The Transistor: a 1953 documentary, anticipating its coming impact on technology

[@anthonychastain8953]

The number of transistors it takes to even watch this video on KZbin would blow the minds of the people who made it.

[@FlorenceSlugcat]

In total, it is most likely at the very least multiple hundreds of billions. Your phone itself may have a couple billions, if its a new gen, but then, add the ones in your modem, the whole routing of your ISP network, the youtube servers, which likely involves alot alot of communication between different servers internally. Each step on the way to get it delivered to you adds anywhere between a few millions to multiple billions.

[@youbigtubership]

@@FlorenceSlugcat It all happened by accident too.

[@culbyj3665]

It wouldnt be possible

[@skeetrix5577]

like a gagillion l

[@grotekleum]

The number in the new Apple M2Max chip is put at 67 billion.

[@dreadpiratesidebeard9471]

A crucial step in the development of the digital cat picture.

[@henmich]

And biker porn... don't forget biker porn...

[@christiaankoningen4632]

@@henmich 🤨

[@NiffirgkcaJ]

@@kwekker what did he say?

[@kwekker]

@@NiffirgkcaJ I can't remember, sorry

[@NiffirgkcaJ]

@@kwekker I see, it's fine.

[@ThePeaceableKingdom]

"Someday, they'll build computers that fit into a good sized room..."

[@AntonisDimopoulos]

No way! That would be swell!

[@Cybeonix]

We can always dream

[@bisbeejim]

It will never replace the horse.

[@robertpryor7225]

Sure Buck Rogers, hold on to that dream.

[@carlbelli7356]

Gee,What Will They Think Of Next ?

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

This... is surprisingly good science communication. No dumbing down to a patronizing level, practical demonstrations of advantages, and a very solid brief history of how we got to where there were in 1953. Really fascinating little look

[@midshipman8654]

Its really interesting how well these mid century (40s, 50s, 60s) topic introductory videos communicate their topic for lay understanding. the communication skills present are really something to marvel at in themselves.

[@classicalextremism]

Difference in philosophy. The layman was not held in utter contempt at the time so documentaries were crafted with different expectations. If you think people are idiots you will produce idiotic content for them. And people are what they consume... so...

[@burtony3]

Science was considered cool then, and especially radio technology for the average person. Long before popular culture labeled scientists as nerds, devoid of social skills.

[@dububro]

There are a few major cultural differences, one being that people read more often.

[@cloudtaker633]

Maybe the boomers are right. We are getting dumber.

[@Xerdoz]

I can't see this thing catching on.

[@MasterKoala777]

Xerdoz , let's go buy shares of stock in IBM :-)

[@tobbleboii5988]

i love imagining what was on peoples mind when they watched this back in the 1950s did they expect this rapid coming of transistors?

[@roygalaasen]

Yes, useless invention!

[@user2C47]

Electric cars will never catch on. **Becomes illegal to manufacture cars with gasoline engines*

@@tobbleboii5988 Yes. They realized what the valve tube brought them. Electronic brains, already discussed on this clip. Man looking forward to the age, just beyond the age of electronics. They knew exactly what was about to come, as we know exactly what will come with quantum computing, or the variable state transistor.

[@davesherman74]

I restore antique radios, including a few early transistor radios. Some of those early transistor radios proudly stated how many transistors they had in them. I got a chuckle when I learned that some manufacturers, in an effort to make their units seem impressive, would design in transistors being used as diodes, or they were not really doing anything useful, but by gosh, we'll advertise that it has 12 transistors because it sounds cool!

[@Bugaboo-wq5sc]

Similar to 'turbo' in 80's and 90's cars. Everything was turbo back then

[@ananda_miaoyin]

@@Bugaboo-wq5sc How about Honda with the CVCC on the backs of cars? Like anyone that is not a car geek or engineer even knows what it means!

[@patricknesbitt4003]

I had an old early '70s no name walkie talkie that advertised 7 transistors but one actually had all 3 leads soldered together on one pad.

[@davidedmundson8402]

I had a 6-transistor radio (early to mid-60s) and it was hot stuff.

[@martymctry20]

​@@patricknesbitt4003 That was a builtin backup transistor 😊

[@xaiano794]

7:59 - a portable television the size of a suitcase! What wonders await us!

[@HadleyCanine]

Watching this video on my cellphone made me feel a little ashamed at how much I'd been taking technology for granted.

[@user2C47]

A portable computer that could fit in your hand, with unfathomable processing power.

[@gertraba4484]

and cooking food by radiation that produces NO HEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ccandrew111]

There were actually portable CRT televisions that looked similar to that lol. Anyone born after 2005 probably has no recollection of cathode ray tubes however

[@xaiano794]

@@ccandrew111 oh I remember, but I think we're just a touch further on now.

[@bartbernard6127]

I happened to be born in 1953. My father worked at Illinois Bell Telephone and took me into the Chicago telephone exchange at a young age. He showed me the banks and banks of relays that were switching telephone calls, and mentioned that there was a new thing that would replace the relays and switch thousands of times faster. A few years later I bugged him to buy me a book on transistors. I only vaguely understood it even after many hours of re-reading it.

[@dmann55398]

Those switching relays remained in use for decades in many places. Quite a few were replaced by integrated circuits in the 80's and 90's. The amplifiers for voice and what powered the relays went to solid state as soon as practical.

[@Critical-Thinker895]

I was also born that year but by the 1970's I was building radio kits and we were still using tubes. The phone company got a huge jump on everyone else.

