A New Generation Is Uncovering the Tiny Doodles Left By Engineers On Old Microchips
These doodles, also known as silicon art, chip graffiti or chip art, and dozens others like it, are remnants of tech history — from Silicon Valley’s infancy to the early 2000s — when innovation was rapid fire and the tech still had a very human touch. Engineers would add the sketches to their microchip designs in the techie equivalent of signing their artwork. They’d etch them on chips that may end up in your cellphone, laptop or calculator. They spent hours crafting them, even though they were frowned upon by those in the C Suite.
The existence of these doodles came to light decades ago, but social media is discovering them anew. And there is now a small but determined group of online hobbyists working to keep that history alive. They are still cataloguing the miniscule drawings — many smaller than the width of a human hair and can’t be seen without a microscope. These devotees post glossy videos of themselves shucking chips like oysters to see their iridescent insides and the itsy bitsy sketches that may be hidden on them. And they are eagerly saving them from the scrap heap.
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Source : https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/04/16/2018241/a-new-generation-is-uncovering-the-tiny-doodles-left-by-engineers-on-old-microchips?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed