<story><title>How to Build 1 Bit of RAM Using Transistors</title><url>https://avrillion.com/stf/363/How-to-Build-1-Bit-of-RAM-Using-Transistors</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>userbinator</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve always wondered why most people seem to draw flip-flops with the crossed wires and both gates pointing the same way, when I think this representation makes it far clearer:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;cwZe7Zf.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;i.imgur.com&amp;#x2F;cwZe7Zf.png&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;When both inputs are low, the NORs are equivalent to NOTs and you can see they form a storage loop. When one input is high, it forces the loop into the corresponding state.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;m disappointed this article doesn&amp;#x27;t show the transistor-level schematic, because trying to read from a breadboard is extremely difficult.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to Build 1 Bit of RAM Using Transistors</title><url>https://avrillion.com/stf/363/How-to-Build-1-Bit-of-RAM-Using-Transistors</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>leggomylibro</author><text>I once made a single-transistor latch by accident. It acted as a single bit of memory and retained its value for weeks until I got bored with the project.&lt;p&gt;I had been making magnetic snap-together circuits, so I had a bunch of small PCBs with simple 2- and 3-pin footprints and holes that I soldered neodymium disc magnets into.&lt;p&gt;I put a big TO-220 N-fet on one of them, and stuck it to a laminated whiteboard so that the magnets stuck without shorting together, then I hooked it up to an LED as a simple high-side switch.&lt;p&gt;When I bent the transistor so that its metal plane rested against the magnetic whiteboard, its gate would latch after briefly tapping either V+ or ground to the magnet which was connected to the pin. When the transistor&amp;#x27;s metal plane was perpendicular to the board, it didn&amp;#x27;t latch. Disconnecting and reconnecting the LED didn&amp;#x27;t perturb the &amp;#x27;saved&amp;#x27; value, and neither did removing power overnight. And the same thing happened with a similar P-fet connected as a low-side switch.&lt;p&gt;It probably wasn&amp;#x27;t a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; latch; it was a very over-sized transistor with low gate capacitance, and I didn&amp;#x27;t try it with something like a 3904. I think it might have had something to do with the principles behind nonvolatile ferroelectric RAM, but I never did get to the bottom of it.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Ferroelectric_RAM&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Ferroelectric_RAM&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>