[@trevormoffat4054]

My Dad also worked at the telephone exchange. He took me in quite a few times and I got to see all the technology they had there in the early 80’s. Probably a lot of it was still the same stuff from the 50’s and 60’s at that stage.

[@kirk1968]

Awesome history, thank you for sharing. I was born in 1968, but have often read about the may breakthroughs created at Bell Labs (same company?)...I have fuzzy memories of going to a local Bell phone company and seeing all of the current tech in person. How blessed we are to experience the transition from analog to digital!

[@somedumbozzie1539]

I worked in relay exchanges in 76, it was like walking around inside a chipset. Malvern exchange was a classic at the time Cross bar equipment was in coming in and all looked very Space 1999. Malvern exchange on the other hand looked like something from Harry Potter. Jumper leads every where like a spiders web that fixed faults that but no one knew why so don't bother logging it. There were line selectors from before the war still running strong WW1 that is refurbed in the late 40's.

[@SuperIliad]

I was ten when this short was made. They would show such films in a school auditorium and every student sat in rapt attention. Oh, how we could not wait for that golden future. Oh, how we look back to what seems a golden past.

[@ammerudgrenda]

nice words!

[@Aiijuin]

It’s true.

[@lucasmorrow3514]

Grass is always greener

[@That_Awesome_Guy1]

The 60's were the peak of human civilization.

[@SuperIliad]

@@That_Awesome_Guy1 This is from the 1950s. Great changes in the 20th century occurred mid-decade. The first half of the '60's resembled the second half of the 1950s. The latter part of the 1960's to the second half of the 1970s saw the dissolution of all that held together societies since time immemorial.

[@jerryeiting5367]

The invention of the transistor is an amazing moment in history. It wasn't an accidental discovery, they were trying for this. All the electronics we take for granted now are based on this.

[@barowt]

If they knew all of the electronics we just toss in the trash if it doesn't work, the inventors would be sad to know what we do with their hard work.

[@kriss3d]

Oh absolutely electronics is really quite few different kinds of components. And with that you can build anything once you know how they work. It's much like Lego really. As an engineer, when I first learned how they function I felt like I could build anything you could Imagine.

[@marcdraco2189]

@@kriss3d People think I'm clever when I string together a bunch of (as you say, Lego blocks) to produce a usable circuit. I'm just depressed that the humble JFET is going out of favour- lost mostly to MOSFETS, yet in audio they are currently irreplaceable.

[@Sciurus]

Guess no one has heard of Dr Thomas Henry Moray and how he actually invented the Germanium transistor more than 20 years before his assistant went to work for Dr Shockley. The patent office refused to give him a patent and whether that was due to biases of the electronics community of the time or the Inventions and Research department of the Navy wanting cutting edge tech kept secret for their own personal uses we will never know but the short book authored by him titled "Beyond the Light Rays: the Sea of Energy that the Earth Floats In" is worth a read for all students of electrical and electronic's engineering history!

[@odynith9356]

These 1950s videos explaining and showing off new technology were amazing. This was a great era of scientific and engineering discovery and trials. Most of what we use and apply now stem from this work. Straight to the point clear and concise info.

[@jamessmith6162]

And this is the teaching methodology we need to get back to, if we are going to advance far more than those times. This to me was when learning was fun and fundamental.

[@nonegone7170]

@@jamessmith6162 Completely vague comment that's tinted by nostalgia goggles.

[@jamessmith6162]

@@nonegone7170 Wow, talk about completely vague, you are way beyond your own statement!!! 😳😳🤯

[@stephanegerard513]

Hello odynith9356! While I understand what you mean, and agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that the scientific culture responsible for this video was both tremendously successful and deeply influential, I would nuance your last sentence by noting one reason why this may have been so: in my opinion the impact of such colossal breakthroughs relied not only on their technical mastery, but on taking the time to bring the public in by setting up context BEFORE AND AFTER getting "straight to the point" as you put it. A notable hallmark of this strategy is apparent in the fact that, having established the subject of transistors as the primary focus in its first sixty seconds, the presentation goes on to discuss the prior technology of vacuum tubes for two and a half minutes (more than 25% of its runtime)! This while crucially avoiding any semblance of criticism for a system in direct competition for its market share, but rather taking the opportunity to laud its merits, and highlight the genuine successes and advances it had made possible by the year 1953. Similarly, in the wrap-up section at the end, the narration takes over ninety seconds to wonder at and imagine about the future this transistor breakthrough might now permit - highlighting new possibilities in an earnest and sincere fashion without being condescending or patronizing. Such an attitude, coupled with the clear pride and satisfaction at a challenging project brought to a new plateau by hard work, is calibrated to bring every possible member of the English-speaking community into a common vision of advancement, rather than attempting to stress its superiority and outlier status to the detriment of old and new researchers who might thereby feel excluded. This optimism and generosity of spirit is perhaps no more than a remnant of a fast-fading worldview, however, as it is worth noting that this recording took place in a global setting which was far more mysterious and perhaps more romantic than is the case today in a more cynical 2024, as an example likely having been released before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent of Mount Everest. In any event, thanks are due to the AT&T Tech Channel for releasing this fascinating time capsule into general distribution, as well as for the stellar archival work required to preserve this footage in a viewable format for seven decades and counting! Hoping this finds you well, -Stéphane Gérard

[@pumochan]

My father was a radio engineer in a Japanese electronics company in the 1960s. When I was a child, I was interested in the textbooks my father used, and this video explains some of the same things that were in those textbooks, which makes me nostalgic.

