Why The First Computers Were Made Out Of Light Bulbs

🤣🤣🤣 that's cool

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Everyone understands mechanical computers, then school skips vacuum tubes because we don't use them anymore, and jumps to digital circuits, honestly if I had this video I would prob have got digiy

@@simonhenry7867 Agreed. I know vacuum tubes was the predecessor of the transistor and functioned very similarly, but never know how it works.

If you've ever gotten into guitar amps, you'll still hear people say that tube amps sound warmer. Still plenty of people using tubes. Tubes are still often the best way to amplify very high wattage radio signals.

I think if you really want to understand something well, just start from its origin.. go to its history.

@@abhishekkushwaha3462 Truly outstanding point! Personally found this method of finding out 'how or why was this thing invented in the first place?' really great approach to learning many new topics!

I enjoyed taking the back off our television, gathering all the tubes, and going down to the drug store to test them on the tube tester ... even when the tv was working fine.

If you could repair a TV you could work for a big name company going to hospitals installing, repairing and maintaining high end medical x-ray. You were a hero and even the Doctors worshiped you. We were networking image transfers before they knew what to call it. We could do 3D imaging using analog video. You got the image in a day or two because computers were too slow. CT, computed tomography was invented by an engineer that worked at the EMI recording studios. Then the companies handed out laptops and said figure it out. Dial up. The blood ran despite how hard we tried to reprogram those folks. Now the software and every other kind of repair are two disciplines. Benjamin Franklin was your last renascence man that could know enough of everything to function in any subject. Its only going to get worse. How long before you ask your computer "Whats wrong?' A you have to decide if you can trust it. I'm hanging on by my finger nails.

@@terryscott5568A lot of fields are requiring the specialties to know so much more than ever before to function. Medicine is a field that suffers this from so much advancement. It is a blessing and a curse. To graduate medical school Doctors are required to know magnitudes more than doctors just 30 years ago due to the huge advancements in research. It is absurd really.

When you replace a vacuum tube with another of identical type (same code on label), you can be sure that the properties are the same. This is an advantage of the tubes. When you replace a transistor with another of identical type, the replacement should be first measured, if matching the properties is paramount. Also, a sound amplifier with vacuum tubes does not have that background noise notable in those using transistors, when the amplification is at maximum.

The Japanese also developed a relay computer very early on

​@@myid9876543IIRC the Japanese one is the most advanced relay computer ever produced.

But not Turing complete

The smart German guy who created Z3 was very young, a fresh graduate. He was conscripted and sent to the front line! After a few months, it was realized that he was more useful back home, as engineer, than on the front line as soldier. Fortunately, he did not die during his deployment.

@@scopestacker9787 The Z3 was not designed to be Turing complete; they didn't need it.
In 1998 it was discovered that the Z3 was actually Turing complete. As it wasn't designed to be Turing complete, coding branches is unintuitive and complicated.

You’re welcome

Eyyyy illuminating! I get the joke! HAHAHA

What would also be illuminating is if you explain the quantum physics of transistors and maybe even laser keyboards!

I, personally think, a better origin of computer and automation can be found in Looms, specially Jaquered looms. And I'll also advise u to not take Veritassium seriously. I mean not even as a good entertainment.

@@frostfamily5321 It doesn't take quantum physics to explain the operation of a transistor. Someone well-versed in quantum physics might have something to add to the conversation, but the operation is currently well understood.

same!! i'm in my late 30s here and the first time i read about it was in david macauley's 'the way things work' - a book i got as a christmas gift when i was probably 8 or 9. i found the description of this early computer extremely fascinating.

The computer saga

I can barely understand the logic behind it all and *_I still_* find it interesting -until thinking about it gets too hard and something else grabs my attention.-

Its even cooler trying to replicate it, like Usagi did.

the progress just keeps going... the transistor and then the programming of the computers is probably our greatest achievement as a species. we are still in the phase of implementing this invention, we haven't seen "anything" yet. :)

Nice

Nice

Nice

Nice

Nice

OK tHERE Mr critique

@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ Bad bot...

@Repent and believe in Jesus Christ goku solos

Speaking of, let me know if that water drop bit IS in fact morse code, or am I loosing my mind.

5

Same 😅

Thats the power of communication

Don't read my name!...

