The NERDS question! OTD

[knowledgegranted]

Hey guys, this thread is going to be updated with a question everyday. legitimately, I have it hooked up to my phone so I can post a question whenever!

This thread is going to be the host of one question a day; how computers work, the history of them, or just a trivia question. Please be honest and don't go looking on the internet for answers. I'll try to make some of them logical questions so if you think long and hard you will eventually get it.

There will be a list of people who have answered questions completely, and which question they answered. So without further or do, let me double post and start the first question!

_________________________________________
List of the Winners!

1. Trace, Billygoat333 Question; Answer/Answer
2. x88xQuestion Answer
3. Question

[knowledgegranted]

This first one goes out to microcontroller users, electrical engineers, and people who know processors pretty well.

Why do processors operate faster/better in colder temperatures rather than hotter conditions. In other words, why do overclockers drop liquid nitrogen on their processors?

[Trace]

Because as temperature decreases, resistance decreases.

[knowledgegranted]

Because as temperature decreases, resistance decreases.

Can we elaborate a bit more?

[Trace]

So the higher the temperature, the more resistance to the flow of electricity. At a lower temperature, things are more conductive, and require less voltage to push the electrons through the chip... at a certain point things become super conductive, whereas the resistance is negligible.

[Luthien]

Good to know. I'm fairly new to overclocking and watercooling, and I never knew the "why" behind it, just that it worked.

[BuzzKillington]

Interesting. /Subscribed.

[billygoat333]

it also has to do with how close the atoms (and ultimately the excited electrons) are to each other. the colder they are, the closer they are to each other (unless its h2o lol) and easier for them to interact with each other.

[knowledgegranted]

Billygoat and Trace have the successful answers. I was looking for Billygoat's answer originally but Trace was also true. Thanks you two.


The Next question!

Why was the decision made to use HEX in order to program computers?

[Trace]

I'm just throwing this one out there, I have NO IDEA.

[x88x]

I'm not sure which came first, but I think it may have something to do with the binary byte, or more precisely, the nibble (4 bits). Using hex, any nibble can be expressed as a single character. ...past that I'm not sure, really...maybe a nibble was the smallest amount of data that whoever thought would ever need to be addressed, or base-16 offered the best balance between binary and, say, base-32 (ie, each byte is a single character)?

EDIT:
I won't post it yet or say if I was right or wrong, but I found a site that explains it fairly well. I'll post it once this question is done.

[Konrad]

Nybbles were used because 4-bit latches/buffers (glue logic) parts were used to interface 4-bit uP (4004) signals. Bytes had to be split into high- and low-order nybble bits until 8-bit uPs (like 8008, 8080/etc) came into use, and even then nybbles continued to be used to simplify 4+4-bit operations; very simple (and fast) binary manipulations can add/subtract/multiply/etc with 2 nybble inputs and 1 byte output. Likewise, nybbles could be broken into (or formed from) two octal (base-8 ) values just as easily.

Registers/flags were packed into nybbles because the early machines had pitiful memory (~4KB or less, not even enough to fill the screen with text) ... every bit counted.

Nybbles and octal are obsolete, it's all been bytes (or words) and hexadecimal since about circa-286.

[knowledgegranted]

I'm not sure which came first, but I think it may have something to do with the binary byte, or more precisely, the nibble (4 bits). Using hex, any nibble can be expressed as a single character. ...past that I'm not sure, really...maybe a nibble was the smallest amount of data that whoever thought would ever need to be addressed, or base-16 offered the best balance between binary and, say, base-32 (ie, each byte is a single character)?

EDIT:
I won't post it yet or say if I was right or wrong, but I found a site that explains it fairly well. I'll post it once this question is done.

x88x, there are many reasons, but above all you have the main one. Confirmed by the engineers I've talked to, the main reason to go Hexadecimal was for the very reason that a nibble could be expressed by a single hexadecimal value.

There needed to be a "language" in between binary and our 10 digit system. One that could be very manageable, and when the decision came time, they decided it would be most logical to use Hexadecimal for the nibble to HEX conversion.

[knowledgegranted]

Next Question! Have fun with this one:


Which big semiconductor company used a tentative name that added a lot of noise?

[Konrad]

I'm gonna guess Shockley? I don't know (without cheating) if it was ever a company or just an engineering team.

[knowledgegranted]

I'm gonna guess Shockley? I don't know (without cheating) if it was ever a company or just an engineering team.

Nope sorry, but feel free to cheat now that you already gave an answer. Or don't if you want to given another.

:)