[@stephenradley9798]

Do you know happen to know the name of those textbooks still?

[@pumochan]

@@stephenradley9798 Yes, one of the books is still with me as a scanned PDF. 池原典利「トランジスタ活用事典」("Encyclopedia of Transistor Applications" by Noritoshi Ikehara, 1959). There were explanations of transistor principles and structures, circuit design techniques, and finally circuit diagrams of various sets sold at the time. I later learned that the pocket radio described in that chapter, named TR-610 was the legendary product that made SONY world famous.

[@halfdome4158]

@@pumochan 😃😃😃😃😃🙂😃The first transistor pocket radio was made in America. A beautiful radio. Regency TR-1. The Japanese just copy everything. So embarrassing.

[@RedzeeTV]

​@@halfdome4158 an unrelated comment to the discussion that paints you as rude. how embarrassing

[@eren_yeager9927]

@@halfdome4158 You're just racist, Japan has improved all those technologies AND made better, imagine being so spiteful

[@shivdoesmusic937]

I don't know why but these Black and white vintage videos with an American narrator always gives a calming vibe.

[@jerbear7952]

It's because it's produced with Kalm-Tone By DuPont

[@Ronnock]

Lol​@@jerbear7952

[@arconeagain]

Mmm, to the masses, everything is okay.

[@deanpd3402]

@@arconeagain ...was okay. Not anymore but such is life.

[@arconeagain]

@@deanpd3402 you're not wrong, the world is Fed after this last couple of generations. I don't mean to insult you if you fall under these categories.

[@ldchappell1]

Amazing how much technology was accomplished in the 20th century.I could watch old 16mm movies like this all day. I grew up in the 50s and 60s watching these educational films in school. I was the kid who always got the run the movie projector.

[@robertm2000]

Me too!! I was fascinated by recording and reproduction of both sound and video, and ended up getting a Master's Degree in Educational media. 55 years in the field and I was STILL a projector pusher!

[@daddymuggle]

I got to be one of, I think, three or four licenced projectionists at high school. Later I became a projectionist in a cinema, on 35mm machines that were already outdated. OHPs were the best thing ever, so funny figuring out which way things went.

[@LeMustache]

You had a movie projector in the 60s? My school couldn't afford one until like 2010

[@robertm2000]

@@LeMustache Do you mean perhaps a digital LCD projector? The movie projectors I was talking about are 16 mm film projectors that used actual movies, similar to what theaters showed throughout the early 20th Century, not from DVDs or videotape.

[@LeMustache]

@@robertm2000 I mean any type of projector. We were using nothing but a blackboard

[@kwisatzhaderach1458]

Staring at the phone in my hand. Billions of transistors inside. *_Tell me your secrets_*

[@peterbelanger4094]

"Such a versatile machine could be fit into a good size room"......LOL

[@cloudenvying]

surface mounted transistors

[@Whosaids0]

No way, but I will tell you yours.

[@MasterKoala777]

And yet most people use all that computing power to play LOL. 😂

[@Whosaids0]

That is what they want, but knowing the full capabilities would warrant around 2.5 seconds of concern relative to the next knuckle heading yelling "squirrel" then there goes everyone's attention again.

[@BangMaster96]

The most underrated piece of Technology in Human History. The Transistor literally runs our Modern World, every single modern Electronic Device runs on Transistors. Without it, our Civilization would still be stuck in the 1940's Technology.

[@MC-bu6ez]

Not underrated, just not understood! And as with all things taken for granted.

[@MC-bu6ez]

No it would be slower!

[@generic_programmer]

5:13 *Very loud screeching tone - Brings speaker to ear

[@FerCerealz]

Emanuel Donalds I lol’ed

[@ALFAGOMMA]

But when he becomes deaf, he can insert a transistorized hearing piece into his ear.

[@adamstanley4778]

hmmm yes

[@vaidasspu]

vintage ear rape

[@therealpeter2267]

Hmm yis zis sound is sum real gourmet ear rape, let me get a closer listen...

[@GetMeThere1]

I remember -- probably around 1960, I would have been seven years old -- I had been a good boy at the dentist, and my mom bought me a "transistor radio." I wasn't much bigger than my hand, and I could listen to the radio on it! Amazing. People were awed by it. I think it even had a ear plug, so I could listen to it privately.

[@ronz101]

Still have a Zenith 1958 (long distance) transistor radio. Still working . Also an early 1960's Panasonic table radio I use everyday.

[@oonmm]

Privacy is the last word you think about when talking about the information age today.

[@unclej3910]

My dad owned a TV and appliance store from about 1959 until 1973. When I was a kid in the mid to late 1960’s, transistor radios were still a new, exciting thing. TV’s still had vacuum tubes but they were starting to switch to transistors at about the time my dad sold the business.

[@modgsb220]

When I was about 13 (1960) after I had been "playing "with valve technology, my elder brother and I built a superhetrodyne transistor radio. Bearing in mind we didnt have electricity until I was 10. My brother and I went different ways in life, he died from cancer 15 years ago, a week after my sister died of same a week later. I miss the simple circuitry of transistors, but not as much as I miss my brother and sister.

[@GetMeThere1]

@@modgsb220 I hear ya. I have the bittersweet alternative to your situation: I have no brothers or sisters -- even though I always wanted them (and so did my mom and dad). Fortunately for me, my neighborhood was full of kids my age, so I had plenty of kids who were nearly like brothers and sisters -- although I haven't heard from any of them since high school...

