Cryogenic Computing

Link.

And that is a couple of years ago. I wonder where they stand on it now?

That is a lot of flops/ns!

Actually, conventional computers today perform thousands of times faster than the conventional computers of the '70s without cryrogenic cooling. My first computer with an 8085 processor clocked at 3.2 MHz and it was an 8 banger. Today's processors clock in the GHz and are at least 32 bits wide with a much, much larger instruction set.

Yeah, tell me about it. I bought a 32 GB HP laptop on the cheap, thinking I was really getting a deal, now the software takes up all but the last 890 MB. I have to use an SD card to keep the thing running. Progress. I can take it or leave it.

Like that COSTCO commercial on Jimmy Kimmel: You get what you get, and you don't get upset. (sign over the returns desk). I would have pulled that smug proflogucator up and out over the counter, and handed him a solid tongue lashing for the ages.

The hardware's 1000 times faster, the software is 1000 times slower, it's a wash!

Well it has to tell everybody and his cousin what you're doing, so....In the past you were flying solo...

Is that 32 GB of ram or harddrive you are using up?

system memory, not the chip RAM, but also, it has no hard drive, and is a cheap POS.

I never will make that mistake again. The thing was purchased with 1 TB of cloud memory, but we never see clouds that often here in Lubbock, and I could not figure out how to lasso one.

"Hey! You! Get offa my cloud!" Remember that song?

A Scientific American piece about computers based on Josephson junctions. The computer's silicon 'motherboard' featured etched contact holes into which per placed droplets of mercury. The silicon 'daughter' boards featured corresponding gold pins. When the assembly was cooled to cryogenic temperatures, the mercury solidified, effectively soldering the pins in-place. IIRC it was a project at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Centre. IBM later cancelled the project.

Matisoo, J. 1980, The Superconducting Computer, Scientific American, May, pp 50-65

Did all the participants' gold fillings change to silver-colored, and they had to be treated for mercury amalgam mouth disorder?

Most of 'em were Texans and didn't have any teeth.

That borders on slander to the choppers of the great State of Texas! You really are feeling frisky today.

Okay, okay, they all had at least one tooth.

Reminds me of a observation we had in the oilfields about people and where they came from.

The further south they came from the fewer teeth they had until they switched over to being Mexicans.

Iowa and north typically had all their teeth but the closer they came to Alabaman, Louisiana and southeast Texas the less they had most often ending with less than 10 for people from the furthest south points.

That might be true for the Old South quarters of Texas, but here on the High Plains, some of the areas are known for not just having Fluoride in the well water, but too much. Brown stains on teeth usually are a clue. Fortunately most communities are dealing with this now, where it is a problem, (Hereford, TX being the worst that I know of).

BTW - I still have all of my teeth. Some of them are capped, though, and I blame that on the wretched diet I had in college. And my heavy beer drinking back then? IDK.

This is what they anticipated will be the only way to increase computing speed at that era. AFAIK a Josephson Junction is still the fastest possible transistor. In doing this research they found that the trace capacitance between transistors was more of a speed limitation than the speed of the transistors. So cramming more transistors in the same space significantly reduced the trace capacitance and allowed for faster transistors, too. [Not as fast as a JJ but still faster than larger transistors.] The major drawback of little transistors was the maximum voltage switched had to be smaller, too. Nothing is free.

Yes, parasitic capacitance is what limited the practical speed and so they achieved nowhere near the theoretical maximum.

I recall reading that SciAm article back then. I suspect it is the same article the OP is referring to given his recollection of the mercury/pin contacts. That interconnect scheme was mentioned specifically in the article.

A lot of things seemed promising back then but never panned out. I remember bubble memory was going to be the next big thing, but now we can get trillions of bytes on a small hard drive that still goes round and round.

Once there was research on circular waveguides that could transmit signals almost losslessly, provided you could keep it in the TE01 mode, but now we have glass fibers that are more transparent than Rocky mountain air.

I guess nobody can predict what direction technology will go.

Yes, I remember the never-ending spate of articles about bubble memories. The trade rags were inundated with them to point where you just wished they'd go away. I never thought they held much promise for dense non-volatile storage but, back then, non-volatile, read/write/erase storage not requiring batteries was pretty much limited to things with moving parts or required UV to erase.

