want to be notified when one drive starts having errors.
Now on to my question for you, since you seem to have some experience with PICs, and specifically their DS line. I want to build a pretty simple circuit around a dsPIC33FJ128MC802. I wonder where I might be able to get a little help. Maybe you have an idea of who I could talk to.
That part is designed for motor control applications. It has two Quadrature Encoding Interfaces (QEI) which are used to read the position of a rotary encoder. It has several pwm outputs to control brushed DC motors, through a transistor or H bridge. So I want a pretty simple circuit - read my two encoders to find the position of my motors, then send pwm signals through the h-bridge to move them. Hook the encoders to the QEI inputs, the PWM output to the h-bridge, power and ground, and we're good to go, right?
My experience tells me that a naÃve implementation like that works for several milliseconds, until the magic smoke comes out. Some pins need to be connected to ground via a diode to protect against whatever, some others need to be connected to vcc via a resistor because gobblygook, and these other two pins need to be connected to each via a diode and a capacitor to protect it from whatever. That's the stuff I don't know or understand.
If that didn't make sense, let me try an analogy. A transistor allows a larger current to flow based on a much smaller current, so it works as an amplifier. Naively, we could think if you connect headphones across a transistor and a low-power input to the gate, you've just made an audio amplifier. Actual audio amplifiers, the very simple ones, have about 20 parts. The transistor does the amplifying, and 19 other parts make sure the transistor doesn't melt, or otherwise behave very badly. I'm at the stage where when I want to amplify a signal I can select an appropriately rated transistor, but other than controlling gain with a pot I don't know what those other 19 components are for.
Any ideas where I could get some help designing / building a basic circuit around a dsPIC33FJ128MC802? I know I want to connect the rotary encoders to inputs, the h-bridge to pwm out, and a serial or CAN bus interface. All the auxiliary components to make it start up and run without catching fire or cancelling my car insurance is what I need help with.