[@ds99]

I remember in the 60s portable radios were called “Transistor Radios”. Sometime in the 70s they seemed to change this to “Solid State” or sometimes they’d call it “IC or integrated circuit”. They definitely improved electronics. Our old vacuum tube tv used to have to warm up before you could watch it. Often it would start buzzing or humming. The vacuum tubes were failing almost monthly. They were a big nuisance. Our corner pharmacy had a vacuum tube testing machine where you could remove the tubes from your TV and test them. If you discovered one was bad, there was a cabinet underneath the machine containing boxes of new tubes that you could take home and plug in. What a nuisance but at least we had TV.

[@stevencooper2464]

How far we have come: Once upon a time, when you turned on your television, you had to wait for the tubes to warm up. Now, you have to wait for the CPU to boot up. When will we have instant TV?

[@mcplutt]

@@stevencooper2464 We had instant TV's for a pretty long time, before Smart TV's.

[@OriginalGrasshopper]

I still knew them as “transistor radios” throughout the entire 1970’s.

[@williamwilson6499]

And whatever happened To Tuesday and so slow? Going down the old mine with a Transistor radio

[@Kenny-bw2cz]

@@stevencooper2464 you do have instant tv. My smart tv opens right away. A laptop or computer can be instant if it's in sleep mode

[@stuckerfam]

Those who were "looking forward to the age just beyond the age of electronics." That is some prescient writing. The narrator nailed it there. That is the "computer age" or the "information age" he was talking about. He just didn't know what it would be called or how it would unfold, but he could see it on the horizon. If you've ever been far out into the ocean or the Gulf on a boat at night, when you head back in, you might see a distant glow. Then as you proceed closer to the shore, the glow becomes a collection of glows, then a constellation of sharp lights of various colors as you approach your dock or harbor. These dudes could see the glow. We are now at the shore and can see what they dreamed of.

[@spankynater4242]

That sure was a lot of words.

[@stuckerfam]

@@spankynater4242 I was in the zone. 😀

[@kevinmahernz]

Well said.

[@johnalexander7490]

In the zone for sure! What a great way to express how the movie maker may well have intended it to be ... we can see what The Glow really stood for. Nice to be a part of that glow. :)

[@Esgelrothion]

What a charming way to describe it! And you're right on!

[@SilverArse]

I remember them asking the inventor on the 50th anniversary if there was a regretted application of the transistor. He said the birthday cards that play tunes.

[@emigarcia1993]

05:15 The first "RIP headphones users" ever.

[@ThatGamePerson]

*1954 Colo--- wait*

[@CanthusOfCandE]

Read this just in time, enjoy the thumbs up for the heads up.

[@darthrex6267]

W

[@EricLehner]

These older documentaries are so easy to follow. They are delivered with mature intelligence.

[@handyandy6488]

But it did that by saying *nothing* about how the transistor works. We did learn a bit about thermionic valves but not about semiconductors and transistors.

[@eyesuckle]

@@handyandy6488 Indeed. I kept waiting for a pithy explanation of what a transistor actually *does* and it never came.

[@postulator890]

@@eyesuckle In the simplest terms, just a solid state relay. Small current controlling a large current, but capable of very high switching speeds unlike a mechanical relay.

[@cecilandrews7479]

​@@handyandy6488actually he did say what they do and how they work. He explained how the tube works which is how a transistor works. It just takes less voltage and less space

[@bobcathey8903]

My father was born in 1927. After serving in the navy, he went to college on the GI Bill. He became an engineer who worked for Western Electric and Bell labs. As this video shows, this time saw rapid development of electronics. Decades later, I worked for Northern Telecom, who invented the Digital Multiplex Switch for modern computerized telephone systems. Kind of interesting how I followed in his footsteps. What a great experience most people take for granted these days

[@misternewoutlook5437]

A major milestone in electronics. An important bridge to the integrated circuit. Yes, even the humble vacuum tube was a 20th century marvel. We owe a lot to these inventors of the past. Controlling the flow of electrons is still something most people even today haven't a clue about.

[@medexamtoolscom]

That first decade of the 20th century, that was the decade of invention like no other. The vacuum tube, the car, the airplane (if you want to give credit to the Wright Bros and not Percy Pilcher), the vacuum cleaner, humidity controlled air conditioning, and the crayon. Interesting thing though, the vacuum tube wasn't the first amplifier either though. A relay is in fact an amplifier, albeit a digital one. That is, an electrical contact is made by turning on an electromagnet which pulls 2 pieces of metal together, and then the power that controls can be much much more than the power used in the electromagnet. So even without the vacuum tube, a lot of things can be done.

[@WastingTime1878]

A major milestone is an understatement, imo this is the most impactful invention ever made.

[@jungleno.]

Born in '54. I remember going to the electronics store with my dad to buy replacement vacuum tubes for our TV or HiFi radio. I still have a transistor radio that I was given as a gift around 1964 or '65. It still works.

[@watchrami]

Jun Gleno ah when planned obsolescence was not a concept yet

[@barbararadle1680]

Me too And I loved that transistor radio Christmas $5 Took it with me everywhere

[@markpolyakov1512]

@@watchrami look up the "Phoebus Cartel". They were pretty good at planned obsolescence back in the day.

[@SI-ln6tc]

Those things were ment to last.

[@FalconFlurry]

Apple would like to know your location

[@BirdYoumans]

With a transistor such a device could fit into a good sized room lol! Who knew. Darn. Forgot to charge my cell phone again!

[@kennarajora6532]

And they said 'hundreds of calculating jobs', your phone can do 5.8 Million calculations per second.