Right now quantum computing has the spotlight but who knows where it will lead? I doubt it's a flash-in-the-pan and may work out to be The Next Big Thing - or a preamble to something better - and totally different. Progress is like that; ten thousand dead-ends for every 'killer tech.'

I also remember the seemingly never ending barrage on bubble memory articles. During this widow of time I recognized that bubble memory required multiple barely explored (tiny for the times) engineering disciplines that would produce many unpatentable research papers. [Patent Attorney: Your technique for reading a bubble is novel but not exclusive to other techniques. Your method for moving a bubble is well understood. Patent denied.]

IMHO I suspect the deluge of bubble memory white papers led to some of the fundamental techniques of hardware hacking.

A similar item - that "If the electrical over head conductors are super cooled to -150 Deg.C, the Power Transmission can be 15 to 20 times more” under identical operational power parameters such as voltage, frequency etc..

But the challenge is how to keep that high minus temp. and still in the initial stages.

DHAYANANDHAN.S

D.S., you're shouting again. Dude, please nix the boldface!

No, I think capital letters is shouting....bold is just emphatic.....granted it appears rather random use of emphasis though, and as such violates politically correct posting practices, permitting pejorative perorating pontification ...carry on

Learning how to communicate without formatting is a true skill and one few make much effort to hone. To be able to communicate with clarity simply by the words you choose and how you choose them without relying on boldface, caps, font size, or colours is the sign of a skilled communicator.

On a more practical front, when one characteristically boldfaces and italicises their text, they leave few alternatives for emphasis where they actually need it. When the whole thing is emphatic, where do you go from there? A larger typeface? ALLCAPS? Underline?

The mods have edited his posts and comments several times now to remove the formatting because readers do consider it shouting and, evidently, the mods do as well. You'd think he'd have gotten a clue by now but, no, he keeps doing it.

Please reference your "quotes"...plagiarizing while scolding someone for improper posting is itself a breach of proper posting etiquette....

https://www.netmanners.com/48/is-this-shouting-too/

Carelessness, not plagiarism, at least not intentionally. I'm normally careful about quoting my sources. Look at my other posts.

You can't hide nothing from the bird. I have seen you list sources, but my question is, how did SolarEagle know where that came from? His crystal web ball must be something special.

For some there are no lengths they will not go to, to dig up dirt on somebody given the opportunity, thereby publicly portraying themselves as one treading the Higher Moral Road. I suspect that is the case here, because I've seen it before and more than once. Not only, he could have questioned my intent rather than automatically assuming I intended to plagiarise that paragraph. I know he's read my other threads where I quote my sources, because he's commented on them and knows that I do indeed quote my sources, and so his ulterior motives here are pretty plain to see. On the flip-side, one who engages in this practice is setting himself up to be treated likewise by others.

You dig that hole much deeper and we'll have to start pumping air down there.....haha

I can't understand why Andrew is the one digging the hole, when he isn't the target of the rant?

Go back to showing everyone how great your beachfront property is, poppy.

ROFLMAO at this unnecessary hostility amongst the roosters here. I am just an old rooster with my spurs knocked off, I am staying out of it.

C'mon mate, fess up. You enjoy a good cockfight.

En garde!

(Opponents unsheath mighty swords, don spurs.)

Somebody ought to set up a match like that between King Fatty and President Rubberface.

Well, if Big T would stop Twittering for five bluddy minutes he could've starred in this GIF.

DUDES!

I am pretty sure SE was not directly the plagiarism issue at you, but rather to our distinguished engineer friend from India, that like to type boldly McBoldface.

If want to create a stir, I would just lie constantly, then quote something (no one else here accused of lying with words, or just lying about) directly from Wikipedia, maybe with the link, maybe not, sometimes giving Wikipedia the head nod, sometimes not.

You can pretty much tell if something is from me or one of the contributors to Wikipedia. They leave out the expletives, sometimes even delete them. -- Richard M. Nixon.

No, there is no mistaking his target. His comment was clearly, unmistakably directed at me. If he wants to be a pompous, self-righteous arse, fine, but he'd better expect a fight because I don't put up that shite. Period.

But you did not even quote anything, it was our boldly speaking friend from India, really!

That's exactly the point: I didn't quote the paragraph and didn't cite the source, hence his Superfluous Excellency's hastily donning his flowing magisterial robes and mantle, except that he was a bit too hasty and betrayed his true motive: digging dirt.

