The Evolution Of CPU Processing Power Part 1: The Mechanics Of A CPU
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- čas přidán 27. 11. 2018
- SERIES LINK - • Computing Technology
In this multi-part series, we explore the evolution of the microprocessor and its astonishing growth in processing power over the decades. In Part 1, we learn about the first commercial CPU, the Intel 4004 and examine how it and similar early CPU's work at the fundamental level.
During the mid-1960s a revolution in miniaturization was kick-started. The idea of packing dozens of semiconductor-based transistors on to a single silicon chip spawned the integrated circuit. It laid the groundwork for a complete paradigm shift in how modern society would evolve. In March of 1971, the commercial launch of a new semiconductor product set the stage for this new era. Composed of a then-incredible 2,300 transistors, the Intel 4004 central processing unit or CPU was released.
For comparison, ENIAC, the first electronic computer built just 25 years earlier could only execute 5,000 instructions a second. But what made the 4004 so powerful wasn’t just its 1800% increase in processing power - it only consumed 1 watt of electricity, was about ¾” long and cost $5 to produce in today’s money. This was miles ahead of ENIAC’s, cost of $5.5 million in today’s money, 180kW power consumption, and 27-ton weight.
In order to understand how a CPU derives its processing power, let examine what a CPU actually does and how it interfaces with data. For all intents and purposes, we can think of a CPU as an instruction processing machine. They operate by looping through three basic steps, fetch, decode, and execute. As CPU designs evolve these three steps become dramatically more complicated and technologies are implemented that extend this core model of operation.
FETCH
In the fetch phase, the CPU loads the instruction it will be executing into itself. A CPU can be thought of as existing in an information bubble. It pulls instructions and data from outside of itself, performs operations within its own internal environment, and then returns data back. This data is typically stored in memory external of the CPU called Random Access Memory or (RAM). Software instructions and data are loaded into RAM from more permanent sources such as hard drives and flash memory. But at one point in history magnetic tape, punch cards, and even flip switches were used.
BUS
The mechanism by which data moves back and forth to RAM is called a bus. A bus can be thought of as a multi-lane highway between the CPU and RAM is which each bit of data has its own lane. But we also need to transmit the location of the data we’re requesting, so a second highway must be added to accommodate both the size of the data word and the address word. These are called the data bus and address bus respectively. In practice, these data and address lines are physical electrical connections between the CPU and RAM and often look exactly like a superhighway on a circuit board.
REGISTER
The address of the memory location to fetch is stored in the CPU, in a mechanism called a register. A register is a high-speed internal memory word that is used as a “notepad” by CPU operations. It’s typically used as a temporary data store for instructions but can also be assigned to vital CPU functions, such as keeping track of the current address being accessed in RAM. Because they are designed innately into the CPU’s hardware, most only have a handful of registers. Their word size is generally coupled to the CPU’s native architecture.
DECODE
Once an instruction is fetched the decode phase begins. In classic RISC architecture, one word of memory forms a complete instruction. This changes to a more elaborate method as CPUs evolve to complex instruction set architecture, which will be introduced in part 2 of this series.
BRANCHING
Branching occurs when an instruction causes a change in the program counter’s address. This causes the next fetch to occur at a new location in memory as oppose to the next sequential address.
OPERAND
Opcodes sometimes require data to perform its operation on. This part of an instruction is called an operand. Operands are bits piggybacked onto an instruction to be used as data. Let say we wanted to add 5 to a register. The binary representation of the number 5 would be embedded in the instruction and extracted by the decoder for the addition operation.
EXECUTION
In the execution phase, the now configured CPUs is triggered. This may occur in a single step or a series of steps depending on the opcode.
CLOCKS
In a CPU these 3 phases of operation loop continuously, workings its way through the instruction of the computer program loaded in memory. Gluing this looping machine together is a clock. A clock is a repeating pulse use to synchronize a CPU’s internal mechanics and its interface with external components. The CPU clock rate is measured by the number of pulses per second or Hertz.
SUPPORT NEW MIND ON PATREON
/ newmind
No matter how many times I've worked with assembly and CPU's in general it amazes me everytime what has been achieved and how reliable the technology is
its almost like its alien its SO fundamentally complicated..simple yet incredible
IKR
I stopped by best buy 10 years ago and then today. Shesh, the TV section was a mindblower.