[@literatesasquatch]

Though if we were using individual transistors, that's probably as far as we would have got.

[@norbertfleck812]

@@kennarajora6532 You must have a really antique cellphone. A 2021 Android phone has got a capability of far more than a billion (!) Floating point operations per second.

[@FakeSchrodingersCat]

@@kennarajora6532 5.8 million? Your phone must be terrible if that is all it can do.

[@MisterNiles]

And now, there are more transistors in your iPhone charging cable than were in the old transistor radios

[@robertwilliamson922]

In the late 1950’s I had a four or five transistor pocket radio. What an amazing piece of technology. WOW. Now my iPhone 13 Mini has a small A15 chip in it that has 15 BILLION transistors and other chips in it with even more. And a neural engine that can perform almost 15.8 trillion operations per second. MAGIC .

[@arthurvin2937]

I love when he says "the wonders of our electronic age" back then in 1953 :)), I wish he lived long enough to see first smartphone.

[@huaweivideographer6756]

fuck

[@ohger1]

Our grand kids are going to laugh at our smartphones... Every generation thinks they are at the pinnacle of technological advancement.

[@decaalv]

if you think a little longer you will realize that every generation IS at the pinnacle of technological advancement.

[@ohger1]

***** Point taken David, but I meant that every generation thinks that there's not much else to innovate; *their* pinnacle is limit.

[@decaalv]

ohger1 I agree with you.

[@akratooos]

Thank you transistor. I owe my entire life to you.

[@robertpryor7225]

Science is a hoax, JK

[@xiro6]

that night your parent´s TV stopped working because a transistor failed.

[@cccccc9929]

Me too, me too!!! 😉

[@daves2520]

John Bardeen, one of the three physicists who invented the transistor, is the only man in history to win two Nobel prizes in physics.

[@bertroost1675]

Nice

[@amymoriyama6616]

It was a revolutionary invention that forever changed the world in more ways that people of that time could even imagine.

[@deepgeny1]

That's so sexist and mysogynistic.... Even this day, there is not a single woman who got a Nobel prize in physics... Let alone two...

[@sbalogh53]

@@deepgeny1 ... Well maybe if they tried a little harder? There always has to be a woke snowflake in the comments section.

[@daves2520]

@@deepgeny1 Actually Madam Curie shared the 1903 Nobel prize in physics for her work in radioactivity.

[@Veederlicht]

I'm slowly waking up to the realization how big of an impact Bell Labs has had on the shaping of our era. Incredible...

[@jaymyers9396]

Amen!

[@xjet]

I want that watch... and that portable TV. Wow, those things are small and so efficient! Maybe I'll get one of those small (just the size of a room) electronic computers too. Wow... the future looks bright!

[@MC-yy2bx]

I tried to upload Windows 95 onto one of those "good sized room" computers. It ran out of memory and started quite a fire. Maybe I should've started with DOS ?

[@HighlanderNorth1]

📛😳Not me! That's the devil's handiwork right there, my friend!! You'd best forget you ever saw these things! How could a 2"x3" cube shaped watch possibly be able to transmit a single channel of scratchy-sounding AM radio, if not powered by "Satan's magic"!? Or a portable box that's ONLY 24" x 16" square that can pick up a single, fuzzy, black and white UHF TV channel, but without being connected to a huge aerial antenna mounted on top of your 2nd story chimney!! I'm gonna steer right clear of all this hooey! 😠 Enough of this nonsense, I've got butter to churn, and laundry to scrape across a board over top of a large bucket filled with soapy water.....

[@WitchKing-Of-Angmar]

Don't be ridiculous, their day was the bright day. The 1960s ruined the vision, especially in automobiles and cancelation of romance retero (wasn't always called retro)

[@VidarrKerr]

The Dick Tracy radio watch was awesome. Those old, portable TVs you can find all over the place. edit: I just tried looking up that radio watch, I can't find it. If someone finds it post it please. Would be cool to see how it was made.

[@VidarrKerr]

@@WitchKing-Of-Angmar The 1960s was the beginning of the end, as the Small Hats took over (taking over) culture and technology. The 70s and 80s were the last decades of freedom in the USA. Now, the Small Hats are able to House Arrest the Entire World for a year+.

[@zz4165]

Imagine nowadays we can easily put a computer inside their “transistors”. This is magic.

[@jamesslick4790]

@@things_leftunsaid 🤔😳🤯

[@MikehMike01]

@@things_leftunsaid wow you're so funny that's so funny that's so unbelievably funny and original and creative and funny and no one has ever said that before and you're so funny and creative and original and funny wow

[@onlythewise1]

@@MikehMike01 idiots always say same things like a parrot

[@joestrike8537]

@@MikehMike01 Sarcasm, especially from 9 months ago doesn't age very well.

[@ScubaSteveCanada]

The only aspect that has changed is they are made smaller; it still performs the same function in anything.

[@techguy651]

The most nostalgic part of this is seeing an American factory worker building transistors.

[@extremeanalogmusic6296]

:(

[@That_Awesome_Guy1]

This was before we were sold out to China.

[@honkhonk8009]

Honestly fuck china. Deadass just cut trade ties with the country. just a detriment to humanity.

[@daveduffy2823]

Yep, now it’s wherever the labor is cheapest and no environmental laws.

[@wiscgaloot]

There are still several semiconductor fabs here in the US. Micron in Idaho, Intel has them in several places. They aren't in Silly Con Valley anymore, but we do make semiconductors.

[@chriscracknell1593]

Truly a documentary actually understating the potential of what it is talking about.

