YouTuber has DIMM idea, builds working DRAM in backyard

If you follow PC hardware prices, you’ll know AI demand has pushed memory prices higher as manufacturers prioritize memory for datacenters. To deal with that, you can pay through the nose, buy less memory, or ... try to build your own DRAM. Dr. Semiconductor is a YouTuber who joined the platform in February and has only …

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

It's all fun and games . . .

. . . until his nemesis Dr. Megavolt pays Dr. Semiconductor an unexpected visit!

[Jellied Eel]

University towns.

So one fine day was chatting in the pub and a friend was talking about how he'd got a dead Z80 CPU. Then decided to repair it using discrete components. Which occupied a few large PCBs, but the kind of shenanigans bored academics get up to just because they can. I think it can also be a fun way to visualise Moore's law. So Z80's weren't that complicated, but one time when I was bored, I worked out that the transistor count in the latest Intel or AMD CPUs would need a few square kilometres, if they were built from good'ol transistors-ina-can. And wouldn't work anyway given the latency.

[druck]

Re: University towns.

https://www.megaprocessor.com/

[herman]

Re: University towns.

There were processor Lego blocks called Bit-Slice, which one could use to make custom processors. At university, I built a 16 bit processor with a single instruction: XOR. It wasn't very useful...

[Jellied Eel]

Re: University towns.

There were processor Lego blocks called Bit-Slice, which one could use to make custom processors. At university, I built a 16 bit processor with a single instruction: XOR. It wasn't very useful...

I think they can be. One of my guinea pigs* is getting interested in hardware design, so I've been encouraging her with that. Current project is making a functional PIP-boy or wrist computer, with working Geiger counter, gas analyser, radio and it can play Doom. It's one of those 'kids today' not knowing how lucky they are with the availability of cheap SoCs, mini-TFT displays. Which is also where I think projects like the Megaprocessor are great for allowing visualisation of how our iGadgets work.

So last century, I had a dog-eared logic designers cookbook with example circuits to build logic components. Now, there's IC's for everything, or SoC''s include most of the I/O functions, so minimal glue needed. But will have to take them to the museum to see it next time they're over and do a trip to my old stomping grounds. This board is an 8-bit adder, multiply that by 8 and make a 64-bit version. Multiply that by a billion and shrink it down.. a lot so it'll all fit in a smart phone and Moore's Law in action.

*AKA partner's kids..

[herman]

Re: University towns.

I remember a Swiss radar set with a full adder made from thermionic valves. The poor guy who maintained that shelf, had a masters degree in swearing, due to all the shocks he got while debugging the things. As standard practice, he would solder a discharge resistor over every capacitor before he would start on it, and then he still got wallopped.

[david 12]

the self-described doctor explained

Matthew Hartensveld, PhD. The way you learn these skills is by doing a doctorate at UCSB or Rochester.

He's got a patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/DrSemiconductor/membership, so maybe earning a living in research is a tough gig.

[Snowy]

What am I doing.

Not buying anything, which about the best thing I can do to fix the problem/

[lglethal]

Has he considered applying for a grant to build his Fab. It seems like everyone else can just promise* they will build a Fab, and governments basically throw money at them. This guy has already started production so he's light years ahead of the competition!

*Verbal promises, never anything on paper which might ensure they have to follow through with said promises. Should the conditions, governments, or the weather change tomorrow, then the Fab may not be built at all, but the money will still be taken, thank you very much... What's the old saying? A Verbal contract isnt worth the paper it's written on...

[Martin Howe]

But does it run DOOM?

Good to read "you can't run DOOM in it quite yet" - the guy knows his stuff :)

[AMBxx]

Re: But does it run DOOM?

Anyone got any ideas on why someone would downvote this post?

[that one in the corner]

Re: But does it run DOOM?

The downvoter is a youngster and only knows the "Does it run Crysis?" meme; this talk of DOOM is very confusing to them.

[Snowy]

Re: But does it run DOOM?

Crysis sounds far to old maybe Cyberpunk 2077 instead?

[fedoraman]

Challenge accepted!

Right! I have a sack of tiny ferrite rings, a big spool of fine copper wire, an' me +3.00 reading glasses for the tiny work. Core memory to the rescue!!

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Challenge accepted!

A little less labour intensive: plated wire memory. Seems to have been used in space tech including the Hubble; presumably more resistant to to radiation than semiconductor memory technologies.

[Simon Harris]

Re: Challenge accepted!

"including the Hubble"

It lasted until 1999 when the 1980s designed DF-224 computer was replaced on Hubble Service Mission 3A with a 24MHz 486 based unit. The DF-224 had already been augmented with a 16MHz 386 in 1993 on Service Mission SM1.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Challenge accepted!

Probably best not to go back too much further than core: making a mercury delay line memory has some obvious issues (curiously tricky driver electronics and transducers, compared to magnetics) but also risks the Daleks stealing your fluid links.

[Bebu sa Ware]

"we're not aware of anyone else making RAM in their backyard shed"

I imagine the number of backyard clean·rooms wouldn't need more than a handful of fingers to count.

[Simon Harris]

I hope my wife doesn't see this...

She'll be asking why I don't have a backyard clean room, instead of the untidy mess that is my workshop.

[Vikingforties]

Hold On!

I think I have a bucket of mercury and some tubing knocking about....