This video is basically a summary of my microprocessors class and we also code in assembly there 🤣😂
@@jaymorpheus11 i still remember the tv section when i was 5, it was dominated by big bulky television and a couple of incredibly expensive flat screens, fast forward 15 years and even those flat screens look so archaic, Smart TVs are now everything, technology is trully amazing
Whenever I try researching about the internals of a CPU I usually get the glossed over, simplified version, with words I don't understand thrown at me. I really appreciate how you explain what things mean, and also put them in the description so I can write it down to look up later. I wish I could subscribe a million times.
Thanks for the amazing comment - that made my day. I try my best to make these videos as in-depth as possible but still relatively easy to digest. It's very gratifying reading appreciative comments like yours. For all the reason that motivates me to work on these videos, feedback like this are some of the most rewarding. Thanks again!
New Mind 😊
If you really want to address it, probably you need to go througha series of university courses. Digital logic, micro processor principle s and computer archetectures. Hopefully you can find them on CZcams. Good luck!
well, you could if you created a million account. i'm just saying...
You can look at computer crash course video.
you summarized my computer science class... thumps up dude
This is more computer engineering than computer science.
I was going to say the same thing!
Same for me! lol
Ryan Breaker these topics are covered in CS as well but yeah these videos are a summary of 3 of my CompE classes
czcams.com/video/tawb_aeYQ2g/video.html
He summarized the entire Ben Eater CPU creation series (43 videos) in just the first video. I can't wait for part 2... (which I'm going to go watch right now! lol)
04:45 Instruction Set
05:15 Fetch Decode Execute
06:40 Data Bus & Address Bus
09:05 Opcode & Operand
12:30 Clock
Awesome -- thank you! A table of contents makes it more usable.
You are legend
Based
This guy gets more credit for TOC than the creator gets for the upload..
Thanks that's actually helpful for videos like this
It's cool seeing how overwhelmingly positive comments can be when some is producing truly good content. Keep it up man, this was awesome.
Well said sir
Its also the content. Smart/curious people are more likely to watch this and also more likely to not be trolls/bigots/douchebags.
I think it's more so about there's nothing to disagree with here. Nothing is contentious about this subject.
As an IT Professional, I'm a hardware guy, it amazes me still that we have come so far in such short time. just 70 or 80 years ago we barely had mastery of basic circuits, today multicore processors that can top 5ghz in the consumer market.... Simply awesome, can't wait to see thee next 30 to 40 year, if I get that long...
Great video BTW!
There won't happen much more.
The physical boarders are nearly reached. Intel is already sitting since 5 years trying to shrink the build size by 4 nm(from 14 to 10) down. I think something around 3-5 mm will be the smallest size possible. I actually don't know. But 3nm would mean that the length of a transistor is build by less than 30 atoms.
And the max Frequency is connected to the build size, so even this has its boarders. You can try to maximise the transistor count or get more Cores but this also won't help because of the sequentiality of the code. So you will need a revolution in the build material or the software side or architecturing. All things that will rather not happen.
@@ahmadz.9944 The most revolutionary action would be use of Quantum computing using Q-bits rather than advancing in conventional digital electric-ionic computing systems. Of course, we will still need electricity to run those computers but the processes would not be done by active electric components like the MOSFETs which we are still using.
@@ahmadz.9944 I'm actually pretty hopeful that we will develop newer materials, different techniques, and what not to eventually overcome those limitations.
Its possible we see the joining of regular CPUs and quantum computers down the road. Maybe it went be typical speed boost, maybe it will be the way which we process data.
I'm not sure if it will continue, all good things...right? But I'm pretty sure there will be some amazing technological growth in the next decade or two...
But then again only time will tell...
@@kjellvb1979 one way it could be done are hybrids, basically Quantum computers can't be used as regular computers because they work very diferent, they are more like puré sheer brute force to process a lot of data in small amounts of time but without any fines, so the solution would be to allow Quantum computers to do all the heavy lifting while more regular computers gather the data and make sence of it
@@ahmadz.9944 This is true, but they said we are developing clever tricks (like 3d lattice of Silicon to essentially build upward rather than outward), newer materials (perhaps graphine will be incorporated poor replace silicon, maybe some other material), and, of course, eventually using hybrid quantum and classical computer processes to accretive something drastically faster than modern day computers.