[@brettbuck7362]

They didn't fully grasp the implications, either. They just saw a more efficient replacement for a tube - nothing that would have been inconceivable or hopelessly impractical without transistors).

[@whereswaldo5740]

My mom worked for a company called Spectrum Control for 26 years. They made electronics and filters for the space shuttles and our fighter jets. The men that started it started in a Winnebago camper in a parking lot of an old siding and window and door place. And they built that place up to be a very important business. Very proud of my mom and the other women and those men that worked to make that budding industry grow.

[@DoctorBlankenstein]

this should be played for every single child entering middle school science / math. Know your roots kids...

[@koilamaoh4238]

We're to busy adding the bible into our schools, no science byebye.

[@DoctorBlankenstein]

crk1121 what state?

[@robertpryor7225]

Many of us think we're smart because we can operate a cell phone, but know nothing about how it works and couldn't build anything. Whoever invented vacuum tubes what's a genius.

[@robertpryor7225]

@@DoctorBlankenstein ...solid state?

@crk1121 just not a very good one

[@0X0GABRIEL0X0]

This is WILD. This is not only astonishing but exhilarating to watch. The general reaction with old documentaries trying to predict the future is usually "how cute, if only they would know", that's not what you get here. These guys are getting everything right. They are getting it all right because they know exactly what they have and how even their for the time crazy sounding claims are all reasonable ideas to how it will evolve in the future.

[@muraliavarma]

Agreed. Was awesome to see the portable TV and radio wrist device being predicted. Sure their imagination of how it might look like was funny but their thinking of the potential applications was spot on.

[@AdhamOhm]

To be fair, this film was produced by AT&T/Bell Labs who at the time were at the forefront of electronic innovation. They have so many inventions under their belt which are still widely in use today. If any organization had accurate predictions of what future electronics would be like, it would be Bell Labs.

[@spankynater4242]

This isn’t trying to predict the future. This is discussing technology of the time and how it would be used. If this video had come out in 1920, then it would’ve been trying to predict the future.

[@jnorth6022]

My goodness. That was an era so full of optimism for the possible future! You simply get overcharged with this wonderful positivity and bright outlook for the years to come. Thank you for sharing this great video.

[@ATMAtim]

Isn't it a crying shame how it is now days? We lost that magic and will never recover.

[@sayka_tech]

@@ATMAtim Today, everything is just business. Have you noticed that radio was a luxury thing at the beginning. Then gradually it advances to be affordable for regular consumer. Every invention happens like that only. But today, when you propose any new thing to some tech exhibitions, the first thing investors ask is, how many of these can you sell to consumers !!!

[@mattwolf7698]

Soon we will be able to run crysis.

[@jrno93]

4729 AD: 59.999fps crysis *almost*

[@SilatBegin]

Cyberpunk 2077 : hold my bugs...

[@whereswaldo5740]

They can I’m pretty sure. There was a company called Brigade Quartermaster. They sold these walkie talkies that needed no batteries. They were powered off of crystals and were pricey for the day. Like $250 in the 80’s. Then the price kept jumping up to like $500. Then a notice went out they were no longer for sale. And anyone that had any were to return them. Then threats to return them or else. Then I heard they sent agents to retrieve them.

[@Pentti_Hilkuri]

By the year 2077 we will be running Cyberpunk.

[@jackkreacherr9339]

@@Pentti_Hilkuri Cyberpunk runs fine on low-end pcs. Bruuuh.

[@DanaTheInsane]

And now I leave the house every day with billions of transistors on my person.

[@dgjm7129]

Nice English man

[@redoverdrivetheunstoppable4637]

well.. the single transistor is a piece, a chip is a piece as well, the point is that transistors are impresses chemically with masks like a photo, but not enlarging, miniaturizing the image on silicon, not anymore germanium that is costly send with my Android phone

[@AexisRai]

@@dgjm7129 The estimate of transistors is accurate, and "on one's person" is perfectly good idiomatic English.

[@dgjm7129]

@@AexisRai but he said "on my person" i think he ment to said "on my hand"???

[@mstchiefa7892]

@DGJM no he meant to say "on my person".

[@junglemom1263]

I love how at the 4:45 minute mark it shows how brown paper soaked in salt water, wrapped around a small coin, made a makeshift battery that produced enough electricity to power the mini transistor! It's so cool! 😎👍🏻 Thanks for sharing this cool bit of history!

[@waymanrosshurley3141]

Loved my Compact Transistor Radio in the 60s!

[@brassj67]

Can't believe this was only 14 years before I was born. I grew up with a natural curiosity of electronics in the 70s and went on to be an electrical engineer. What an exciting era to grow up in

[@janezjonsa3165]

Not really. Exciting parts were joints and lsd trips. Led zepps... not his transistors. Hello?

[@ciscornBIG]

@@janezjonsa3165 I'd love to see where you're at in life versus the person you're replying too.

[@janezjonsa3165]

@@ciscornBIG Is that a competition? I was not aware.

[@Bugaboo-wq5sc]

@@janezjonsa3165 -- He's probably a 65 yo man in his dead moms basement, cashing her old age checks and smokin' pot.

[@janezjonsa3165]

Well, I'm 50. And in Vietnam. I was in Thailand a month ago. But in 2 days I'll go to see Hanoi's War museum. If anyone cares to spill their guts, just go ahead. I want to hear it.

[@slavikvsvega]

Imagine someone told the narrator they watched his talking motion picture on their phone. He would be so confused.

