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Nitpick 1 -- doesn't matter | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Nitpick 1 -- doesn't matter
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 12:09 AM EDT
That's true for bipolar transistors, but not true for FETs, FETs can be made to
have very low impedance when switched on, and very high impedance when off (in
fact they can have higher impedance when off than "real" switches
which also have noticeable leakage paths).

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nitpick 1 -- doesn't matter much
Authored by: stegu on Friday, July 20 2012 @ 04:09 AM EDT
I was not saying it invalidates the points made.
Far from it. I couldn't agree more with the article.
I was just saying that it is a stretch to say that
"DRAM cells are not like switches". They are, in
fact, very much like switches. MOS transistors are
often used as electronic switches for analog
circuits, and they are very good at emulating a
mechanical switch, or rather an old-fashioned
electromagnetic relay.

Your argument, that placing the switches was the
design of the machine, not operating them to set
them in a specific pattern, is much more effective in
killing off the silly argument that "throwing a few
switches makes a new machine". We should focus on
that instead of splitting hairs over whether the
description of a computer as "a myriad of tiny
switches" is appropriate or not. (It is not accurate,
but it is not entirely untrue in the literal sense,
and it could at least be argued that it is a valid
but unsatisfactory birds-eye description.)

But let me say this: thanks for an excellent
article, PolR! I may have far too many geek points
in this particular area (computer architecture),
but I am just trying to help make it even better.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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