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I must admit: I am totally ignorant about quantum computers.
The only essential thing I have managed to pick up is that it has very little to do with traditional digital computers. Maybe as different from digital computers as the analog computers 40-50 years ago, those that you programmed by setting up a circuit on a plugboard, using Lego-like bricks that were integrators, derivators, adders, amplifiers/multipliers, ...
I guess that I will never get in touch with a real quantum computer. Yet I'd like to know what they are, at a far deeper level than provided by a single article. More like a college level textbook. One that doesn't require you to know in advance what it is, before you start reading. (I am not specifically referring to the Wikipedia article  .) I am curious about how you analyze a problem suitable for a quantum machine, and how you transfer that problem to a 'program' (if that is the term used with quantum computers). I'd like to learn which problems are suitable for quantum machines and which are not (and why they are not).
Does anyone know of a textbook on the subject, suitable for a reader with fairly thorough insight into traditional digital computers, but totally without a clue about quantum computers? Is quantum computing taught at tech universities as an engineering discipline? What textbooks do they use?
Or should I wait for another five or ten years before asking such questions?
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Have you turned it off-and-on ?
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There's this: Learn Quantum Computation using Qiskit
No quantum knowledge needed, but there's plenty of linear algebra and other math, and it's the real deal, not yet another inaccurate popscience description of quantum computing.
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I skimmed through the first couple chapters of this, and it looks great!
It starts at a rather elementary level: You could give this text to a high school kid, who would most likely follow it well. That is fine! The presentation is very pedagogical. Maybe, after having worked through all of this, I will ask for something that goes even deeper; then I will know a lot better what to ask for. Or maybe this is how far I can manage to follow it
Thanks a lot for the link. I will be forwarding it to others who want to learn the fundamentals of quantum computers.
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trønderen wrote: Or should I wait for another five or ten years before asking such questions?
I understood everything about quantum computers and my answer is yes and no.
GCS d--(d-) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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They can "test all solutions at the same time"; making me think of analog / functional computers. Since everything vibrates at some level, I think it's trying to tap into that.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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I unwrap my keyboard coming with my DELL T5810 workstation and check around this heavy keyboard.
I notice there are two USB interfaces on the top side of this keyboard.
is there any special usage for these two USB interface? what is the advantage to put them on keyboard?
diligent hands rule....
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If the tower is under the desk, it's convenient to have USB ports up top. Many would have a USB hub on the desk, but...
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this make sense. I will put it into another room and connect it with Monitor by KVM device.
diligent hands rule....
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You can never have too many USB ports.
[/Story]
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No kidding. We have a 16 port USB hub on some of our machines.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I have a hub that goes into a hub...
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Before we found the 16 port hub, we had 4 4-port hubs connected to a 5th hub, which was then connected to the machine. This was called, with a straight face, the 'dongle farm'.
Software Zen: delete this;
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why do you need so many USB interfaces?
diligent hands rule....
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We build commercial ink-jet printers. Most of our systems are flexible, and you can move printheads from one machine to another. For a customer with multiple systems, they like to move heads around to fit the job for that particular machine. We accomplish this with a dongle per printhead. For example, a customer can have 10 printheads and move them between two machines. One can be set to print black front and back (2 heads), while the other is printing full color (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black). Another time you can have all 4 black printheads on one machine and print a wider swathe.
These are over and above the usual mouse, keyboard, touch screen, and a couple more dongles that control optional features. I hate the whole dongle thing myself (the device drivers are a PITA), but it works.
Software Zen: delete this;
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you can charge your phone, and attach other USB devices? I don't know, its just a hunch. 
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I had a couple of keyboards with built-in USB hub, until I switched to wireless devices. Now I have a screen with a USB hub, and would never buy a new screen without it.
When the USB hub was in the keyboard, I had the mouse plugged into it. Today, even the mouse is wireless, but the sockets in the screen are regularly in use for memory sticks, charging my phone and my phone keyboard, transferring images from my SLR camera, connecting the scanner that is used so rarely that it is stowed away in a cabinet. I even have a USB floppy drive, and (believe it or not), I have used it this year!
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trønderen wrote: I even have a USB floppy drive
I worked for a company that shut its doors after a buyout. Salespeople returned their laptops, and I salvaged a USB floppy drive from one of them. Not so useful on a day-to-day basis, but when you need it, it's extremely valuable.
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And the same is standard meanwhile with most monitors to have a 'USB hub' above your desk 
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It's there so when that one breaks you can plug in a new keyboard and carry on as if it hadn't happened.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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could you imagine a string of like 4-5 keyboards. too funny.
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