In a huge cave in the Redstone Tribe, this is the computer room.

The computer room has a lot of electronic equipment.

There are hundreds of cabinets, two meters high and one meter wide, and the cabinets are neatly placed here.

There are wires connected between the cabinets, which appear neat and orderly, which are various signal connection wires.

The loud sound of the huge fans in the cave is very noisy, and these are used to cool the computer.

There are hundreds of vacuum tubes in a cabinet, and a large number of fans are placed in the cabinet to dissipate heat from the vacuum tubes.

The heat here is very large, the wind speed of the fan is not slow at all, used to take away the heat generated by the tube, and the hot air is discharged to the outside world by the air pipe.

Fang Hao was debugging the cabinet in front of him with several people, and this cabinet contained more than eight hundred vacuum tubes, forming a super forward position full adder.

Other cabinets are also various modules needed by computers, such as multipliers, dividers, adders, decoders, encoders, data selectors, triggers, latches, counters, shift registers, memories, amplifiers, analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters, and so on.

From a mathematical point of view, subtraction can be converted into addition operations, multiplication can also be converted into addition operations, division can be converted into multiplication operations, so all operations can be based on addition operations, so there is no problem that computers can only do addition.

But if the computer can only do addition, for some calculations will slow down, so if the computer is faster, you must design the computer to add, subtract, multiply and divide the integral differential operation circuit.

It is also necessary to design more complex mathematical circuits to assist hardware circuits to complete more functions, and the circuits of these auxiliary hardware will be controlled by certain rules, which is software.

The wires of these more than 100 cabinets are connected to the display screen composed of one million small light bulbs, and the image can be displayed.

In addition to the display, Fang Hao and others also designed the keyboard, also in the form of 26 letters, no way, Fang Hao originally wanted to use a Chinese keyboard, but the Chinese keyboard does not look very convenient.

In terms of hardware, the logic gate components use vacuum tubes, and these hundreds of cabinets are only the circuit parts of the computer.

Computers also need memory and mercury delay lines, which are more than a hundred huge machines in the corner on the other side of the cave.

Because there are no ready-made devices that can be used directly, in order to find the memory, the tribe worked hard to find nothing, and finally Fang Hao cheated so that everyone found a way.

Today’s computers are vacuum tubes in addition to vacuum tubes, so memory can only be implemented with vacuum. Whether the vacuum tube is on represents “1” or “0”, that is, data that represents one bit.

Ten vacuum tubes can be connected in series to form a circular circuit, assuming that only the fifth vacuum tube of the ten vacuum tubes is on, which means that its stored value is 5.

However, the vacuum tube itself cannot complete the data storage function, because the vacuum tube itself has no memory function, and after the signal at the input is withdrawn, the on and off states of the vacuum tube will change.

The storage device used by Fang Hao was made using mercury.

The principle of mercury delay line comes from nature, throwing a stone into the water, forming a wave, the head of the wave can travel somewhere in the distance after a period of time, this is how the mercury delay line works.

The mercury delay line is a tube with a diameter of 10mm and a length of 150cm, filled with mercury, and there is a converter at each end for electro-acoustic conversion and acoustic-electrical conversion, so that the pulse signal enters from one end of the tube, converts into ultrasound, and after 960ms, the ultrasonic reaches the other end of the tube, and then converts into an electrical signal output, so that the signal can be stored for 960ms.

However, to realize the memory function, some additional circuitry is required: the modulated pulse signal enters from one end of the tube, outputs from the other end of the tube after 960ms, receives it by the converter, is detected, amplified, shaped and regenerated, and fed back to the transmitter.

A delay line circuit is called a channel, because the reaction speed of the vacuum tube is fast, and the reaction speed of the mercury delay line is slow, so each mercury channel can exist 1000 pulse signals at the same time, the 1000 signals constantly circulate in the mercury delay line, if you want to use the signal, you can calculate how to get the desired pulse signal through the hardware circuit of the vacuum tube, so as to realize the memory data call.

In order for the storage system to work stably, the temperature of mercury needs to be kept at about 40 degrees Celsius, so a thermostatic device similar to the mercury tube should be fed to maintain the temperature of the mercury tube.

Naturally, this device belongs to a mechanical device, Fang Hao does not want to deal with the complex thing of air conditioning by himself, after explaining the principle to the mechanical department, he decisively sent the task to the mechanical research department, and often urged their research progress, who told them to often grab talents with themselves.

