28 Sep
2012
28 Sep
'12
2:10 p.m.
On 09/28/2012 01:27 PM, Chris Tofu wrote:
Yes! A person built transistors and ICs in their home. Is the
impact of that really lost on you? Seriously?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Further, there's a commercial furnace on her
workbench in those photos. There's very little that's home-made there. (except
her chips of course)
C: I'd have to look. If it has newer bells and whistles, current monitoring,
pyrometer, etc., ok it's no longer old world. But the guts of the furnace still are
likely, unless it was made of fancy Ytong blocks or something.
You are giving off the impression that to be involved in serious
work, a piece of equipment has to be brand new and full of whiz-bang
bells and whistles. If you ARE in fact under this impression, I suggest
you visit a few working labs. This really isn't how things are.
It's also not the case that "home" automatically means "old
discarded
garbage". Some people are willing to invest in quality tools, as I'm
sure you are quite aware.
She has an
intrepid nature I grant, and my hats off to her.
But it stands to be seen whether she'll break new ground.
She HAS broken new ground...she's made transistors and integrated circuits in a
home lab. As far as breaking new ground in semiconductor physics, well, that's not
the goal. Even she doesn't have enough funding for that.
C: So her methods are all that different from the way the first experimental transistors
or fets were made? Something tells me no. Being that this knowledge has been around for a
long time, it's hard to see how she's breaking ground. It's still a transistor
after all.
These "kids" coming up with, in a manner of speaking only, innovation, is
fantastic. I'm not knocking it. But is it really new at all?