Beyond those aspects, I believe we will stop seeing growth in GHZ fior a while, we kind of have already, and seen more dedication to core growth. But I think you will see the greatest jumps in speed not by improvements on the CPU, but with how all the peripherals communicate with the CPU. We've already seen the growth of solid state hard drives, first with SATA based success and now with NVME drives on PCIe buses. I believe we will see the merging of RAM and solid state hard drives, and iirc there are already companies that offer some hybrid RAM/SSD storage solutions. Point being I think you'll see advancements in CPU to peripheral communication, and large jumps in compute speed due to those advancements. Imagine CPUs with enough cache-able memory that the processors barely had to make calls to peripherals over slower busses, achieving this by bundling RAM/SSD and moving it closer to the CPU along one extremely fast PCIe 4 bus it's amidst like the CPU has unlimited cache to work with.
Granted that's an over simplified, and basic summary of what many companies are aiming to do. Maybe not exactly what I explained but variations on that theme of bringing volatile memory and your long term storage together, bringing it closer you the processor and along a faster bus.
The ideas been around for a while, the tech is finally getting there. You've seen this on the networking side already, and is only going to be growing the next couple years. Now hopefully we see it coming to the consumer side as well sooner than later.
Here's an article that explains it better than I. Or at least some of the concepts.
www.edn.com/the-merger-of-networking-storage-ram-and-cache/
You should do a series like this on microcontrollers. Everybody always talks about the history of CPUs and computers, but I'd love to learn more about how that fit in with MCUs.
In essence they work the same way, except micro-controllers are used for more specific purposes. CPU is designed to be placed on to a specifically designed circuit board, the mother board, which is primarily composed of micro-controllers which communicate with each other (e.g: north and south bridge, SATA and USB controllers).
At first microcontrollers were made of discrete cpu, Ram, secondary storage all in one board. Later, on chip microcontrollers started becoming common and the older 'board microcontrollers' were phased out.
I’m sixty three years old now, and I started in the electronics industry around my seventh birthday. My best possession is a 4004 chip removed from a board that was going to thrown away.
Nigel James wanna sell it?
Ayush Kumar Hmmm....I’ll fight you for it !
Sounds like a good deal I paid about 1k for mine. Lol
Top Lobster Sorry Top, but I’ve got more than that.
@@nigeljames6017I wish I had some of the 1101 and 1301
chips left. At one time, I had a few whole wafers of them.
Yes,they were tested and bad, but still. Old style 3 inch
wafers.
steve
Finally a vid that has demystified the CPU for me. Fantastic job mate
You might find it enlightening to read up on how transistors are used together to form logic gates, as it will become still less mystifying still.
OMG! How did anyone figure this out. I tried keeping up but I’m dumb. You can only count on me collecting firewood when society collapses.
the video displayed a glimpse of some money used to see it closer with bigger and heavy machines; 1:30
the exploration of electric circuits in a timeline concept of discovery on how and what to do with it made it smaller;
@@Internet_Web_Collections Basically, we take it for granted but terrified to see something that they cannot understand.
Fetching wood can be as relevant...
You are not alone. Besides, there needs to be many more wood collectors. We're always needed. Just like the geeks.
People were happier when electronics didn't exist. Don't forget!
This video deserves way more than just 9000 views
The view count should be over 9,000!?
so hard ,
becouse another people just wanna play it, feel it , use it ,
and didn't wanna know , how they run ..
It’s a pretty niche topic. Presented beautifully - but still niche.
I think youtube algorithm saw your comment :D
@@pitanu yeah seems like it lol
My guy, the CZcams algorithm gods have smiled upon you and you're popping up all over the place! You have beautiful videos and excellent content here and I can definitely see your channel exploding even now (July 2019). I do, however, have some feedback that could mitigate some negative comments in the future. These do represent a lot more work on top of the apparently massive amount of effort you've already put into these but I think they could benefit you. First, your voice overs are good but maybe consider improving the recording quality some as your channel expands to the less nerdy part of youtube. I feel that some of your lines are a little rushed and warrant re-recording. Second, as you do your research, keep a reference list on hand. You are guaranteed to get something wrong at some point or, at least, say something that many people don't believe or agree with. Having a citation list on all your videos will improve your credibility. Thanks for all your hard work and keep moving forward! I can see this channel passing 100K subscribers by August 2019 easily.
