1. Forum
  2. FidoNet
  3. alt.comp.hardware.pc-home

  • Re: Computers are evil dark magic?

    From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Wednesday, July 29, 2026 11:31:30
    On Wed, 7/29/2026 9:04 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:

    So all those miracles of modern computers
    must be done in total darkness?

    Is this a good thing? :)


    https://www.reddit.com/r/DiWHY/comments/18hb0eg/pc_with_over_100000_lumens_of_rgb_light/

    You can see the light, outside his house.

    I would say it's not total darkness.

    Paul

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Mr. Man-wai Chang@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, July 30, 2026 19:33:57
    On 7/29/2026 11:31 PM, Paul wrote:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/DiWHY/comments/18hb0eg/pc_with_over_100000_lumens_of_rgb_light/
    You can see the light, outside his house.
    I would say it's not total darkness.


    That's a computer chassis wrapping the motherboard,
    on which chips were mounted, not the hidden dungeon
    within the chips where computation happens. :)

    --

    @~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
    / v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
    /( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
    ^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
    The game is afoot... Meow...

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Thursday, July 30, 2026 11:42:58
    On Thu, 7/30/2026 7:33 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
    On 7/29/2026 11:31 PM, Paul wrote:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/DiWHY/comments/18hb0eg/pc_with_over_100000_lumens_of_rgb_light/
    You can see the light, outside his house.
    I would say it's not total darkness.


    That's a computer chassis wrapping the motherboard,
    on which chips were mounted, not the hidden dungeon
    within the chips where computation happens. :)


    If you had to build these things, you'd have more respect for them.

    You can build computers out of jelly bean chips. You can even build
    very large circuit functions, using raw transistors.

    https://hackaday.io/project/171966-4-bit-ttl-cpu

    *******

    One reason the chips are inside black epoxy, is the "photoelectric effect".
    For some chips, you can connect an earphone, and you can hear the
    flow of bias current, if you shine a light on the bare silicon die.
    It is for this reason, that it should be kept dark and under the
    black epoxy, so no "circuit-upset" is caused by the photoelectric effect.

    An example of the photoelectric effect, was when Byte Magazine did
    a project, to use an early DRAM chip, as a "webcam". The DRAM array
    can image pixels. The visual quality is not very good, there would be
    "stuck pixels", "dim pixels", but, it works. This is why the DRAM
    is normally covered, so that does not happen.

    Look at the picture at the top of this page. It's actually a pretty
    good image, captured with a DRAM chip with the lid off it.

    https://hackaday.com/2014/04/05/taking-pictures-with-a-dram-chip/

    They work better, when it is quiet and dark in there. They
    can concentrate on their job better.

    Paul

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Mr. Man-wai Chang@3:633/10 to All on Friday, July 31, 2026 19:35:29
    On 7/30/2026 11:42 PM, Paul wrote:

    One reason the chips are inside black epoxy, is the "photoelectric effect". For some chips, you can connect an earphone, and you can hear the
    flow of bias current, if you shine a light on the bare silicon die.
    It is for this reason, that it should be kept dark and under the
    black epoxy, so no "circuit-upset" is caused by the photoelectric effect.

    An example of the photoelectric effect ....

    So human brains are NOT supposed to be exposed
    to light? Holy Order?

    Well... well... well....


    --

    @~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
    / v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
    /( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
    ^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
    The game is afoot... Meow...

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Paul@3:633/10 to All on Friday, July 31, 2026 14:55:05
    On Fri, 7/31/2026 7:35 AM, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
    On 7/30/2026 11:42 PM, Paul wrote:

    One reason the chips are inside black epoxy, is the "photoelectric effect". >> For some chips, you can connect an earphone, and you can hear the
    flow of bias current, if you shine a light on the bare silicon die.
    It is for this reason, that it should be kept dark and under the
    black epoxy, so no "circuit-upset" is caused by the photoelectric effect.

    An example of the photoelectric effect ....

    So human brains are NOT supposed to be exposed
    to light? Holy Order?

    Well... well... well....



    That's a different material. Conduction is ionic.
    The human brain is not a semiconductor.

    Not all of the chips underneath black epoxy are light
    sensitive, but enough of them are, they all got covered
    with the same material. There is chip scale packaging
    with glob top, which is used in things like digital
    clock time pieces. The black material is a droplet of
    epoxy, placed over the silicon die. For protection.

    Bare CPU die exist, but they're covered in thermal paste
    and have a heatsink on top, so light exposure is a
    bit limited.

    Paul

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)