Why The First Computers Were Made Out Of Light Bulbs
Lightbulbs might be the best idea ever - just not for light. Head to brilliant.org/veritasium to start your free 30-day trial, and the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
A huge thanks to David Lovett for showing me his awesome relay and vacuum tube based computers. Check out his KZhead channel @UsagiElectric
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References:
Herring, C., & Nichols, M. H. (1949). Thermionic emission. Reviews of modern physics, 21(2), 185. - ve42.co/Herring1949
Goldstine, H. H., & Goldstine, A. (1946). The electronic numerical integrator and computer (eniac). Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, 2(15), 97-110. - ve42.co/ENIAC
Shannon, C. E. (1938). A symbolic analysis of relay and switching circuits. Electrical Engineering, 57(12), 713-723. - ve42.co/Shannon38
Boole, G. (1847). The mathematical analysis of logic. Philosophical Library. - ve42.co/Boole1847
The world’s first general purpose computer turns 75 - ve42.co/ENIAC2
Dylla, H. F., & Corneliussen, S. T. (2005). John Ambrose Fleming and the beginning of electronics. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A: Vacuum, Surfaces, and Films, 23(4), 1244-1251. - ve42.co/Dylla2005
Stibitz, G. R. (1980). Early computers. In A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century (pp. 479-483). Academic Press.
ENIAC’s Hydrogen Bomb Calculations - ve42.co/ENIAC3
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Written by Petr Lebedev, Derek Muller and Kovi Rose
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Animated by Mike Radjabov, Ivy Tello and Fabio Albertelli
Filmed by Derek Muller & Raquel Nuno
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images & Pond5
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, & Emily Zhang
Thumbnail by Ignat Berbeci
Light bulbs were such a good idea, they became the symbol for good ideas
🤣🤣🤣 that's cool
Galaxy brain comment
here before 10k likes
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I've lived my whole life hearing about vacuum tubes and never really knowing how they work. This was an amazing presentation connecting lightbulbs to transistors. I'm stunned.
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 was a kid when solid-state electronics were replacing vacuum tubes in consumer products. I remember that radio and TV repair was a widespread cottage industry. The best in that field were able to adapt and stay afloat, until the advent of integrated circuits.Great video 👍👍
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.
As someone who programs, the title made absolute sense to me, as anyone who codes knows you almost never know what actually is going wrong when something does, so writing code that gives you cues of at which point the code breaks, in a more analog design, using lightbulbs as status indicators makes a lot of sense
As a Computer Engineer, I would like to thank you for illuminating the origins of my profession. This was an exceptional, historical documentary.
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.
I have to give mad props to your editor/animator(s). They do such a tremendous job distilling your scripts into visual language even though we all know none of this is actually classical mechanics at its roots. The classicality of it is emergent and the art style helps with that even though it is not explicitly said.
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
The Z3 was a German electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse in 1938, and completed in 1941. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. The Z3 was built with 2,600 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5-10 Hz.
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.
Dude, I’ve watched so many of your videos, and you are one of my absolute favorite channels on KZhead. Your team does such an amazing job between research, writing, producing, editing, etc… Veritasium makes GREAT content! Please keep doing what you’re doing! Thanks!
Nice
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Seeing the progress of computers laid out in a timeline is one of the most fascinating things to me. I've probably seen/ read the story about a dozen times and it's still interesting
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. :)
My mind is constantly blown how far humans have come in the last 100 years. Edit: Great to see awesome comments here. The goal is to become a peaceful species to explore the cosmos. Let's overcome the great filter!
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 ;)
I'm disappointed that you made no mention of Colossus. It may not have been a programmable computer, but it was an electronic logic machine that used thousands of vacuum tubes to statistically analyse encrypted teleprinter messages at a very high speed. It came into service a whole year before Eniac and it made a very significant contribution to the success of the invasion of occupied France in June 1944.
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.
always found early breadboards extremely fascinating. as someone who repairs electrical devices daily, and is used to circuit boards, i really appreciate all the work that went into old circuitry with vacuum tubes, and electromechanical engineering, the best days are the days i get a old appliance from before i was even thought of.
I have never seen the development of computers explained this fundamentally before. Thank you.
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 😂😂
this has to be one of the most underrated videos on YT....amazing when you think about it! YT and entirety of modern life inc. social media would not be possible without it!