He's CLOSE to 100k! You were sorta right! :D
yeah, i have english as a second language and without subtitles its quite hard to fully understand everything
In all my years on CZcams I've never seen an effectively brand new channel that convinced me to subscribe faster. This is remarkable and the creator and anyone else associated with this project should be proud of themselves.
That’s one of the best compliments I’ve received so far.. thank you.
Explained my entire computer architecture class in 15 minutes good job!
This video amazes me by showing me how little I know
that in effect is the universal truth for everybody...😉
We need more high quality video creators like this. I work on projects designing stuff with ARM controllers and mechanical parts all the time. Even I forget about stuff from time to time and I'd come here to pick them up and remind myself how much efforts mankind has made to get to this point today.
Very enjoyable series. Much of my 40-year career (retired now) coincided with the advent of 8-bit, then 16-, 32- and finally 64-bit processors. I like that the subject matter is presented in an easy to digest manner without losing too much of the details of the engineering problems and solutions along the way as well as a fairly comprehensible use of the techno-jargon. Can't wait to watch the rest. Good work!
I love this channel! You'll reach 100k subs very soon, keep making videos that are super interesting
Now I only need to watch this 4 or 5 more times for this to truly sink in! Great job though
If you really want to learn how a computer works (including software) you should take a course in coursera called From Nand to tetris. It is excellent.
Nice nvidia pfp
I am so happy I found this channel today! The footage in every video I've seen is amazing and the information is so satisfying. I hope this channel blows up in the future, it has such a smartereveryday feel
I read the book “How Computers Work” back in the nineties, and if I hadn’t, I think I would be overwhelmed by this excellent video. This video does an excellent job of explaining CPU fundamentals, which are inherently complicated.
You Sir are an excellent teacher. I never got how CPU worked before today and God knows I tried.
You might find Ben Eater's series on making a simple breadboard computer useful. See czcams.com/video/HyznrdDSSGM/video.html for details.
Well... Two videos in from this channel and I'm sold. I love the technical detail and engineering principles you present in your videos.
Thank you for the content and keep up the good work!
These videos literally teach you nearly everything that you would find in a higher education textbook. I wish that you would never stop uploading videos here.
I hit like before watching. That's the confidence I have in this channel
This guy gets it!
Wow,
This is outstanding.
My teacher explained me all the thing in my coding class. But u add more flavour in it.
I've been looking for a good video explaining CPUs in depth for a while. Nothing has satisfied me until I stumbled upon this. Amazing work!!
Why is this the best educational infographic video I've ever seen? Because it is, and I've seen plenty.
Good work dude! You did a great job distilling a very complicated topic into something understandable by most people. :)
If only this vid existed when i had my Computer Architecture class,great vid :D
Wow... by far the most comprehensive explanation I’ve found on this topic. Thorough but not over explained. You have absolutely nailed this. First time coming across your channel. I am now a subscriber. 👍✌️
Dude this is the most informative video on the subject that I've found on the yt. Great job!!!
This video was my entire assembly course in 14 minutes
Damn this is so good, should have way more views- keep it up
Yeah this video definitely deserves more views. Good stuff man thanks!
Just built my first gaming pc . I got recommended this video and it's fascinating how cpu works
Great intro to the micro processor, now all the complicated stuff like pipelining makes more sense.
The fact that these things work at all is almost miraculous. I usually can understand how most machinery works, but despite (maybe because of) viewing so many videos on computing over the years, they seem like magic to me. How humans can design something so fast and precise is amazing, equivalent of a stone-age person wondering how a car works.
They don’t . Aliens do . No human has the inteligence to do this . Aliens abduct humans and give them this intelligence
@@diegolerma1516 Bro I was thinking the same I already have a box of tinfoil hats ready
@@pablopereyra7126 yes . How can a human be so smart to invent all these things that seem like a dream. There is no way. Who told them this goes here that goes there , this is going to go this and this is going to send a signal there , and the is tiny little chip is going to do this like whatttt!!!. For instance the “MOTHERBOARD”
@@diegolerma1516 brooo you high?
@@nanafalke nah bro it’s just amazing
At 2:15 closed captions mention "in this 2 part series..." but audio and fact turned into a 3 part series. Thanks, great videos!!
