10 Dec
2014
10 Dec
'14
2:25 p.m.
On 12/10/2014 03:29 PM, Roy Hirst wrote:
I just realized I am the same age as the transistor
(though it in fact
got smaller as it got older, and I did not).
Does anyone know please of a forum (this one?) with interest in
disruptive technology, i.e. components or processes that quickly
changed the gameplan?
Obviously at some tipping point ICs became cheaper and easier than
analog components, in 1945 V2 weapon guidance has mechanical gyros,
but 15 years later a Minuteman uses quad nand gate ICs.
Nope, the Minuteman
(Autonetics D17) computer continued to use discrete
transistors and a fixed-head disk as the main memory for QUITE a number
of years.
Behind DEC's PDP-1, funky light brown paint and
all, is presumably
some contemporary innovation in packaging or fab process? I never had
a relationship with a PDP-1, but I could generate similar nostalgia
for the first commercial use of VHDL, for instance.
The PDP-1 was a discrete
transistor computer, also.
Jon