For a while I've been thinking about a couple videos to teach the underlying mechanics of how computers work: how electricity flowing through wires is able to do anything useful. I basically point the camera at the table while I hook up wires and switches to a battery.

If you're interested in watching me wire up a NAND logic gate and a transistor, check out these videos I made to explain the fundamentals of how computers operate: <snipped site-promo - JohnInTX>

 

Very basic explanation, does not go into the various bi-polar transistor base bias needed, and the principle of a very low signal current operating a larger current load or amplifying effect.
Max.

 

Yes, very basic on purpose. Probably not directly useful to people at this site (ie. you wouldn't be learning anything you don't already know) but maybe good to link people who know nothing about wiring logic gates and want a basic explanation. While all the details you mention are important for actually building a full computer, they are simply distractions for understanding the basic concepts.

 

If needing to explain their function I think it would help to be a little more explicit about how to demonstrate their function.
This site also has lots of tutorials on basics. Anyone literally using the video example could blow the device.
e.g. https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/semiconductors/chpt-4/common-emitter-amplifier/
Max.

 

Thanks for that link, some great explanations indeed! Way more exhaustive than what I was going for, but you may be right that I could distill some additional info from there and redo my transistor video.

 

Well, you have a real job ahead of you.

First you get to explain how digital patterns can represent things. Then explain how digital patterns are stored and transferred, then how to arithmetic them.

Binary, hex, octal, decimal. Fun fun.

Next you have to explain pattern hardware, and to do that, explain electronics.

Usually this takes a series of years.

 

heh, it'd probably be really tedious to make stuff like memory this way, so I highly doubt I would. But it actually seems like a fun project to explain binary with basic wiring and LEDs, and make some ALU functions like an adder.

I suppose my goal was to teach just enough electronics so that you understand what's being simulated in a computer course like nand2tetris.

 

What do exactly you mean by 'electricity' in your video series? It's a word you use a lot but don't explain what it is.

http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html

You might notice that the word 'electricity' is missing in almost all technical and scientific explanations of circuits, electronics and physics outside of a broad description of the type of 'electricity'.

Most circuits deal with 'Current' electricity so it would be better to use the correct terms associated with that form of electricity even in simple descriptions of logic circuits. Current, Voltage, Power.
https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/Lesson-1/Electric-Field-and-the-Movement-of-Charge

 

There have been people here that have done that. Check out the computer forums and check the projects forum.

Check out digital design too.

 

Thanks for pointing out things to look for! As a newcomer to this forum, I didn't know about those existing projects. Any specific examples you'd highlight?

 

No, sorry, I'm not a digital type guy. But I have seen many fundamental logic circuits, including wire-wrap here.

Many remakes of old systems here. Some are quite impressive. I wouldn't know what to search for. But stick around, we got plenty of digital hardware types here.

And software.

 

Self promotion from new members is not allowed on AAC, rather than delete it. I am locking this thread, It will fade into obscurity, unable to be bumped, future threads from this TS will simply be deleted. If the TS does this again, there will be consequences (such as a ban).