this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
552 points (98.6% liked)

unix_surrealism

2767 readers
1 users here now

one should not chase the electric dream

This community is for sharing original content related to computers, content, surrealism and wizardry.

Now that you're a surrealist, become a Techno-Mage:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I think it’s even simpler than that

it’s ram

here is some ee 100 stuff not looked at the whole thing

www.cs.emory.edu/~cheung/Courses/255/Syllabus/4-intro/SLIDES/s10a.html

there’s probably a youtube video with a guy from India that’ll do it better

ewww ran into ai slop on youtube instead

this is decent

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1gvh5c6/eli5_is_there_really_a_tiny_switch_for_every_bit/

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Without more details, it's hard to know.

But I'd guess his dad would've simply said "ram" or "memory", something everyone is at least mildly familiar with, vs the more specific phrasing, "similar to a data switch but on a way smaller scale".

[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's on the chips. It's similar to a data switch, but on a waaaaaaay smaller scale.

We've argued about this a lot. He doesn't like to call them that. The term "electronic switch" is so old.

this makes it pretty clear

he’s explaining the function to someone that he thinks is hardware illiterate

also if he’s really specialized it may literally be the ‘switch’ part

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 weeks ago

There can be only one!

~Here we are…