@@Dont_Read_My_Picture 100 years of progress and we end up with *this*

It's comforting to know that for 99% of the problems humanity faces today, an amelioration or even a straight fix is due in the next century. Really makes you optimistic for the future.
Do not quote me on that number ;)

Every. Single. Time.

You’re welcome

​@@justingolden21 Oh hey! Its moist critical

.org!

Ikr

It was programmable.

@@PaulLemars01 It was a special-purpose machine built to do one job and one job only.

Im very glad someone has mentioned colossus as i feel alot of history is "america washed" which is quite upsetting to see.

Atanasoff-Berry computer out-dates them both

@@gustcles22 Thanks for drawing my attention to this, I'd not hears of it before.

Yes! Please a video on WWII codebreaking and how it led to the invention of the computer!

Up

Please, would love to see that!

Colossus could only perform one task. It was not a general purpose programmable computer. The Brits certainly understood the theory of computers. They were just too bloody poor to actually build one. Which is why the Americans were first.

Colossus certainly predated ENIAC as a vacuum-tube computer, but was a single purpose (decoding German Lorenz cipher) and not otherwise comparable.

the pizza thing was a mod called web displays. you cant connect to the internet using minecraft redstone

@@TheOriginalMacOS I’m aware they can’t connect directly to the internet through in-game stuff alone, but they still had to build the thing in the game to interface with it.

@@CrippledMerc it was just a portal frame thing, it was just like lighting a nether portal, the mod was what did the web browser

@@TheOriginalMacOS Pretty sure in the video I saw years ago they built a computer in game that used the mod to show the web browser and connect to the internet.

😮🤯😳

I think it’s interesting to realize that Tesla‘s invention of the radio would end up relying on an invention of Edison’s, the lightbulb, and a discovery by Edison that he only discovered because of his refusal to use Tesla’s AC, which led to first being used as a device to convert AC to DC, Lol, and then to create another device to amplify radio transmissions and then used to receive and play radio transmissions on a radios speaker.

@@jaredf6205if those two had gotten along we might not have gotten as far. Ironically the competition of one upping each other’s inventions was the driving force for advancement.
Like most things competition is good for advancement.

We found the way to connect the seemingly irrelevant pieces of the puzzle.

I came here to say this. I knew about vacuum tubes and I knew they were rudimentary BJTs. But it was awesome learning the history and the details.

i know about them and have even "messed around" with them, because i work with audio/music related stuff. The audio and music industry still uses them, they can produce the same quality of audio than a transistor based system, and they have a very "unique" kind of touch added to the sound. its usually described as a warm super subtle distortion in audio that's very pleasant, and its imposible to emulate trough digital stuff. even music from your phone going trough an vacuum tube desk amplifier will sound very crispy in the most pleasant way there could be.
i know it sounds exaggerated, but if you got good ears and know what you're hearing, you'll see that it's different.

Then you must have been born yesterday or missed a lot😂

@@bzuidgeest well sir not everyone is a nerd like us.

@@zefellowbud5970 come on, basic schoolbooks provide the same explanation. Maybe American schoolbooks are suffering from all the book banning. Turing was gay, so maybe he is forbidden as, to woke 🤣

@bzuidgeest I think you hit the nail on the head. The American public education system keeps going further and further downhill. I’m a proud American, but even I know that our country is doomed if something doesn’t change soon.

​@@bzuidgeest ​ If you didn't know American School Systems were bad you must've born yesterday 😂😂

Don't read my name!...

I've waited for the moment that this fact gets dropped in this video! Thx for mentioning :D

Nope. That's most likely myth. Research it!
The name was probably around earlier. But the moth incident is most likely real.

It was grace gopper, and coined this malfunction as bug

The term was around before computers were a thing. It had to do with buzzing interference noises on phone lines which sounded like buzzing insects. Debugging referred to fixing the interference.

A little odd that they didn't teach you this in computer science

@@thespacejedi eh, I think they just teach it to electrical engineers probably. They probably want more Software Engineers than Computer Scientists, so things like understanding the nitty gritty gets tossed aside (or I just haven't taken the relevant course. There is a course called digital circuits that I think I'm supposed to take.)