The mechanical department naturally complained and spent three years to complete the research of the first generation of air conditioners.

The mercury delay line memory is arguably the most bulky main memory in history, using mercury tubes with many mercury-filled pipes inside, making each mercury tank weigh more than a ton.

The memory device has a total of 100 sets of mercury delay line memory, such a huge memory device covers an area of two hundred square meters, its memory capacity is 10 * 1000 * 100 = 1m size bits, the efficiency is touching.

In addition to the memory also needs external storage, the external memory uses tape, which is also a method that Fang Hao cheated on, otherwise no one knows how long it will take to develop the memory.

The reaction speed of the tape is also very impressive, it is the use of a circle of conveyor belt, on the conveyor belt installed with a magnetic stripe, this magnetic stripe performance requirements are very high, can be demagnetized and magnetism at any time.

When the magnetic stripe is demagnetized, it represents the logical 0, and when the magnetic stripe produces magnetism, it represents the logical 0, naturally so the original tape volume is very large, a hundred meters long, can store 10 trillion bits.

The software of the computer is implemented in machine language, using machine language to make a card, each card is an assembly command, the whole computer has a total of more than a hundred cards, these cards in order, can constitute an assembler.

Software is actually the use rules of hardware auxiliary circuits, and the use rules of hardware auxiliary circuits are summarized as software, and the use of these auxiliary circuits can complete the control of the computer.

At this point, a simple elementary computer is complete, naturally only exists on paper, how to make it work is still difficult.

In fact, in addition to the adder, the rest of the modules only know the basic principle, the performance of the sample produced is very poor, and in-depth research is needed to debug well.

Each module is a huge project, both to ensure the function, but also to ensure power consumption, but also to ensure reliability, and finally to consider the convenience of dismantling the room, because the vacuum transistor has a short life after all, it will break after tens of thousands of hours, so it needs to be easy to maintain.

The conference room of the information department, where hundreds of researchers gathered to conduct a symposium on computer design.

The so-called seminar is to discuss computer projects, and scientific research often encounters unsolvable problems, so it is necessary to meet frequently and liberate one’s mind through meetings.

“The current logic gate project is progressing very well, everyone has done it well, we can already use logic gates to make various circuit modules, and the next time we will carry out the next in-depth research, that is, to make multipliers, dividers, and make various other computer modules.” Fang Hao said.

“How is this mathematical calculation module made? Is there a plan? The Ice Banshee asked with a frown, stumped her with such a complex machine.

“I summarized the working principle of each module through your experimental data, you can take a look, strive to improve the compilation of computer principles, and then we are busy.” Fang Hao said with a smile.

“I’ve gotten used to it.” Everyone said helplessly.

“Ahem, don’t frown, this kind of machine research is difficult to illustrate its value, this is only the first version, if the research is deep, it is smarter than people, and it is also good for various mathematical calculations, such as calculating cultivation parameters.” Fang Hao began to cheer everyone up again.

The time of the flood famine passed like flowing water year after year, the scope of activities of the Redstone tribe became larger and larger, and there were more and more newcomers to the Information Research Institute where Fang Hao was.

With a definite research plan, human resources have slowly increased, and the research speed of everyone has become faster.

Time passed in a hurry, the Redstone tribe grew stronger and stronger, various industrial infrastructures sprang up, and with the growth of various research institutes, the industrial revolution completely broke out in the Redstone tribe.

At this time, the Redstone tribe had expanded thousands of miles, and countless Terrans and Wu tribes poured into the tribe, and the number increased sharply, becoming a famous tribe with a radius of thousands of miles.

Fang Hao threw himself into computer research, did not care much about the development of the tribe, but transferred the power to Feng’s hands.

And Feng transferred the power to the departments below, and did not intervene in non-major matters.

In the laboratory of the Redstone tribe, hundreds of scientists looked excitedly at a huge screen in front of them, on which various mathematical calculations were calculated.

“I declare that the Redstone computer research is successful, and the operation speed is 5893 times per second! Let’s celebrate this great success! On the stage, Fang Hao looked at the calculation results and said loudly.

“It worked!”

“Good!”

After ten years of research and development day and night, the first computer in the flood world was finally successfully researched, and at this moment, everyone’s eyes were full of tears and completely fell into carnival.

(The decade converted to Earth is not the decade of the flood, the decade of the flood is the 150 years of the earth).


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