Mad props to Veritassium for explaining such a complex subject in such a simplified manner. Brilliant!
Every. Single. Time.
You’re welcome
@@justingolden21 Oh hey! Its moist critical
.org!
Ikr
As a electronics student I knew what vacuum tubes are but finding out the history behind them was super interesting.
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.
I don't know how I took so long to find this channel, but this is definitely worthy of my time. Thanks for breaking these things down into a simple but fun way.
Very well done. As someone totally interested in vacuum tubes, radios and computers, you linked it all together in a way that my family can understand. I look forward to the next part, where you connect it to semiconductors and transistors (fingers crossed)!
The memories: In high school 4 of us tried to build a "computer" with pinball game relays. Load &slow. We got it to add, subtract, & multiply. We graduated before getting it to divide. Later as a college instructor, I built a spreadsheet to demonstrate how computers calculated. It still amazes me how computers can do anything with such a limited number of basic tricks. My head is hurting again!
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??
As someone who works for a commercial and industrial lighting agency, I love this. Such a great history lesson. This is the kind of Veritasium video I love to see!
without a doubt
@@JokeswithMitochondria funny username lol
@@JokeswithMitochondria ur username actually made me click on ur profile. Love ur content hahaha. Funny stuff
wrr
My father had an electronic shop back in the '70s and I would assist him in going to houses and doing in home television repairs. We had a tube tester that allowed you to put in the tube number and it would tell you if it was good or bad. We also had a television picture to rejuvenator which he did the picture to filaments up burning off any buildup. It always amazes me the amount of heat that came off these things. You didn't awesome job of presenting this by the way!
I have never seen such a simple and clear description of the inner workings of a tube.
As a guy who majored in computer science, I gotta say this is one of the coolest videos I've seen in the KZhead science community in a while. I never made the connection between lightbulbs and the invention of vacuum tube based machines. Thank you Derek for putting together this amazing narrative for the fundamental turning point of electronic computer history!
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
I was born in 1968. My mother was a Comptometer operator ( a mechanical adding machine), and my father was mad about electronics. I grew up surrounded by vacuum tubes, but I don't think I really understood them until watching this video! Thank you for your amazing content.
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..
As a computer nerd, this video is fascinating and beautiful. I love how I could see the connection from a light bulb to a primative version of binary code with how numbers where calculated and displayed through boolean logic
I've seen videos about vacuum tubes before but the story at the beginning of this video got it so intuitively!!
My father was a professor at Cornell University, and I have some memories from the early era of computers. My father acquired for his office in about 1960 a purely mechanical calculator made by Friden that could add, subtract, multiply, divide, and, COMPUTE A SQUARE ROOT. It was about twice the size of an electric typewriter, very noisy in operation, and cost the then-huge sum of $1300. I also remember being taken in about 1958, as a very small child, to see Cornell's first electronic computer, running on banks of vacuum tubes and pretty much filling a former engineering school machine shop,
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?
When I was a kid in the early 1970's, our Zenith TV had a LOT of vacuum tubes in it. We even had a monthly (I think) visit from a technician who would check the condition of each of the vacuum tubes and replace the ones that were failing. I was very young and dumb and assumed that he was putting new television programs in the TV for us. I held this belief until I saw "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (the one with Gene Wilder in the title role). That movie had a scene that explained how TV programs got to your TV and Wonka's invention of sending chocolate bars via a similar technology.
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 =(
Most Excellent Vid, concise and very informative. Born in 1963 I grew up when vacuum tubes were still in use (but then again, so were silk top hats) and witnessed the transistor age come into being. This vid helped me to understand WHY. Many, many thanks! Well done!
Huge Respect for those who involved in to this project
I visited a Dew Line radar base just after they had switched from vacuum tube computers to new computers for the time (1980). They took us (Air Cadets) into a gymnasium size room filled with tight pack rows of vacuum tubes reaching to the ceiling. After they took us into another room and showed us this small refrigerator size box and told us that it did the same job as the gymnasium size computer. It was an amazing vision of the future of computer miniaturization.
I look forward to the next video in this evolution, because after this comes the transistor. I think it could be argued that the biggest milestones in human history are the mastery of fire, the printing press, the discovery of penicillin, and the invention of the transistor. There are literally billions of transistors used in our everyday life, yet very few are aware of how much they have changed the world.
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!