@@kintamas4425 Well, I _did_ take Digital Circuits (back in 1987), and we didn't learn about vacuum tubes (though we learned about transistors).

@@jpisello oh transistors are covered? That’s good. I’ve been trying to learn about them/read up on them, and it’s been slow going. The only thing I know so far is that there are numerous kinds of transistors. So far, my understanding is that for turning off a transistor maybe the middle portion of the transistor gets a counterbalance of voltage to make it so that no difference of voltage exists for a current to run across the transistor. Is this the case? That would mean keeping a transistor off would actually cost energy.
Do transistors have a capacitor be the key to whether they’re switched on or off? To switch them off the part behind the dielectric (of air or maybe silicon) would be made into whatever charge so that no difference of voltage exists for a current to flow across. And when they want it to turn on then they make a difference appear by change the charge.

I felt exacly the same way

ur so lucky

U still have that calculator?

@@miyamoto900 Heavens no. To start with, it was always property of the university.

@@Pamudder can we steal it ? What would it take ? Please make a plan and inform me at earliest.
Yours truly,
Miyamoto.

@@miyamoto900 I have a tesla model 3. I'll drive getaway, deal?

In those days hardware stores sold replacement tubes, and they would have a "self service tube tester." (I'll pause while you do an image search…) You would yank all the tubes out of your broken radio or TV, bring them into the store, test them, and of course, replace any the machine told you was "bad."

And people today complain that modern microprocessor-controlled electronics are unreliable.....🙄

@@raffriff42 I recall a hardware store that had one of these giant testers in the hallway of the mall it was located in up to the early to mid 80s. I can't say I ever saw anyone use it back then of course, as nobody used vacuum tube TVs by then. But the device sat their in disuse for quite a while.

Back in the day before things were made intentionally difficult or impossible to replace or fix. Nowadays, if something goes wrong in your TV even finding a repairman would be difficult. Most people just get a new TV.

This story becomes a fanciful "grandpa tale" if Right to Repair fails =(

without a doubt

@@JokeswithMitochondria funny username lol

@@JokeswithMitochondria ur username actually made me click on ur profile. Love ur content hahaha. Funny stuff

wrr

Don't read my name!...

That's true, but I note he carefully said "programmable" computer. Colossus wasn't programmable.
However, Colossus would have been worth a mention, simply because it was that endeavour that worked out how to reliably use thousands of valves in a single machine (i.e. never turn it off). I don't know if Eniac benefited from this or whether they had to work it out for themselves.
Arguably, demonstrating that electronics could be reliable enough for practical use was as important as being the first electronic computer. Had it been built and been impractical because tubes kept blowing, maybe no one would have bothered to build another.
What Colossus was was fast. When the designs finally became public, sometime in the late 1990s I think, the first thing someone did was write a piece of software for a PC to emulate it. I can remember reading that it ran not significantly faster than a real Colossus, even though a mid-1990s PC had 50 years of computation development in its favour.

It was kept secret until the 1970s though, so it didn't have as much of an impact on the development of computers as ENIAC

And before both was the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (or the ABC for short) built over at Iowa Stat University.

@@abarratt8869 Colossus is regarded as the world's first PROGRAMMABLE, electronic, digital computer, it was programmed by switches and plugs

Your mother was a mechanical adding machine ?

@unnamedchannel1237 I suppose that is a _possible_ interpretation of my statement. Another slightly more _plausible_ interpretation is that she was the *operator* of a mechanical adding machine.

I was also born in 1968. Specifically November 17. My dad first bought our (my) first computer on my 13th birthday. AI will be for STEM geeks in 2023 what BASIC was to computer geeks in 1981.

My mom's best friend was also a Comptometer operator for Bacardi. That helped them get hotel rooms in Puerto Rico when others were turned away!

​@@unnamedchannel1237Yeah. My mother was in fact an actual mechanic adding machine, always busy with spending and budgets or something. My father called her "cranky" sometimes..

well you tried and you failed

@@lavishlavon Bro got three out of 4 operations working. I won't assume, but I'm betting more than you could do as a highschooler.

my grandpa called them "confusers"

@@realtechhacks and whose fault is that? 3 out of 4..the guy failed and he failed hard. nothing to go bragging about

​@@lavishlavon Lmao what??

