Conversation
Edited 1 year ago
it is interesting to learn how PCIe endpoints and switches implements their own protocols (similar to network protocols) for communication (PCIe transport/data link/physical layers)

but since I know very little about electronics some topics are hard to understand, like why it's difficult to increase speed in parallel bus architecture or why errors occur during transmission, or why DC components should be avoided.
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and I always confuse transaction layer with transport layer in the OSI, TCP/IP layers
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@hyeyoo Have you watched Ben Eater's videos on YT, where he builds a CPU on breadboards?

If you follow his videos from the start, a lot of concepts that you've heard about but don't currently get will click.

At least they did for me.

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@hyeyoo Stop thinking about digital signals as those beautiful rectangles on paper. Imagine what they really are—large amounts of electrons moving by laws of quantum mechanics. Then it becomes clear that everything is just a matter of probability, and it's a miracle that electronics works at all.

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@hyeyoo Then again, if you take enough electrons in an electric field, their OVERALL movement follows some more sane rules. But some electrons will still “refuse to behave”, moving in other unpredictable ways and creating noise.

More importantly, unless you're in a well-shielded lab, there are those external factors affecting the above-mentioned electric field (EMI), microscopic material defects, cosmic rays and whatnot…

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Edited 1 year ago
@ptesarik

Then now I wonder how the error rate is well under control then....

And as a person who doesn't know quantum mechanics - have a question:
Even are systems with ECC memory safe enough?
Safe enough to be used for electronic money transfer, satellites, and nuclear weapons?
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@chrisg
No I didn't, but looks so interesting, thanks!
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@hyeyoo As everything in this world, it's a matter of probability. Tell me how low probability of failure is considered safe and then I can give an answer!

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@ptesarik @hyeyoo once enough people realize that, the wave function collapses and everything stops working.
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@vbabka @hyeyoo Right, that's when electronics gets finally observed.

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