Dope! Very excited for this series. Nice to have atleast a laymans grasp of this stuff.
My head is spinning like a top. I am watching this in 720p from a Raspberry pi B+
This is AMAZING, always needed to get into this stuff without having to spend days of studying xd
this is actually a quality material, good job, keep it up
Thank you. It is an awesome video. I revise through your series even get better clarity in understanding some of them.
I wonder how can 5 people dislike this video .. Great content my dude keep up the good work !
Thanks for the supportive words!
Great video, I knew most from school, but you simplified it so nicely that I believe most people follow without taking notes.
To anyone curious to actually understand this part by playing with it, I'll recommend trying to program a microcontroller, perhaps just to sense temperature or light, and outputting it by turning on an LED when certain conditions are met. Luckily we have pre-made platforms for this today (Arduino for instance).
To really understand the basics, you'll need to avoid using too many of the pre-made libraries that exist for those platforms... for instance, try to output a message to a character display by only manipulating registers in binary... It can be fun, but only if you're actually interested in how stuff works, and don't mind reading a few datasheets.
The advantage of using a microcontroller is that you have RAM and flash memory built in, you don't need to deal with an address-/data-bus until you're ready to connect external memory or peripherals, such as a character display, and their word sizes are not crazy large... it's easier to remember what 8 bits do than what 32 bits do.
Y'all really deserve more subscribers. Great content, keep it up.
Watched the ads. Really appreciate this as a continuing VLSI Major. It refreshed my painstaking initial understanding of the microprocessor about 6 years ago without CZcams. Better than all other microprocessor videos out there.
You don't actually have to watch the ads to support the channel; all that matters is that the ads are served.
bruh your subscriber count is going to go to the moon within the next year. good work
Fun fact: The phone on which you are watching right now has more power than all of the computers
from 1960's combined!
Did you just assume my viewing preference?
That's not true. IBM mainframes were going strong by the end of 1969 and there were many of them and a lot more from other companies. The ARM7 is really not all that powerful. So modify your statement to say the 1950's. Then you might be correct.
@@Tapajara The CDC 6600, is one of the most powerful supercomputer that ruled the 60's and 70's could do a MAXIMUM of 300,000 flops. The iphone 5S (a really old phone by today's standards) could do 78.6 giga flops or 78,600,000,00 flops. which means you would require 26200 computers each requiring $2,370,000 . That is not possible.
Yeah. Math rules. lol
@@greatdane114 lol
This was at least 3 weeks of the comp sic class I used to teach. You’re great at this thanks.
If CZcams had recommended me this video 2 years ago, I'd have aced my Microprocessors finals!
Dude, you just earned a subscriber for life!
I'm throwing this all over social media. People need to learn.
Great video, I learned a lot! CPUs have always been confusing to me but this helped me understand!
I'd like to frown on the CZcams algorithm for reccommending this video after my finals. I mean bruh, this was an entire semester worth of knowledge you packed in here and I understood in 13 minutes way more than I did from my lecturer.
Massive props to you good sir
I’m an IT professional and trust me I’ve never been taught this much details in high school. I felt like to grab a notebook and jot down key points. Thanks 😊 man very well done.
well... guess I learned my whole class for this semester here... +sub
Its more deeper than this.. You need to deeply understand electrons, semiconductor, transistors capacitor inductor, resistor, electromagnetism and yes quantum mechanics too to understand it fully
The more you learn, the more magical it sounds lol
Awesome video , I was looking this kind of absolute video search for a long long time.....THANKS A LOT BRO......Best of luck
You're incredibly good at explaining this stuff. I love it, thanks man
2:14 "in this 3-part series"
Just now released part 4. :D
Finally you helped me to decide my Hume mistero of how it works! I was start to think about a conspiracy! ;)
Great Video, Had to rewind a few times due to how fast you were going through it! Thanks!
The playlist that I always wanted. Thanks mate.
8:56 "as [RISC] evolves to CISC"? As it happens, CISC evolved to RISC. That's one of the amazing things about computing systems: they often become more powerful as they become simpler!
This was a very informative video on how a CPU operates. It's interesting to see how CPU's have gotten faster over time. To go from 5000 instructions per second with the Intel 4004, to over 8o billion instructions a second with the new Intel i9 CPU is fascinating. Keep the content coming!