This makes me think about the people who built calculators and computers in Minecraft using the in-game “electricity” system called Redstone. It started as just making switches that could automatically open doors when you hit a button or stepped on a pressure plate to trigger it, but it eventually grew into more and more complicated electric systems until people eventually built calculators and even computers in the game. I remember seeing a video where someone built a computer in Minecraft that was running Minecraft itself in a scaled down version, on a screen made of Minecraft blocks. Someone even built a computer that was able to connect to the internet and they were able to order a pizza through the game that then was delivered to their house. I’m sure by now people have built huge and even more complex computing systems in the game and I have no idea what their capabilities even are at this point.
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.
😮🤯😳
Some of the videos of this channel are absolute gold mine for science students and/or enthusiasts.
I've been following this channel's videos on vaccuum-tube computers for a while now, it's really awesome to see this video!
This is one of your videos that could have been 2 hours and it wouldn’t have felt long enough! This was amazing! Thank you so much.
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
One thing I really appreciate about Veritasium is how it explores the history of science; highlighting the people who made these discoveries. It's a great reminder that our modern world didn't just randomly pop into existence one day.
As a 3rd year Electrical Electronics Engineering student, I can say that this video is by far the best video that made me finally understand all these theoretical concepts we took in our lessons, you are a true genius
Out of all the channels and videos to understand this topic, only here I was able to come to a conclusion. Well done!
Hi Derek, I'm a semiconductor Electrical Engineer. I also look forward to your silicon video(s). I have often imagined how to animate a Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). The electron would be a circle of one color, the hole a different color. During recombination, the colors disappear into the background. I'm sure you will explain what took me some time to learn. The reason the charge carriers get through the base into the collector is diffusion! The importance of emitter injection efficiency might be out of scope. Another in the series might show how the photo-voltaic diode works, the light making electron-hole pairs (EHP)s, and that makes power how?
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.
Interesting trivia: The first "computer bug" was a literal moth stuck in a relay in one of these relay calculators!
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.
Wow. This was one of the best videos I have ever watched. A great introduction into how we got from the light bulb to the first vacuum tube based computers. I really light the little vignette about the discoloration of the first light bulbs and why it got discolored on one side. I am now a subscriber to Veritasium
For the record I have worked in IT for over 30 years and this is the first explanation of how we got from light bulbs to circuits that actually made sense. Showing the model K went a long way to understanding it.
Colossus was a set of vacuum tubes based computers developed by British codebreakers in the years 1943-1945 BEFORE ENIAC. Colossus is regarded as the world's first PROGRAMMABLE, electronic, digital computer, it was programmed by switches and plugs
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
I firmly believe that the best way to truly understand something is to learn its history because that helps us understand it’s evolution and the reasons for why things are the way they are. And I always love the way you take this approach in most of your videos and the bravery with which you approach and easily explain such complex topics. Thanks again Derek and team!
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.
What an amaizing compilation of computing history! I will love to see something more about analog computing. Thank you so much.
As an electrical engineer I love these videos. And this video explained early versions of processors or calculators so well and interesting. I can’t wait for the video on the modern silicon electronics that I work with and have become so hard to learn.
Over the years I've designed circuits with vacuum tubes, transistors and integrated circuits. It's incredible how rapidly technology has evolved.
The first electronic programable computer was COLOSSUS built by the British code breakers at Bletchley Park in 1943 to decipher the German Lorenz cypher. However as the project was classified, the existence of COLOSSUS was kept secret until the 1970’s.
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.
I loved this video. I didn't know half of what you taught about the history of the triode. My one complaint is that the British Colossus Mark I predated ENIAC by 2 years, though it was kept classified for another 50+ so it isn't as widely known. Would love to see a video from you about Enigma, Colossus, and all the math and science that went into WWII codebreaking.
Yes! Please a video on WWII codebreaking and how it led to the invention of the computer!
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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 worlds first digital programmable computer was Colossus, not Eniac.
I have an Associate degree in Electronics Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering, and this is the video that finally made me understand how vacuum tubes work...
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.
03:18 THE FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER!!!
so cool to watch. First time I understood where vacuum tubes came from, what they did, and why they became obsolete. Thanks
Absolutely brilliant explanation. I already knew a few bits but the connections were enlightening!
I find it awesome that Stibitz built his circuit in his kitchen out of some spare parts he had lying around. The DIY spirit is what gets things done.
