ARM creators Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber - Part Two: the accidental chip

Steve Furber was the head of the Computer Science department at Manchester University when I studied there 10 years ago, I believe he still is.<p>He took us for a course about ARM processors and how to program them via assembly code. It was tough to say the least but interesting, the text book was the one mentioned in the article. At the time we realised that ARM was a big thing, but looking back we definitely didn't realise how big it would become.

If the power lines to the processor were not connected, then what leakage was powering it? Was it running only off the minimal electricity transmitted when data was moved into/out of the processor?

I was lucky enough to have lunch with Steve Furber and my two of my old college lecturers a few months ago. A very fascinating man with lots of history.

This "accident" reminds me of what I read a week ago in the article "How geniuses think". And it was this: "GENIUSES PREPARE THEMSELVES FOR CHANCE. Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else." So when you're up to something interesting drop everything else and study it. It might pay off.<p>Link article (<a href="http://www.creativitypost.com/create/how_geniuses_think" rel="nofollow">http://www.creativitypost.com/create/how_geniuses_think</a>)

dup: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3923421" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3923421</a>

I hope Furber updates his ARM book again some day.