[EDIT: I have removed the original scenario of a nuclear holocaust as it was not my intention for the discussion to focus so much on that. Also I have edited some of the questions to be more specific.]

My naive and uninformed questions are:

How many of you would be able to make a working, programable computer? (i.e. not from pre-built parts)
How important is to know these things?
If the answer to the first question is, not many, is it worrying that the power to make computers is restricted to very few entities?
As computer engineers/scientists should we all be learning not only how to program and use software, but also how to make computers, and how they phsyically work?
Should we all have made, or make, our own little computer from scratch?

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My answers:

Maybe if I thought I about it / researched a lot, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how right now.
I guess its quite important actually. After all, people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs certainly knew these things.
Hmm, yeah, maybe.
Phuh, probably.
Would certainly be interesting and worthwhile, but should I concentrate on my current project or start this one? Not sure.

You'll have much bigger problems to worry about. Without electricity, you don't have petrol or diesel or oil. You won't be pumping any more any time soon. The stuff to hand will be gone either when it's used up or in 6-12 months as it degrades.

You no longer have refrigeration. You will be needing to preserve food. Where is your nearest supply of salt? That you can get to without power or fuel. And KEEP accessing -- you're going to need salt, a lot of it, for the rest of your life. You will almost certainly want to use the last of your petrol moving you and anything you need to a location which has woodland (fuel and material), fertile soil (crops), fresh water and a coastline (salt and food).

Even then, how will you plough fields without fuel? Certainly no-one's bred carthorses in large numbers for a while now, and the riding horses you see about aren't up to the workload. Do you know how much land you need to plough to get a decent crop? Do you know how to thresh wheat by hand assuming you grow some?[1]


You spend your time faffing about trying to build computers and you will starve very quickly.



[1] Medieval historians are going to be fairly useful in this new world...

Anything you couldn't make from existing parts would be pretty useless. Just think, even if you could build A computer, it would be a piece of crap and there wouldn't be any software for it. Unless you could forage for parts and build a modern day computer, I'm not sure really what tasks you would be able to automate. You're not going to be building a state of the art computer unless you had access to chip plants, hard drive manufacturing facilities, etc. We're pushing the limits of transistors because of modern day manufacturing, you're not going to build a quad-core processor in your garage workshop.

Today we use computers for everything because everyone has a computer, and there's mass software available to do trivial things. In the Industrial apocalypse you describe, the requirement for Microsoft Excel will not exist. It would be more likely that someone would look to build messaging or network boxes (e-mail) that allow for instant communication across long distances. I personally don't have the knowledge for this, but I know people that probably could. Of course this would be completely dependent on current network infrastructure remaining intact.

I imagine in any mass apocalypse type scenario that electronics would be limited to one direct application. For example, you wouldn't spend the resources building personal computers for everyone to dick around with, you would focus on building one control unit for a solar array, or defensive system, or manufacturing unit, etc. I think that is more realistic and there are probably a multitude of people that could figure something like that out with basic electronic parts. Again I personally couldn't, but if I had access to the parts and some electronic books I might be able to hack something together with enough studying.

Many other things would have to be relearned or operational before modern day PCs could be manufactured again.

We are basically screwed in every respect of the word. If we retained some tech knowledge after the holocaust, the quickest shortcut we can take in terms of harvesting power is through wind mills. Perhaps steam power would follow after. But that involves forging steel, which implies getting ore. We are lucky in that respect though, I'm sure there will plenty of wreckages made of iron/steel left for us to use. The first things that will be built from iron is probably not machines, but stabbing weapons.

Preserving food is not impossible, but that depends on the food. You don't need a lot of salt to do that. You can dry meat, smoke it etc. Salt is accessible from the sea, if you happen to live nearby.

Hmm, you all make good points that we would have much more important things to worry about than building personal computers in a nuclear holocaust. But I fear my illustrative scenario of the apocalypse actually detracts from the discussion I wanted to have, which was more a general question about the importance of knowing how computers are made and being able to make them, and not so much about surviving a nuclear holocaust. I apologise for a poorly constructed OP and will edit it accordingly.

How many of you would be able to make a working, programable computer? (i.e. not from pre-built parts)

Yes. All I need is the ability to make NOR or NAND gate. Anything can be composed out of those.

How important is to know these things?[/quote]Not really. Unless you work in relevant field.

If the answer to the first question is, not many, is it worrying that the power to make computers is restricted to very few entities?[/quote]No. It's available to all, on wikipedia and in lots of introductory texts.

As computer engineers/scientists should we all be learning not only how to program and use software, but also how to make computers, and how they phsyically work?[/quote]Well, we did and we built them. It's probably not in most of the courses today anymore.

Should we all have made, or make, our own little computer from scratch?[/quote]Should an architect build a kiln? Should an airplane engineer know how to smelt rivets?

Either way, these topics used to be covered in introductory CS courses, they can be taught in two semesters. Much of the theory on which computers are built upon is used everywhere else anyway. But to those cranking out CRUD apps for some enterprise, this isn't needed and isn't even taught. Then again, 3 week courses are all that's needed to work as programmer in such places since technical skills are not all that relevant compared to everything else.


What does bother me is how the world has changed. Remember: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country". It put people on the moon.

Today it's all "But mom, do I really have to?". And we got Facebook likes.

You can never know too much. Then again, ignorance is bliss.

Hmm, you all make good points that we would have much more important things to worry about than building personal computers in a nuclear holocaust. But I fear my illustrative scenario of the apocalypse actually detracts from the discussion I wanted to have, which was more a general question about the importance of knowing how computers are made and being able to make them, and not so much about surviving a nuclear holocaust. I apologise for a poorly constructed OP and will edit it accordingly.