When I was a kid in the early 60's my father was an Air Force officer connected with electronic warfare and computer development. HE had shoe boxes full of old, dead vacuum tubes. I loved to play with them; they made great space ships. Kinda wish I had gotten him to explain to em how they worked. I was only 6 year sold, so I guess I can forgive myself for seeing them as only toys. What I REALLY wish I had gotten him to explain was all the papers with programming on them.
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 KZhead 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 KZhead, 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 KZhead!
@@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!-
This is literally a whole semester of computer science class in one video! Thanks!
I think this video is an excellent example of how everything that exists is an extension of something that existed before. I especially liked seeing the first calculator contraption sitting on a piece of wood. 😂
I remember the headaches from understanding logic operators when I was a student, circa 2006. This is so beautifully explained and easy to understand that I wish I could have seen this back then.
Usagi is awesome ❤ I’m so happy he’s featured in this video.
Came here to post the same thing!
It was so much fun hanging out with Derek!
@@UsagiElectric Wow it's him
The first computers were built with gears.
😮
*cough abacus cough*
@@Imgunnabenicer I was thinking more along the lines that given input and energy, a computer calculates the output automatically; the abacus still relies on interactive human thought to work? i suppose it could be considered a computer depending on how abstract your definitions is.
@@cykoneticthose are analogue computers, he’s on about digital computers here
This is the best explanation how tubes work in the whole KZhead. This is simpy amazing.
Thanks so much for coming to hang out, I had an absolute blast!
While I was a kid, my dad had an old FM radio and a separate audio amplifier that used vacuum tubes. Today I learned how they worked. Simply amazing! I hope you do the follow up video on how this works in silicon.
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.
I work as a test engineer testing induction power supplies used in all heat treating applications to metals , melting , and furnaces / billet heaters. Pretty cool to see where it all started.
That was a good video, never felt 18 minutes go so fast, and the ending left me wanting to know how light bulbs evolved into transistors. It felt like watching an episode of a series with a cliff hanger.
It's crazy to think that calculators and computers used to fit in a room. Now, it fits into our pockets and are way more powerful. On top of that, it comes fitted with a camera, a flashlight, ability to make international calls, as well as access to the world's knowledge without having to seek it in a library or be taught it in school, plus a whole lot more. All easily accessible in a few taps and swipes of a finger, and it hasn't even been 100 years. I can only imagine how fast the world seems to be changing for anyone born in the early 1900's.
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.
In my humble opinion, the transistor (hinted at the end of the video) is among the most important inventions in human history. It's up there with the wheel, the steam engine, gunpowder, penicillin and the like. The lightbulb, too.
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.
I hope the silicon story comes soon. Thank you to show us the most interesting stories
5:58 Hey, it's my friend Dave / Usagi!!! Amazing explanation video here, top notch!
This was a cool video. As a computer engineer who designed my own tube guitar amp in college, you basically just did a summary of my education experience. Very rad deep dive into the world of tubes!
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.
So glad to see David getting attention for his awesome work!
Same, I did NOT expect this collab! This is great!
Aren’t we all so happy there are some smart or really perceptive people to figure stuff out like this.
As a 10yr old electronic enthusiast I say that the first diode was actually very big than I thought
Nice video! But I would have liked a mention of the zuse Z3 wich was build in 1941 in germany. In contrast to the design and use of the ENIAC, the Z3's design did not meet the later definition of a Turing-complete computer, and it was never used as such. But in 1998 it was found out that, from a theoretical point of view, it still has this property due to the tricky use of some detours. There were also the special-purpose machines Colossus (England 1943) used for dectyption and the turing-bombe (England 1940) which was used to decrypt enigma.
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.
Im really happy that you'll be covering transistors. As soon as you mentionned the "grid" of the vacuum tube, i knew that was coming. This winter semester i had a course on electronics, and something that i was wondering is why the "grid" input is called just that. This was really informative, well done!
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.
Thanks veritasium for the vlog. Very helpful.
I enjoy David's videos a lot! I'm so happy he appears on your channel.
It's incredible how these two seemingly unrelated things are intertwined. Thank you Veritasium.
they are related because they are things
I noticed that you properly called ENIAC the first "general purpose" computer. Something outside the scope of this video is that the British government was using a "special purpose" computer to decrypt German radio communications as fast or faster than the Enigma machine at the receiving end prior to ENIAC. (A side note: The Poles had already broken that code by hand.) Excellent work. And don't forget that nearly home in the first world still has at least one vacuum tube in occasional use: a magnetron in the microwave oven.
