Transistor history.
 

Watched this excelent series of video's yesterday, here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkRwArnc1k It was especially interesting to see how Japan started trying to make transistors from nothing having to make their own high voltage oscillator, HV caps and using hot plates as resistors to drive an induction furnace to try and grow germanium crystals.

Also incredible was Japan's acheivement after being bombed back to the stone age after the war, in about 20 years. In quite a few cases two or three blokes in a shed went on to build big companies which supplied the IC makers with component parts.

Later video's cover the calculator wars as well as going into detail of some of the problems transistor makers faced, often loosing over 90% of transistor production due to impurities in the air.

Well worth a shuftie, Andy.

Re: Transistor history.
 

Well, I've just had a "butcher's" and have downloaded all 4 parts for later viewing.

Thanks for the link.

Tony

Re: Transistor history.
 

No worries Tony, it's well worth a butchers : )

A.

Re: Transistor history.
 

Thanks Andy for the info, so much stuff out there to view and read wonderful.
Cheers
John

Re: Transistor history.
 

Well spotted Andy and thanks.
At the same time I wish to point out that I was very fortunate to visit Japan during the 1990s on business on many occasions. What an eye opener. From a technology viewpoint especially from a power engineering aspect, certain items for electrical transmission use are only available from Japan. Here I wish to refer to specific insulators and switchgear as well as large generator casings.
I also recall one large construction company that employed upwards of 5000 engineers yet only 3% of them had computers. Rather, the ones without had to work in conjunction with their standards department within which every single variable and their associated boundary criterion had been catalogued and monitored for any products they would be working with. I do recall a bottle of beer was £9.00 in 1998 and a cup of coffee cost £6.00.