I think the purpose in a situation you're proposing would not be to reconstruct the modern day PC. Computers evolved over 60 years in an industrial / post-industrial environment. Computers started for military and space applications, worked up to universities and businesses, then household objects, and now that everyone has access they get smaller and more portable (ie cell phones, mp3 players, etc.). If you somehow remove all the existing technology, knowing how to make an SSD drive and video card to play Doom suddenly becomes a non-issue. Most important would be getting machines to run critical military and safety functions, then large scale manufacturing. Having a modern day PC when no one else had one, would be pretty useless.

Another way of looking at it (which I have thought about for shits and giggles), is what would you do if you had a time machine and you could bring back a solar powered modern day laptop to the 1st century? Well, you could play music on it (useless). You could open up Microsoft Office....you're not going to do much with it because you're the only one on the planet that has access to it. Spreadsheets only make sense because everyone has access to them. A word document only provides functionality if you can print and share it....

In the end it would be largely for show. Say you even have VS 2010, what are you going to program? Great, you have a complex inventory database built that can manage a warehouse, you successfully helped out one business. The best bang for your buck would be to find the most critical system being used in the world, and write an app to automate and regulate it, and then move to the next, etc. etc. You wouldn't need a modern day PC for that, you could build a dedicated box. And that's what I think would happen if the world's electronics suddenly went to hell. One function at a time, people would build dedicated equipment. Until everything that was necessary was automated, and then businesses would start working on systems. After many years, when it would be feasible again, personal computers might be built again. My guess is that it would be faster than the last tech-boom (always easier to build something a second time), but still take a few decades.

So to answer your question, I don't really think it's important at all, since if we get in a situation where ALL technology disappears, we're not going to attempt to rebuild the latest generation technology from scratch.

If the answer to the first question is, not many, is it worrying that the power to make computers is restricted to very few entities?[/quote]
No. It's available to all, on wikipedia and in lots of introductory texts.
[/quote]

This also creates an interesting quandry. What the hell happens if there IS a widespread tech failure? A major solar flare that wipes out some satellites suddenly makes the human race a hell of a lot dumber. Somebody somewhere should be printing off the collective texts of Wikipedia. That way if something happens to the internet suddenly, we don't lose the collective intelligence of the planet.

Maybe it's not a problem in our lifetime, but in 2-3 generations there won't be libraries or physical book stores (but for museums). If there is a widespread tech failure or power outtage, people won't be able to get access to basic information like how to sew or butcher meat or plant crops. Our company for example, doesn't print process manuals. Everything is stored online. It means that in a doomsday scenario if someone wanted to turn our plant back on and start manufacturing, there wouldn't be any on-site information on how to do it.

This also creates an interesting quandry. What the hell happens if there IS a widespread tech failure? A major solar flare that wipes out some satellites suddenly makes the human race a hell of a lot dumber. Somebody somewhere should be printing off the collective texts of Wikipedia. That way if something happens to the internet suddenly, we don't lose the collective intelligence of the planet.

No. It's all in the books.

Any scientific publication is still printed in paper form.

Of course, if sun goes supernova and incinerates earth, then the knowledge will be gone as well.

but in 2-3 generations there won't be libraries or physical book stores (but for museums). If there is a widespread tech failure or power outtage, people won't be able to get access to basic information like how to sew or butcher meat or plant crops. [/quote]
See library of Alexandria. They should have used stone tablets instead of paper.

Our company for example, doesn't print process manuals.[/quote]Because it's worthless. I don't mean that in a bad way, but "manual" is just that, a set of instructions on how to operate a tool. This is not "human knowledge". The important knowledge is much more widespread and above all - simple.

It means that in a doomsday scenario if someone wanted to turn our plant back on and start manufacturing, there wouldn't be any on-site information on how to do it.[/quote]
If they wanted to recreate the current state of the civilization at that particular date, then yes.

But important advances are not that fickle. Important discoveries are, for example:
- aqueduct - 3000+ years old, supplies fresh water, limits spread of disease. Exists in almost unchanged form till today, water towers and all. Only building materials changed. Maybe going back 7000 or so years with hanging gardens
- sewer - existed long ago. When it vanished, it contributed to spread of plague. Exists today in almost identical form, with modern construction sometimes using concrete tubes
- wheel/lever - the basis of most mechanical tools. Allegedly existed 5000 years ago, but confirmed only ~1000 or so
- fire - duh
- irrigation - 5000-7000 years old
- domestication

Technology changes - but there really haven't been many fundamental shifts in human knowledge that is relevant to survival of the species.

We like to think we live in such advanced times. The materials have changed, but the principles remain the same. Even in social science, our precious "connected world" and "globalization" have been done millenia ago.

Today we just happen to live in Age of Oil, which dominates our choice of materials. But the problems we are solving are identical as in Bronze Age or any other.

Going back to the computer discussion, as long as we know mathematics, and we need to use lots of it, the emergence of computers will become inevitable. The whole idea behind computers was to create a machine that can solve any mathematical expression, or problem using a sequence of simple operations reliably. Before machines, we had an army of people performing these very tasks - they were actually called 'computers' and this where the term originates from.

I don't think it's important unless you're into hardware research where you're looking for new or more efficient ways to do things.

But I think some engineering people have to put together something like a computer or robot for their coursework. Noone remembers that stuff in any detail unless they do it for a living or as a hobby.

I'm sure alot of engineering grads could put a basic computer together if they really needed to though.