His Glorious Presence would be so much more convincing if he'd merely pace himself, but then what of all those lost opportunities to 'prove' himself in the right? Can't have that, can we?

If you want him to shut up just ask him to explain in detail how how pulls off 10 minute service calls on complex HVAC system problems. (I bet he also bills them for a full hour plus travel and whatever else he can weasel into the bill too.)

I guarantee no one had gotten a answer or much for replies after that which in my experience means he either talking out his ass or he's one of the guys who gives HVAC technicians a rep for being arrogant lying greedy crooks and doesn't want to admit it or both.

I make little guys like that every year, mine seem to melt when the sun comes out, I suspect yours don't.

Maybe if I used cryogenics they would last longer....

How he spent the other 50 minutes.

Yea, Told you he won't respond to it with an explanation.

Those types never do outside of 'Well, everyone else does it.' implying a large group of crooks makes their actions justifiable.

Guessing given that logic that sand snowman was on the beach under the bridge he jumped off of because 'well, Everyone else was doing it.'

So will he next post a picture of some people bungy jumping off a brigde to try and justify jumping off a bridge is okay to detract from the standard implied meaning of what the term normally refers to?

But it still doesn't answer how he suposedly does a complex HVAC system service call in 10 minutes.

He claimed it and never backed it up with any explanations so........

claim in my views given any honest service tech would never have a problem with explaining his practices, procedures and justifications to anyone.

Ten minutes is what? How long it takes to finish the burger & fries, glance at the installation from the van, and fill out the invoice? (Don't smear any ketchup on that paperwork now; it's unperfeshonal. Here's a napkin).

About the time it takes to make confirmation you were there with the secretary so that if questioned about your bill later you have her as an eye witness you were there and then can justify the billing.

Although as I recall I think he mentioned he rarely talks to anyone while doing a service call so that just raises more questions about how he does things.

Pretty much why I am curious as to how exactly does he fix a customer's equipment without ever talking to anyone to find out what was wrong to begin with and how does he leave without letting anyone know you fixed something as well?

Seems even the HVAC industry knows they have way too many crooked people in their business.

yes-you-are-getting-fucked-by-your-hvac-company-1577687703

hvac-talk-Crooks-among-us

HVAC our_trade_is_crooked_sometimes

how-to-identify-7-common-hvac-scams

Very well said.

Bullshine or Buffalo chip, it all burns the same.

The both burn but the bouquet is very different.

And here we have what's left of the bungee-jumping sandman.

Can't we just get along?

How fun is that?

No. Sometimes some people just say and do things that need clarification on their part but never give it thusly placing their future credibility in such areas and beyond in a poor light.

Other times they do things that go against the established and accepted social rules of the greater group despite no real and true validity in their actions thus making themselves unworthy of being taken serious or even to be worth respecting overall.

Or if taken far enough in some limits, not wanted around in general because their actions and or views are disruptive and seen as outrightly ethically wrong by the majority who do make an effort to not act in such ways toward others of their peer group out of both professional and own personal self respect.

It took him longer to make the profiles to spin around the sand balls to form them.

How does one lift a sand ball into place without crumbs getting everywhere?

If you started with 'politically proper', you could've kept your 'p' ing uninterrupted.

Nicely done, by the way.

Stop shouting.

The article is available from SciAm for a fee (of course):

Does this count as cryogenic computing? They seem to be doing it a lot.

I'd be concerned about chilling it too fast and causing things to crack, bonding wires to break and so forth but, if you can do it, cool!

(I do think the narrator could use another beer )

He did seem to be talking with noted effects Beernemia. On the other hand, it could be the effects of Beernitis, which is inflammation of the tongue by drinking just a wee tad bit too much beer.

While this does use cryogenics in computing it is not using the Josephson Junction transistors the OP is probably questioning. Here the cryogenic fluid is just providing more cooling so the CPU's don't reduce their clocking speeds in a self protect response. The deep cold is not allowing the transistors to work faster but safely preventing them from slowing down from their best speed.

Seems to me the cooling required was large and expensive,and the intended application was to be in satellites where space is an infinite heat sink,and very little cooling is required.

I am sure this technology has been surpassed by Josephson Junctions and high temp superconductors.