[@RobertNES816]

Its amazing how few people realize how important the transistor really is. Without it we wouldn't have integrated circuits and we wouldn't have any of the technology we have today.

[@skeetrix5577]

there are billions of transistors in your phone

[@bjbell52]

@@skeetrix5577 Yes, on integrated circuits.

[@DineshVutukuru]

Agreed.

[@georgeklimes7604]

Most people have not even heard the WORD "transistor", let alone know what it is or its significance. The dumbing down of America and other places continues.

[@The_Conspiracy_Analyst]

@@georgeklimes7604 "tansistuh? wuh dufuk dat??! Man i aint neva seen no tansisuh buhlshih! dats juss some shih they make up, iss make buhleev man! Juss like round earf n shih"

[@theothercreare]

"Such a versatile machine could fit into a good sized room" Its incredible how far the world has come.

[@MrQuequito]

and now a machine, my phone, that has thousands of times the proccesing power fits in my hand, in fact, im writing this comment with it, which funnily enough, its primary task is to make phone calls, everything else is... extra

[@sethtenrec]

@@MrQuequito it’s primary purpose is to access the Internet. Making phone calls is just a sidenote.

[@slavikvsvega]

This video is the embodiment of the phrase "under promise, over deliver".

[@mplsmark222]

I find those old articles in popular science, the ones done by futurists very interesting. Some common themes, flying cars, living in space, living under the ocean, really just science fiction. They never anticipated the the impact of solid state electronics, especially the transistor. Humans have probably created more transistors than any other item in all of human history. Considering a single microchip can contain millions no, billions of them.

[@jscottupton]

In the late 50's my parents gave me a portable AM radio that I could put in my pocket and it ran on a 9 volt battery (a new battery invented for that very purpose). I thought it was a miracle.

[@dielaughing73]

I remember an old boy telling me about parties they used to have on the beach around then, where everyone brought their tiny transistor radios and all of tuned into the same station at max volume. The sound must have been pretty terrible but it would have been a lot of fun.

[@martipk]

@@dielaughing73 as its a radio signal you would have perfect synchronization between all the radios so you would definitely have a nice surround sound effect, but yeah the crackling was probably bad on those portable ones

[@Bugaboo-wq5sc]

@@martipk -- in 1977, I took one of the very first calculators to school and brought it to my math class and got major shit from my teacher lol. And nowadays you can't even go to school without a laptop. How times change.

[@firelord3]

@@Bugaboo-wq5sc not to mention that those laptops are more powerful then all the super computers of the late 70's combined.

[@onlythewise1]

@@Bugaboo-wq5sc no way i brought mine in 1970 first calculator to school no problem

[@XmegaPresident]

By far, the most profound invention of the 20th century.

[@bingojamas4786]

XmegaPresident That is exactly true. The illusion of AI is nothing more than these humble transistors, packed with unimaginable density, performing operations ONE AT A TIME. Kinda like the old zoetrope; Only so fast you will never imagine it's parts.

[@gertraba4484]

no way, MTV, Pizza, MUSCLECARS, lite BEER and PLAYBOY MAG got em all beat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@ronalddavis]

no that would be trolling motor

[@nathangale7702]

These old videos do a really good job of explaining these concepts.

[@w2aew]

Great film - and especially neat since I've spent time in many of the old Bell Telephone buildings shown, and worked at the old Allentown Works (Western Electric) facility for a while...

[@electrospark295]

+w2aew Wow! that's awesome! I really like your videos, btw. :)

[@willb3698]

w2aew Same as the other poster said: That's fantastic! And I too really like your videos and your Avatar!

[@mrmojavedude4050]

Did you work with those old switch-boards? I think called PLCs? Somebody gave me one, I had it for a few years in my pool table bar for a conversation piece, A friend HAD to have it, so I gave it to him...Dang that thing was heavy :0)

[@robertpryor7225]

Finally somebody saying "film" about something that could actually be shot on film. I hate when people call video "film", especially young people, no excuse.

[@GrowlyBear917]

I worked at the Allentown facility when it was known as AT&T Technology Systems, from 1984 to 1987. I did not know at the time that the three engineers who invented the transistor were still alive. I would have liked to meet them.

[@avarg7]

Wow. They were amazed that a 'complex computing machine' could fit within a good sized room, and here I am watching this on something that could fit in a small bag. Wow.

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

And your something in a small bag most likely can run a simulator to run that 50's "complex computing machine" - and that simulation will run faster than the actual hardware did! So, what will be happening fifty years from now, in 2067?

[@Roxor128]

These days the kind of computer that would take up a good sized room would have a processing speed measured in petaflops, as opposed to the couple of megaflops of a 1950s-era transistor-based machine. I'm not sure if they'd believe you if you told them that in 60 years' time they could get a computer the same size, but over a thousand-million times faster.

[@arshpreetsingh1038]

And I'm watching this on something that can fit into my pocket.

[@Bialy_1]

@@arshpreetsingh1038 and his comment was 3 years old... :P

[@dzonikg]

@@arshpreetsingh1038 I watched TV on my casio pocket color TV in 1989

[@234dilligaf]

Man these old videos are priceless! I could watch them all day!

[@Aaackermann]

We are all watching this on our "Dick Tracy Video Watches". What a day to live!

[@johnditoro1676]

I spent my career in this industry. One of my first bosses was in it from the beginning. He tells a story of meeting with TJ Watson from IBM and not being believed when he predicted that someday the cost of solid state memory would "fall" to "a penny per bit".