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.
As a kid, my dad would take me to the hardware store, where they had a tube tester by the front door. Never tired of watching the tubes glow and was probably the reason I became an electrical engineer. 🤓. Nice video.
Very well made and the only videos that really explained the transistor and how it evolved from the light bulb
Voicing a pet peeve ... the world's FIRST programmable, Turing-complete computer, the Z3, was created by Konrad Zuse in 1941 ... give the inventor of the modern computer the credit he deserves.
As a computer scientist, I had never heard of him. Thanks for the clue.
Nah, he can stay in his NSDAP infamy.
@@Soken50 When he got drafted, he did as ordered. It sucks that he was a part of that dark time, but it doesn't change the fact that he was the first.
@@TheRenHoek Nah he requested funding from the NSDAP for his computers and initially got denied until they realised they could use it for primitive guided missiles. Bro wasn't drafted at gunpoint, he happily took their money and helped build weapons.
It's a bit of a stretch to describe the Z3 as Turing complete. It had no conditional branching, so could only be considered Turing complete if it propagated all branch results. I'm not sure how one then would choose the "correct" result of a program.
Derek: "by combining a few diodes and capacitor led to......" Me: "FUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLL BRIDGE REKTEFAYAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
I would love a whole series breaking down the scientific innovations for each generation of computers. I have no idea what electronics were like before the invention of integrated circuits.
One of the best video showing how transistors started !!
With my computer science background, this is truly one of my favourite episodes. Thank you so much.
I would highly suggest that you do a second part of this topic, it is very interesting and it explains how we achieved this level of computing power today
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
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Yes
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The early vacuum tubes were quite bright but as more efficient and les bright they were divided into two categories, bright emitters and dull emitters. The Colossus computer (about 1944 and in England) the vacuum tube life was extended by lowering the heater voltage in the tube before actually turning it off.
This video was very interesting and informative. We need a part 2, continuing the story with the semiconductors..
Ahh they should teach this (in highschool). I spent nearly 40 years doing CMOS design but in my undergrad school the vacuum tube basic operations were not covered. I guess in the 80s they were considered obsolete.
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..
13:17 was a nostalgia moment for me. I started my career in the early 90s, replacing old telephone switching systems in telephone company central offices. That constant clicking of the relays was what we were replacing. It is amazing to me that we were still using that technology so many decades later, and even more amazing to me how much it has changed in the 30 years since.
I fell enlightened with this video, I'm a programmer and I knew the roughly history of the creation of the first computer and stuff, but this video was just so eye opener.
i remember researching this in high school and while i didn't have the documentation show this connection between lightbulbs and vacuum tubes back then, i did see the similarities and wonder. i think it's even crazier to think that 'computers' used to just be people really good at math as a profession.🤯
That was pretty cool to see UsagiElectric featured in this. His videos are pretty awesome and I am glad I discovered his channel awhile back. He is brilliant and has a lot of fascinating videos. Glad he was getting some well deserved praise and attention from this video.
The British Colossus should be considered as the first or even Konrad Zuse Z1, which was considered the first electronic computer. ENIAC gets all the glory simply because it was well-published and made a big splash in the papers. The British did not declassify their systems till well after ENIAC was a household name. There was another British computer after Colossus that had a programing language, screen and keyboard, but I cannot remember its name, and it was also before ENIAC.
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!?
As a graduate student in 1975, I needed a printer for an amino acid analyzer. A Honeywell vacuum tube printer served well. It was so easy to fix because bad vacuum tubes were dark. I think we got it from a military warehouse near San Diego that stored equipment for the defunct Project Mohole, an attempt to drill into the Earth's crust in the 1960s.
This is one of rhe best descriptions of how semi-comductors work.
I hope you eventually collab with someone like Ben Eater to explain at least some of the basics of how a processor actually works in this "series" of topics. When I was a kid this was the biggest mystery for me and no one could really explain it well (mostly because it is a complicated topic), but now as an adult this is something that I think is not so complicated that child me could not understand, there just was a lack of easy to access and understand material. Ben Eater's videos really helped cement that knowledge and build an intuition for it even after taking college undergrad courses that touched on the subject.