Tech On My Mind

Hi there! Thank you for coming to another edition of Cowboy Computer Repair Weekly! As mentioned in a previous blog post, I decided to take a more targeted approach to my blog and make an effort to cater more towards technology as a subject for these Thursday posts. Though in an effort to not give my dear readers (That’s you!) some form of whiplash, I will try to ease in to it instead of jumping head first. So stay a while, while I give you a soft lesson on computers and why bigger does not always mean better.

In the year 1982, a man named Feng-hsiung Hsu came up with the crazy idea of redesign chess computers on the whole. At that time, the very best in chess computers were designed to run their calculations on no less than 64 chips as part of a “chipset”. Hsu’s idea on the other hand, involved removing 63 of those chips from the equation and using just one chip for all the moves chess has to offer. Through the following years of trial, error, development and progress, Hsu would go on to prove that chess computers do indeed run better with less fluff (i.e the 63 other chips.)

So how does this apply to computers on the whole?

Simple, if it can calculate chess, a computer can be made to calculate all different kinds of simulations. While this fact was already known as of 1982, what was not widely known was that sometimes less sometimes does equal more in the world of computers. This is due in part because of the physical size of the chips in question. While yes in the previous example given it showed that more chips can lead to an inefficient method of calculating things, what with each chip needing to sign off on every calculation, the physical size of the chip can also contribute to how fast a calculation is made. In other words, the smaller the chip, the shorter distance the signal inside needs to travel, thus less time between point A and B and therefor more “powerful“.

This may be the very reason you’ve seen computers getting smaller and smaller over the years. Somewhat recently, the latest iPhone 15 released feature a chip in the 3 nanometer range. And thanks to machines making machines, we have managed to make smaller and more powerful chips faster and faster than before. Sadly we are reaching the upper limit on just how small we can actually make the chips, though that is a topic for another day. Seeing as this isn’t advice at all and simply a small tidbit of knowledge, I am going to try out a different sign-off for blog posts of this nature. Here goes nothing.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this knowledge helps you through your day to day.