Amen yess a three hour movies would maybe be enough it really was great.

Hmm...I felt he rambled on too much already

The title made me think that the light bulb had some relavance in todays world apart from the historical progression thing.
Does anyone know where this technology is still current?😁
Apologies if I missed something, I promise I watched the whole thing.

@@captainoates7236 based on the video, he spent a lot of it showing how the light bulb was one of the milestone inventions along the path toward computers. He didn't show a lot of other ways it's used which is a shame because he could pick any other invention along the chain and do the same thing as this video and have the same basis to call that thing the greatest invention.

Ikr

I remember my old professor teaching me the differences in semiconductor transistors... I never fell more in love with the MOSFET and its design although delicate in nature.

What’s your major?

Setting aside your grammar (unless English is not your first language?), I agree: I, too, am enthusiastically looking forward to the follow-up video that, hopefully, will feature Derek explaining solid-state electronics in a similar manner!

i only read till the first 5 words

I too would like to see a similar video on transistors. I have never quite understood how the small current at the junction can effectively amplify the current passing through the transistor. Really enjoyed this video. I went into electronics in 1974 via the United States Air Force. This was about the beginning of the end of vacuum tube usage. Still, in some cases it was still more cost effective to maintain old equipment and perform preventive maintenance on it than to buy new. I had a piece of equipment made in 1940 that was still there when I left in 1982😊
The transition from vacuum tubes to transistors necessitated a career change for some TV repairman because some could not quite figure out how to troubleshoot transistors. I was always proud of my uncle Dave. He grew up during the depression, and with a High School education taught himself enough electronics to start a radio and TV repair shop on the side. He kept on going even with the change. I talked to him about transistors. He said it was a bit difficult at first, but he was determined to understand them. He was one of people other repairmen in the area called when they needed help with a particularly difficult problem.

They have all certainly hastened the end of our trajectory on this planet. It is interssting you left out the internal combustion engine.

About 10 sextillion transistors have been made since they were invented in 1947.

Don't forget the disco ball

Discrete transistors have nothing on integrated circuits.

I would probably add internal combustion and agriculture (I’m not 100% certain here, but I believe it was the advent of crop rotation that first enabled long-term/perpetual human settlement), but yeah, you’re definitely not wrong!

Although Colossus was the first programmable electronic machine that was called a "computer" at the time, I don't think it was a computer in the sense that we use the word "computer" today, since it wasn't general purpose, and wasn't a stored-program machine. That said I don't think ENIAC was a computer in the sense we use the word today either, as although it was general purpose, it wasn't a stored-program machine either. I think the first computer, in the modern sense of the word, was the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), also known as the Manchester Baby.

I guess it depends on which history books you read. Furthermore, the existence of Colossous was keot secret until the mid 1970s and it wasn't really public knowledge until the early 1980s. Therefore, the history books would not have known to mention Colossus when considering ENIAC as the first computer.

@@jamesc3505 Made by one of the few who knew about Colossus, and who was able to take what he knew of Colossus with him.

And again nowbody thinks about the Zuse Z3 wich could also be arguably the first Computer.
Yes it wasn't natuarly Turing compleet, but could bei withe trixe. And it was a lot more programebel (you didn't need to rewire it for evry programm).
Manny germans would say the Z3 was the first Computer and mit the ENIAC.

Thankyou Americans are always trying to re write history and say they invented the computer. Colossus was built by Alan Turing also of Turing test fame. It was built to crack enigma which it did amazingly well, another thing Americans like to claim they did. They only got away with it because it was classified.

Lets say im Timetraveler: How do i BEST explain the Ancient-People (lets say Medival Times) the Concept? Not the Details, but the Concept

The absolute best way to understand some technology is to build yourself a rudimentary version to play and tinker with if such a thing is plausible.

While it is not strictly necessary, I agree that it is a very good way to gain a solid understanding.

Brilliant fuckers ...
Help me, i need money NOW !

I wish you understand how stupid that sound

@@whatshumor7639 If you're referring to the fact that I use capital letters for emphasis instead of italics, it's because KRplus doesn't enable italics if you enter directly. Not all of us are willing to go to a third party app or learn some kind of obscure tag in order to make italics. In this case, I did go to a third party app and type with italics, but when I pasted it into KRplus, the italics were gone. Kudos for you for figuring out how to do italics. That definitely makes you superior to the rest of us.