Dude, first time I see a 15 min video covering so much about the bare metal CPU. Very efficient, and easy to understand. Amazing.
Dude !! You almost summarized my entire OS module 🙌🔥🔥
took me back to my 80's teens when 6502 home computers were about and when I slowly picked up this knowledge from years of hobby programming and reading the magazines / books of the time
So forty year ago your golden age.
What is your cats name ?
"I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle." - T-800 model 101.
Thanks for making this series.
I had to download it. This presentation is magnificent. Thank you
I’m 1 minute in. Omg you need so many more subscribers. I had to search for this 😭
80 billion instructions per second? Is that true? Wow.
Edit :after watching the rest of the video I am grateful for your well worded description of computers that a fossil like me could easily follow.
i can't believe my computer architecture class can be summarized in less than 15 minutes but you actually did lol
i wish all professors/teachers were as "to the point" as you were
thank you so much for this video man you saved me
new sub !
Thank you.
Awesome vid. Easy for us that do not know, to follow along.
Appreciate your work in the visuals.
1:06 22/7 is an approximation of Pi. I'm sure this was intentional
In 1969, my father got a job, with a tiny memory
manufacturing company, started by Robert Noyce,
and Gordon Moore. I was 11. I can't remember
the address street number, but it was on
Middlefield road, in Mt View Ca.
steve
Intel?
I really like your videos, the explanations, the general quality. Keep the good work. Congratulations for the excellent work
Dude this video is so cool!!! So happy foud your channel. You explain so well and make things so easy!!! Thanks!
Thanks to let us know how science and engineering shaped the world in very interesting way. These documentaries are far more useful +entertaining, than useless movies. I stopped watching movies as science is far more interesting. Thanks a lot for opening my eyes!
MIND=BLOWN i can't believe genius people like u are not as big as logan paul when you should be i am sad ;-;
This is a phenomenal explanation. Gonna watch part 2 next. Subscribing for sure!
I’ve been in semiconductors for 25yrs. This video was well done.
From 0/1 to all these address things... sounds like science fiction.
This was very simply explained... and I don’t understand any of it
As an EE that took computer architecture classes I must say, this video is extremely well made and manages to explain some very technical information in a very straightforward and simple manner, such that I believe pretty much anyone would be able to understand it.
You should consider teaching.
Thanks for posting this video! I was feeling pretty bummed about uni and this renewed my love for computers yet again. It's just fascinating to see how things work even though we take them for granted each time we use a computer, or a smartphone, or even a calculator.
Facts
When you ask the super computer to explain their self.
Finally I get how a CPU works, it uses magic!
A CPU is a rock that thinks
Maaan, you saved my semester... I was stuck in a lecture, where everybody spoke the same language I wasn't understanding... Very well explained!
Great content. Look forward to watching the rest of this series.
I wish this video was slower even though I studied Comp. Sc. in college.
Why is this just recommended to me now in 2019?
It wasn’t made until the end of 2018.
@@jscorpio1987 What I meant was why just now after 7 months into 2019, you dumbo!
rai x good to know. Thanks!
Video with amazing quality. Congratulations!
What an amazing video, thank you so much for producing such a high quality content!
You need better marketing to get the word out. Great job.
No he doesn't. That would be a foolish distraction.
Keep doing what you're doing, great content IS your marketing.
@@stevenkelby2169 hope you're doing your part then.
@@andrewc1036 Yes :) I share links to the channel with friends and colleagues.
I also love how he doesn't beg for likes, shares and subscribers. We already know how to subscribe, and will, if the content is good.
I haven’t done any marketing nor do I intend to. Just hard world and some CZcams algorithm luck. If you build it, they will come. ( I hope)
@@NewMind Exactly man, lots of respect for you here, don't change your attitude, it's awesome 👍
You should be more expressive when narrating your videos. The monotone voice really kills the vibe. Great work, as far as everything else goes.
I like it, reminds me of morty
Great video. I found it really informative and entertaining. Can't wait for more!
Interesting topic,just impossible to listen because zero passion in the voice for what you telling.How much we need to donate to hear amazement in the voice? =]
Hahahahahaha that’s the best one yet. This was one of my first videos. I had no clue what I was doing at the time. I’ve since gotten better at narration.