Hey @kens, congrats on the page! Extremely super small usability note/suggestion: if you changed your inputs (above the tool that lets you see all of the layers) to something like this:
then it would be possible to click the label name (i.e. Pins, I/O Vcc, etc.) instead of having to click the small radio circles.
It's a small thing, but I think it's a lot more fun/easy/fast to click the different label names rather than the circles. It's truly a small nit - just in case it's an easy fix for you. Cheers!
(just to make sure: you need to add a unique "id" attribute for each "input", and then make a <label> tag for each label referencing that id in the "for")
kens · 52m ago
Thanks for pointing this out. I should have remembered the label tag. I've updated the page so it should work better now.
mlhpdx · 1h ago
A bit of a trip down memory lane for me. I performed an analysis of the thermo-mechanical cyclic fatigue in later packages using detailed CAD, FEA and empirical tests. A lot of work went into finding it wasn’t a big deal for the most part. Still, I don’t recommend that museums power cycle old PCs daily…
kens · 3h ago
Author here for all your CT scanning questions :-)
johnklos · 2h ago
This isn't about CT scanning, but about the chip itself.
Since the bond wires are just hanging out in air, does this mean that a chip like this could be ruined by dropping it which might cause the bond wires to move enough to short something?
Thanks for all your hard work!
imoverclocked · 2h ago
Does it look like the almost connected pins could have been purposely severed during production? ie: could they have been connected and then using a calculated pulse of power, disconnected?
kens · 1h ago
If they installed wire bonds and removed them, there would be visible remnants on the die, which aren't there.
loa_in_ · 2h ago
Is the CPU destroyed by the process or did you reassemble this particular specimen?
kens · 2h ago
I took the metal lid off the chip to improve the scan quality. If I had left the chip intact, it would probably be fine. (I assume the X-ray levels are low enough to avoid damage, but I haven't confirmed that.)
TZubiri · 40m ago
What CT scanner was used? The images are surprisingly detailed for something so small, while we are used to coarser scales of human anatomy.
kens · 11m ago
It's a Lumafield scanner, but I don't know the specific model.
OptionOfT · 3h ago
What is your CPU's yearly deductible?
Mountain_Skies · 3h ago
> From the circuitry on the die, this pin appears to be an output. If someone with a 386 chip hooks this pin to an oscilloscope, maybe they will see something interesting.
Would be a fun surprise if the 386 had its own Halt and Catch Fire mode.
devmor · 41m ago
Super cool! This was the CPU in my very first PC (which I got to build myself, under the tutelage of a family friend). I remember that it was cooled by nothing but a tiny stick-on heatsink and a small plastic fan that clipped on top of that.
8MB of DRAM, a 250MB spinning disk hard drive, 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy bays, removable bios that I had to sort through a tupperware of chips to find the correct unit, some unnamed AGP video card that I had to slot removable chips into as well and a great big 16" CRT.
I think I had to install a special serial card in an ISA slot to use a mouse too.
bartread · 26m ago
> some unnamed AGP video card
Do you mean VGA rather than AGP? AGP came much later than the 386 and wouldn’t have been supported by its motherboard chipsets.
mrlonglong · 2h ago
Where's A0 and A1?
kens · 2h ago
Since the 386 is a 32-bit processor, the address specifies a 32-bit word and doesn't use address bits A0 and A1. But what if you just want to read a byte or a 16-bit word? The trick is that the 386 provides four Byte Enable outputs (BE0#-BE3#) that indicate which bytes in the word are being transferred. Of course, it's not that simple. If the lower 16 bits of the data bus aren't being used, the upper 16 bits of the data bus are duplicated on the lower 16 bits to make 16-bit buses more efficient (somehow).
mrlonglong · 1h ago
Neat, saves two wires.
phire · 1h ago
Yes and no. You replaced two address pins with four byte enable pins.
But the byte enable pins also implicitly communicate size, which would otherwise require another two pins. So this byte enable scheme breaks even (at least for chips with 16bit or 32bit buses).
The main goal is simplify the design of the motherboard.
It's a small thing, but I think it's a lot more fun/easy/fast to click the different label names rather than the circles. It's truly a small nit - just in case it's an easy fix for you. Cheers!
(just to make sure: you need to add a unique "id" attribute for each "input", and then make a <label> tag for each label referencing that id in the "for")
Since the bond wires are just hanging out in air, does this mean that a chip like this could be ruined by dropping it which might cause the bond wires to move enough to short something?
Thanks for all your hard work!
Would be a fun surprise if the 386 had its own Halt and Catch Fire mode.
8MB of DRAM, a 250MB spinning disk hard drive, 5.25 and 3.5 inch floppy bays, removable bios that I had to sort through a tupperware of chips to find the correct unit, some unnamed AGP video card that I had to slot removable chips into as well and a great big 16" CRT.
I think I had to install a special serial card in an ISA slot to use a mouse too.
Do you mean VGA rather than AGP? AGP came much later than the 386 and wouldn’t have been supported by its motherboard chipsets.
But the byte enable pins also implicitly communicate size, which would otherwise require another two pins. So this byte enable scheme breaks even (at least for chips with 16bit or 32bit buses).
The main goal is simplify the design of the motherboard.