Given the circumstances, we should be happy that Kevin is even able to use KRplus!

​​​​​​​​​​​​​@@pickleballer1729 Use underlines, (_):
_Hello World!_
Do not put characters before/after the symbols, it will break the effect:
._Hello_
Also works in WhatsApp and similar chatting applications.
For bold, use (*):
*Hello World!*
Strikethrough (-):
-Hello!-

Guitar amplifiers use vacuum tubes today.

@@RideAcrossTheRiver Only some of them. Others are solid state, including the one I have.

@@Sepherisal The current Fender 'Custom' models are all-tube. Superb amps.

Same here , but I don't have any degrees.

Yeah, first it was "oh that's like a diode" and then "oh just like a transistor" 😅

That's kind of troubling.

@@AndreWolski Actually at first it was a diode, and then it became a transistor...

@@AndreWolski more like P-N junction is what you knew, now you learned it replaced cathode ray to anode.

A great video, and yes Matthew Connolly... guitar amps!!! a fantastic use for tubes that continues to be used today to make the best sounding amps.

Nice

Came here to post the same thing!

It was so much fun hanging out with Derek!

@@UsagiElectric Wow it's him

Gunpowder is not a good invention.

Personally I think it was one of the most destructive inventions. Humans were wholesale happier, healthier, and more connected before the invention of the computer which led to the internet which led to social media which led to destruction of real connection and localized groups and culture and the creation of photoshop, fake faces and bodies, and tons of misinformation which all together in turn led to fatter and unhealthier humans who are less connected, less motivated (due to dopamine overdrive), and far far far more depressed and anxious. Correlation does not equal causation but with the obvious connections and cause/effect groupings I see I believe it is completely to blame for being the majority of the causation of each of those three main detriments to humanity/society along with tons of other detriments and while being the cause of TONS of good I still think humanity would be better off with a FAR slower progression in computing power so we had time to adapt and see the negatives thus setting up defense mechanisms for everyone especially Thresh defenseless like kids who have been ravaged by dopamine overdrive and the many negatives of social media.

​@@ClipsCrazy__ I think you're romanticizing the past. Before computers, we had everything from witch hunts to nazism, racial segregation, oppression of women, slavery, torture and public executions. I think the present, even with all its flaws, is the best time for humanity overall. Computers have allowed countless advances in fields like medicine, and brought the world closer together with essentially free, instant global communications. It's not perfect (we're human, after all) but we're doing pretty well, compared to centuries past. I'd say it supports my point that your biggest worry seems to be social media.

@@ironcito1101 na I’m just referencing data. All that horrible stuff “before phones and computers” actually proves my point even more. Humans are more depressed now than EVER before. More depressed even though things are “better” than they’ve ever been in endless different ways.

@@ironcito1101 social media is definitely the worst thing to come from this advancement so far but again we’re still hurling ahead in record time and AI is the next thing in the horizon. Social media causing political polarization and/or deep fakes representing a political party/leader could literally be the start of the next civil/world war which would create a world that with no doubt would’ve been better without computers but I’d argue we’re already in one that would benefit greatly from the throttling of computer advancements by 1/4 to 1/10 15 years ago.

this also makes light of the lightbulb, it was a key invention to enable the modern world, it'd be great to see a long form video, say 2 hours, covering key technologies from history, starting from speech/writing/fire via maths, zero, metalworking, into some modern ones. Maybe making it a series would be better

Up vote

Yes

UP vote

It is a quite literal grid haha

Haven't watched the vid yet, but they are often literally a mesh/grid. Sometimes they consist just of a loop of wire, but usually it's a screen mesh/grid.

@@sophiophile When i asked my professor why, he said it's a mix of practical and historical reasons. Now i know why.

Agree, the video would have benefited from a broader view rather than American -only.

even the z1 was years ahead of the model k or 1 and it were released in 1938 one year after the model k. the Z3 was as much as i knew the first of its kind with a Ram.

