Bright Sword Military System

Chapter 1264 Relay Computer
After some unnecessary struggle, Wang Xuexin finally had no choice but to accept the suggestion of Colonel Ian and Joan, signed the contract sadly and agreed to use technology to replace parts, and reluctantly walked into the "Christopher "The air-raid shelter.

There was a lot of noise in the air-raid shelter, like the "clicking" sound of a textile machine factory, which came from the rows of parts in the air-raid shelter that were neatly arranged like books in a library.

If there is any difference from the library, it is that the parts are cylindrical, with a simultaneous cylindrical "liner" in the middle, and these "liners" are constantly rotating under electric drive... some do not rotate, All the parts are connected together by wires that seem to be messy but have some regularity.

"We call this an encoder!" Qiong Jie explained to the part: "It makes a sound once it rotates very quickly, which means a state change!"

Then Joan looked at Wang Xuexin again and said, "You should know what state it is!"

Wang Xuexin said "Oh" and replied, "Like our light switch?"

"Bingo!" Joan nodded with a smile, and the last trace of defense against Wang Xuexin disappeared.

Because if Wang Xuexin hadn't studied the "universal decoding machine", he would never know what she meant by "state".

What Joan didn't know was that her question was trivial to Wang Xuexin.

Although Wang Xuexin is not a good student in modern times, he has also studied the basics of computers in undergraduate courses, and he knows that the early computers were calculated in binary...the parts have only two states, one is powered, and the other is not powered. Therefore, only binary calculations can be used.

其实现代计算机最底层也是用二进制计算，所以才以1024为单位计算容量而不是以1000。（注：1024是2的10次方，对于二进制是整数）
It's just that it uses the interface we are used to, that is, converts it into decimal to make it easier for us to operate.

Wang Xuexin looked at "Christopher" who was working in front of him, and he roughly understood how this huge machine works:

Each of its parts is a bit in the binary system, which changes its state every time it rotates. The same is true for turning on a light: pull it once to turn it on, and then pull it off again. "1".

The following complex wires are connected in series or in parallel with other bits, and when a carry is needed during calculation, the wires are used to control the rotation of another part to change the state.

"We have also considered using relays instead of encoders!" Joan explained: "You know, this kind of mechanical operation is very inefficient, not only slow, consumes a lot of power, but also takes up a lot of space!"

Wang Xuexin nodded. This is a mechanical computer. To drive thousands of parts here to rotate, the power consumption must be quite high.

"This is already the result of our simplification of 'Christopher'!" Joan was a little embarrassed: "This is because we considered that the code you need to decipher will not be too complicated, and the other transport plane has limited space, so we only built this small decoder!"

Then Joan brought the topic to relays: "We also considered using relays, but there is a difficulty. The relays can't keep the state and store the information we need. I want to know...how did you solve this problem?"

Wang Xuexin was a little confused when he heard these words from Qiong, and he was still a little nervous.

Because he is talking to the most outstanding mathematicians, scientists, and decoding experts of this era. This is not sloppy at all. As long as there is something wrong, it is very likely that Joan will find a breakthrough and tear all the lies to expose to the sun. Down.

But Wang Xuexin thought about it, and felt that even if Joan is the top modern scientist, even if he is not as smart as Joan or as knowledgeable as her, these things are too basic questions in modern times, and it should not be difficult for him to answer them himself.

Thinking of this, Wang Xuexin calmed down to analyze the problem.

Relays cannot store information?
Why can't I save it?
Modern computing uses memory and hard disks to store information, and of course there are no such things in this era.

But why can mechanical parts be stored?
Suddenly Wang Xuexin understood:

A mechanical part can indeed store because it keeps that state by turning it once, unless you change it, just like a light switch, once we turn on the light it stays on until we change it.

But the relay is different. Although the relay also has two states, one is connected and the other is disconnected, it can represent "1" and "0" like a mechanical part.

But the relay relies on the electromagnet to achieve connection and disconnection. When the power is turned on, the electromagnet generates a magnetic adsorption reed to connect the circuit. When the power is turned off, the reed springs back and disconnects.

Although this method is fast and consumes less power and is small in size, etc., it has a fatal shortcoming: once the power is cut off, all relays will automatically return to their original positions, which is what Joan said cannot be stored. Intermediate results.

Mechanical parts don't have this problem.

What effect does this have?

As Joan said before, once a relay is used to perform calculations, it cannot be stopped, or if any one of the relays fails, the entire machine will not be able to operate, and all previous calculations will be wasted and you will have to start from scratch.

If this is a small-scale calculation that can be completed in a short time, it is fine, but a large-scale calculation that can be completed in a long time... It is basically impossible to complete.

Solution?

Wang Xuexin was a little frustrated. If people like Turing and Joan didn't know the solution, how could he have a solution?
but……

Wang Xuexin immediately thought of one thing, he doesn't need to innovate, that is, he doesn't need to think of it himself.

He just needs to know how Harvard University solved this problem when it developed Mark1 and Mark2 in history.

Without even thinking about it, Wang Xuexin called up the manual of Mark1 from the system.

System prompt: Mark1 type relay computer, 1000 million military industrial coins, do you want to buy it?
"No!" Wang Xuexin responded: "I just want to read the manual!"

System prompt: The manual is 999 million military coins, do you want to buy it?
"This..." Wang Xuexin was speechless: "The whole machine is only 1000 million, and the manual is 999 million? Are you cheating me?"

The system prompts with bold red characters: The system has activated the prostitution prevention mode!

Whoring for nothing?When will I...

Suddenly, Wang Xuexin recalled that when he improved "La 5" before, he compared the data of "La 7" and then put forward suggestions for improvement!

Damn it, the system is perfect!
(End of this chapter)