Chapter 155 : Magical Electrification
Chapter 155: Magical Electrification
The preparation of silicon itself was not particularly difficult. After all, she did not need silicon of such high purity for now. Vacuum diodes and transistors were not that “picky” in their requirements either—though the price of such tolerance, of course, was their bulkiness…
To accelerate technological progress, however, the route of vacuum diodes had to be skipped entirely—transitioning directly to smaller, semiconductor point-contact diodes and pre-fabricated triode transistors.
The principles were already well-established; what troubled the Alliance was merely the difficulty in preparing silicon and fully digesting the materials Mitia had provided them.
With point-contact diodes available, the possibility of basic prototypes for many devices—such as radar, various household appliances, and, of course, computers—became real.
While they were tinkering with diodes to assemble the first electronic computer, one of the elven magic scholars who had joined them proposed an idea that Mitia had never considered before.
“Why must it be electrons? Would it be possible to use magical elements as the circulating medium?”
Mitia’s eyes immediately brightened. Indeed—if magical elements were used, it could work, at least for computers.
Why had electronic computers in her previous life been binary? The answer was simple—this design was the most efficient, since binary implementation in circuits was the easiest.
When an electric circuit was powered, voltage levels were converted to binary through analog-to-digital conversion: high voltage represented 1, low voltage represented 0. In other words, analog circuits were converted into digital ones, with the threshold between high and low defined artificially.
Typically, voltages below 2.5 volts were considered low, and those above 3.2 volts high—corresponding to 0 and 1. A circuit only needed to distinguish between high and low states to perfectly express binary logic, which was physically easy to achieve.
Simplifying further, the foundation of all electronic computers lay in two basic states: on and off. Magical elements could achieve this too—and even more.
This was because electrons could never truly reach zero voltage, or rather, at the Alliance’s current level of technology, it was impossible to maintain a conducting analog circuit at absolute zero voltage while keeping it stable and detectable.
Magical elements, however, could. Their structural properties were far more stable and capable of maintaining three distinct modes—high, low, and neutral.
This meant that, if circuits were constructed using magical elements, a ternary system of -1, 0, and 1 could be realized—representing “true,” “false,” and “unknown.” From a long-term perspective, ternary computation offered many advantages.
Yet Mitia believed that, for now, their focus should remain on binary—simply because it was easier.
After all, early mechanical computers had once used decimal, which best fit human thought processes—so why was it abandoned? Simply because it was too complex.
In fact, hexadecimal usage was far more common than decimal. Four binary digits could represent numbers from 0 to 15—exactly one hexadecimal unit.
Binary 00101000 could directly be converted to hexadecimal 38. A “word” was the basic unit of computer memory; generally, computers had a word length of 32 or 64 bits.
For a 32-bit system, a word contained 32 binary digits. A byte, being 8 bits, could represent data from 0 to 255.
Ternary, however, was different.
A ternary system would require many more transistors to represent three states and additional logic gates—AND, NOT, NAND, and so on would not suffice. Additional types of gates would be required, reducing clock speed.
The difficulty of material preparation would rise by two full tiers. If ternary offered better cost control, it would have developed naturally—rather than being swept into history’s dustbin.
You might say capitalists were cruel, but you could never question their sensitivity to cost and profit margins. After all, they dared do anything for money—except waste it.
Thus, the use of magical elements as circuit carriers was a path worth pursuing—but one that required patient, well-funded experimentation. For now, electronic computers and elemental computers would develop in parallel.
The Alliance had no immediate use for such advanced systems. Budget allocation would follow an 8-to-2 split: eight for electronics, two for elemental circuits.
In fact, even the question of whether ternary systems were truly “advanced” remained debatable.
At least in circuit design, they weren’t—while ternary could theoretically improve efficiency by 1.5 times, its increased volume and complexity made the trade-off far from worthwhile.
If the Alliance’s binary systems failed to develop and replace existing technologies on a large scale, then ternary systems would never find fertile ground.
That said, the foundation for ternary development in this world was not nonexistent. Rune technology already provided a basic framework for ternary-like computing components—there was no need to start from diodes as with electronics.
However, rune etching came with its own problems—particularly in micro-carving. A rune circuit merely needed to connect to function, but its design and engraving were far from simple.
A diameter of one centimeter was easy; one millimeter was difficult; one nanometer—nearly impossible.
The plan, then, was to advance binary development simultaneously across civilian and military fields through iterative trial and error.
Meanwhile, the production of precision instruments would, in turn, drive rapid progress and iteration in alchemical rune technology—eventually producing magical-element ternary computers. This was Mitia’s provisional roadmap.
Although their rune micro-engraving technology was lacking, that did not stop them from integrating alchemy with semiconductor electronics.
For instance, the crystalline ores of magical elements possessed extremely high purity. Regardless of the type, all impurities were naturally expelled—the elements themselves were mutually incompatible.
That made things interesting. Could such crystals be cut into fixed shapes, with rune circuits carved directly onto them to create functional magical devices?
Or could smaller crystals be cut and used as circuit-board energy nodes? They did not conduct electricity—but they conducted magic! The effect, in essence, was the same.
Taking it a step further—if silver or copper wires were attached to a thin crystal sheet, using the crystal as an energy source for the wiring, small-scale spells could be inscribed directly onto the sheet.
No spell could possibly be smaller than the crystal sheet itself. If one sheet held a Wind Blade spell, that was a miniature wind-knife. What if ten were combined? A hundred?
Through mere stacking, countless applications could emerge—many of military value. For example, airships could have clusters of levitation-rune panels suspended beneath them.
Tanks could mount layers of defensive rune armor plates—functioning much like reactive armor.
When struck by magical attacks, the crystal panels within a region would trigger identical defensive spells simultaneously, stacking and fusing their power. Once depleted, the armor plates could simply be replaced.
The future, then, became clear: first establish stable power generation and distribution using vacuum-tube technology.
Then, develop a semiconductor industry capable of transitioning rune etching from manual craftsmanship to precision machining.
With stable electric power achieved, the internal combustion engine had barely begun to flourish—and already, the era of magical electrification had arrived ahead of schedule.