Excluding the history, this was basically the first month of my intro to electrical engineering class. Not sure how much this would be needed for general education

Semi-conductor transistors are trillion times better, there is absolutely no reason to teach any of this stuff outside of historical interest

How did the software used for CMOS design transition during your career? Nowadays mainly Cadence EDA and then Synopsis custom compiler, Tanner EDA, etc are used industrially. Back then what was used?

​@@Songfugel Vacuum tubes are still used in audio amplification and microwave ovens.

@@Songfugel the history illustrates the law of unintended consrquences. The greatest advance in human history began with a simulated candleflame that utilized electricity. People back then could not imagine smart phones or flatscreen TVs, or almost any of the things that these rudimentary devices would lead to. It makes me wonder what the next great advance will be, and what accidents will lead up to it, and how long until that happens? There are no answers to these questions of course, until it happens. But this history is real and we are all living the results of it, every day and in every way..

Same, I did NOT expect this collab! This is great!

When I was a kid I read about the world's fastest computer in the Guinness Book of World Records. The Cray-2. I wanted to have one when I grew up. No idea what I was going to use it for, but, you know, computers were exciting, right?
Welp, IIRC the iPad 2 has about the same processing power as a Cray-2 supercomputer, so ... *lots* of people got my childhood wish.

@@eritain That is insane

​@@taiguy53 Just checked the processor in my lil' Chromebook from 2017 that I take with me everywhere. With the throttles wide open it is 10 Cray-2s of CPU and 60 Cray-2s of integrated GPU, at a power drain of 6 watts.

@@eritain Just wait til you see quantum computing. It's exponentially more powerful than the tech currently out in the market

​@@taiguy53 Not exactly true. Quantum computing has fairly specific use cases, and limited number of real world applications. They also require incredibly low temperatures to work. It's therefore unlikely to ever replace conventional computers. You won't be playing games, typing emails or browsing the Web on a quantum computer.

they are related because they are things

I’ve seen a reconstruction of the UK machine, which was known as Colossus, at the National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park. Astonishing stuff!

The first version of ENIAC was not a general purpose computer. It was specifically built to compute ballistic tables. In 1946, John von Neumann proposed a modification of ENIAC that repurposed the memory for storing tables of values for various functions (like the trigonometric functions) to store a small program. This modification of ENIAC (completed in 1947 iirc) was an intermediate step toward a proper stored-program computer, the EDVAC (completed in 1949). Another interesting thing about the second version of ENIAC is that it had the first Turing complete instruction set (also proposed by von Neumann).

Collossus was made to decrypt Lorentz Cyphers, not Enigma. They used an electro-mechanical machine called a Bombe to decrypt Enigma. The Poles had not broken Enigma, they had captured an intact machine, which they eventually gave to Britain (after the Brits and the Yanks had initially turned it down I believe).
Collossus was the worlds first Electronic Programmable Computer, but that fact was kept very secret until the mid 1970's, which is why it was widely believed that Eniac was the 1st.

​@@Algernon1970 Thanks for this. I couldn't remember the name, and am a bit annoyed that it wasn't mentioned in the vid. Then again, not surprised; this channel has become the early 2000s version of Discovery Channel. Some interesting content, but rarely much below the surface.

@@Algernon1970 One minor point. The Poles did crack enigma. They had a captured (thanks to French intelligence), reverse engineered and were able to produce replicas of the first commercial version of Enigma, and in doing so they had learned how to crack the Enigma code mathematically of those first machines. The Germans then later added more security features to subsequent versions and better information security practices, meaning that cracking enigma by hand became an ever intensive and impractical task. However, the Poles shared the replicas, plans and means of cracking the early models with the Brits, significantly reducing the time they needed to get a more industrialised industrial code breaking operation set up.

It wasn't universal ... it wasn't needed so Conrad Zuse didn't bother ...

@@davidioanhedgesI could be wrong, but I think I remember from a school work I did about Zuse that there actually was a trick to make the Z3 universal (wasn't known at the time though).

It's great how he didn't even care to mention Zuse in an 18 minute video about the history of computers.

Further evidence that it doesn't matter who gets there first ... just who markets the accomplishment better. (c.f., Rolex)

The Zuse was very much erased from history, as it was a german development. History is usually written by the victors.

No surprise there, typical American with an American version of history

@@bzuidgeest I thought Derek was born in / retains Australian citizenship!?