Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Transistor's 60th Birthday

Posted by kdawson on from the silly-hats-will-be-worn dept.

Apple Acolyte sends in a Forbes piece noting the 60th birthday of the transistor on Dec, 16. For the occasion the AP provides the obligatory Moore's-Law-is-ending, no-it-isn't article. From Forbes: "Sixty years ago, on Dec. 16, 1947, three physicists at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., built the world's first transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen and William Brattain had been looking for a semiconductor amplifier to take the place of the vacuum tubes that made radios and other electronics so impossibly bulky, hot and power hungry."

12 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. The hell? by kaos07 · · Score: 4, Funny

    This post is at least 5 minutes old and no comments?

    Either no one cares about the poor transistor, or you've all gotten lives.

    1. Re:The hell? by QuickFox · · Score: 3, Funny

      Anybody who has held a soldering iron and done something digital with single transistors please raise your hand ? Why digital? I made analog circuits with single transistors — a radio, and intercom, and some other cool gadgets.

      It was all part of an electronics toy set called "Electronic Engineering", where you could build various gadgets by connecting components in predefined ways. Very cool, but unfortunately I was far too young to understand what I was doing. Still it did capture my attention and speed me on the road to geekdom.
      --
      Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
    2. Re:The hell? by Malevolyn · · Score: 2, Funny

      It really is unforgettable. Ahhh, the nostalgic feel of burning nostrils...

      --
      Your ad here.
  2. As every audiophile knows... by TeknoHog · · Score: 5, Funny

    a nice, warm-sounding amplifier is not something made of transistors. It's a series of tubes.

    --
    Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    1. Re:As every audiophile knows... by Dr.+Cody · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't forget space heater. Until my landlord gets their No. 2 boiler going again, I need all the help I can get!

  3. Re:The Transisor's Significance by ookabooka · · Score: 3, Funny

    While you read this post, about 20 transistors were manufactured for every person in the world.

    Feel free to send me my 20 whenever you get the chance. What sort of transistors are these? MOSFETs? BJTs? N-channel, P-channel? I like them all.
    --
    If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
  4. Last post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Headline from February 7, 2496:

    Nearly 5 centuries after it was predicted, Moore's Law has finally come to an end. Having nothing to report, Slashdot's servers collapsed in a puff of 2048-qubit floating point reals.

    ... more on that later. But first, President Bush CXXIII was seen picking his nose in public...

  5. Moore's-Law-is-ending, no-it-isn't article. by niceone · · Score: 2, Funny

    Bipolar?

    --
    ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
  6. Obligatory quote from 1947 by ichigo+2.0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these!"

  7. Re:Who really "invented" transistors. by QuickFox · · Score: 2, Funny

    At UTC 13:16 on Sunday 16 December you write about an event on 16 December 1947... Coincidence?

    You write this in 2007 and mention a UFO incident on 7/7 1947... Coincidence?

    2 posts about this subject appear on this page, one enumerating 2 points and the other mentioning 2 dates, and these posts appear 22 minutes apart... Coincidence?

    I think not. Clearly this can't be coincidence. Clearly you're an alien pretending to be a conspiracy theorist.

    --
    Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
  8. Re:As every camper knows... by Fear+the+Clam · · Score: 4, Funny

    A nice, warm sleeping bag in a tent that you carried in your backpack is better than any hotel room.

    Right up until the next morning when you wish you had a hot shower and room service.

  9. iPod Nano by tsa · · Score: 2, Funny

    Transistors are really amazing devices. Imagine how big an iPod Nano would be if you had to make it using vacuum tubes! I guess you'd need a whole power plant just to keep it alive! And it wouldn't even work, because the tubes are too slow.

    --

    -- Cheers!