Also loved this:
https://technicshistory.com/2024/11/03/a-craving-for-calcula...
very nice.
> As the number of components in circuits grew, the number of manufacturing steps also grew, and manufacturing error rates multiplied—a device with one thousand components, each of which a skilled worker could connect with 99.9% reliability, had a 63% chance of having at least one defective connection. The search for an end to this “tyranny of numbers” drove many research projects in the late 1950s, most of them funded by the various arms of the United States military, all of whom foresaw an unending appetite for ever-more-sophisticated electronics to control their weaponry and defense systems. The military-funded projects included “micro-modules” (individual components that would snap together like tinkertoys), “microcircuits” (wires and passive components etched onto a ceramic substrate into which active components, like transistors, could be connected), and “molecular electronics” (nanotechnology avant la lettre).[3]
“microcircuits” (wires and passive components etched onto a ceramic substrate into which active components, like transistors, could be connected)
That eventually became a common construction technique for automotive electronics:
May also be of interest on this topic:
https://thechipletter.substack.com/p/tiny-computers-from-tex...
What happened to the comments about the above link? They were there a few hours ago ?
The comment is flagged and dead. You can see the comment tree if you go to your profile and turn on showed.
The very first computers also essentially started as programmable calculators.