[@hcrun]

I remember with clarity my first transistor radio, bought circa 1958 here in Australia. It was a National Panasonic 8-transistor and came in a leather (yes, leather) case and had a single-earpiece hearing-aid size earphone, stored in a small leather pouch attached to the strap on the case. Amazing technology.......to have something so small which allowed me to receive exactly the same (AM) stations as our vacuum-tube Kreisler console radio in the living room.

[@wizzard5442]

National Panasonic and Kreisler....those were the days.

[@torababdullah7952]

I love these kinds of documentary videos. Makes you feel lucky and blessed. I am thankful for these inventions and to all those inventors who worked to make it into reality.

[@ryanbaker7404]

Amazing to look back at the old analog phone system and how much of the modern world it once drove. At 46 I am at least old enough to recall the importance and reliability of the analog home telephone system. Transistors, T1 lines, and even the Unix operating system...once upon a time the phone companies were real powerhouses of R&D! Nice to see this preserved in film.

[@gsuitter]

I was born the year this film was made. I bought my first radio in 1968 which had four transistors.

[@euvo_sound]

we also had one too but it was dissassembled.Only parts i found are the heatsink and a mosfet and the 4 transistors WHICH STILL WORKS TO THIS DAY

[@FightCollective]

Strange,,, I was borne in 1968.

[@neve_dimka]

@@euvo_sound "mosfet and the 4 transistors" so you find 5 transistors...

[@euvo_sound]

@@neve_dimka Yes, im still figuring out how to operate the amplifier and what electronics do i need for it.

[@owenkegg5608]

Five WHOLE transistors? Wowee! :]

[@jpozenel]

I grew up in the 50s and 60s. Just about always went to bed with a transistor radio alongside the pillow.

[@if6was929]

Same here and I could always tell if a new song was going to be number one hit, I was wrong only once.

[@VidarrKerr]

Did you ever see one of the Dick Tracy radios in real life?

[@abeerfaisal1986]

Glad to see that you are still alive.

[@ok4405]

@@abeerfaisal1986 😂

[@sbalogh53]

I was given an 8 transistor radio with a leather case when I was around 12 years old. It was not working so I opened it up and saw that the corner of the circuit board was cracked. I had no way of soldering at that age so I just wrapped a bit of wire around two components on either side of the crack and the radio actually worked again. I used to listen to it for an hour each night but I had to be careful because it used an expensive 9v battery about the size of 2 C cells end to end. AM only of course. FM was unheard of back then. I wonder what happened to it. Like many things I owned as a kid the radio mysteriously vanished one day.

[@GETJUSTICE4U]

In the late 1950's I was an apprentice in a London radio/TV manufacturing facility. All the products were vacuum tube (valve) technology and we started making the first transistor radios in 1958. The transistors were made by the Mullard valve company and each one was handmade with around an 80% fail rate. This somewhat problematic beginning very quickly changed and the phenomenal developments in semiconductors technologies continues at an astounding pace.

[@davidszakacs6888]

I remember back in the mid-fifties, a neighbor bought one of the first transistor radios and we all thought it was mind-blowing that something so small could operate.

[@willb3698]

I love how stylish the stills are - those lovely shadows!

[@williamsshane21]

Can’t beat these old informational videos

[@robertpryor7225]

I wouldn't even try

[@kellycoleman715]

Dr. Shockley spoke at my college, Texas Tech when I was there in the mid 1970’s.

[@MichaelAChang]

The transistor is the most significant invention in human history that will never be surpassed.

[@joemahoney1221]

Perhaps the second millennium but certainly Gutenberg's press was instrumental in forwarding the information age in the first 1K. Both are probably the top 2 influential in spreading information to the masses. We shall see where AI takes mankind. Perhaps it will be like nuclear research, inventing ways to destroy the human race

[@glentorn5362]

I like watching retro films. They're the nearest thing we have to time travel. 😎

[@HockeyVictory66]

This was a huge change. I remember my. Dad changing out a broken vacuum tubes in our TV up through the 70’s.

[@commanderstraker1082]

Mid-70s I built a Heathkit tube tester. Still have it. Still works.

[@brencrun5068]

I really loved that humongous soldering iron the lady was using.

[@leechjim8023]

It is very rare for a modern documentary to be so good and concise.

[@kathleenking47]

Sometimes the more advanced we get, the dumber WE get

[@krashd]

Depends where the documentary is from.

[@snedzy1506]

I'm amazed and glad that I can peer back in time like this. It's taken decades for me personally but now I can appreciate what came before and dream of what's to come!

[@spankynater4242]

Really? You “dream“ about what’s to come?

[@snedzy1506]

@spankynater4242 dude can't remember writing that comment but was probably on the bud lights

[@spankynater4242]

@@snedzy1506 hahaha

[@blackpoolbarmpot]

Great Film of particular interest to me, as I was born in 1953, so it is interesting to see the technology around at the time I was born. It's also interesting to note that whilst the Transistor was invented in 1947/48, Valve equipment was still being manufactured up to the early 1970's but mainly in Televisions by then. The 'semiconductor' Diode actually precedes the Vacuum Tube, albeit as a crude "Cats Whisker" Diode used in "Chrystal Radio Sets". Later, there was the "Westector" (made by 'Westinghouse'), consisting of a small 'Copper Oxide' Rectifier Diode used for high or low frequency, low voltage, small current rectification, and the (normally) finned selenium rectifier for higher current, high voltage rectification. These all go back to the 1930's. Thus preceding the Transistor by nearly twenty years. High power Transmitters still today use Valves in the output stages. Although, these will almost certainly be replace with Transistor's eventually when the technology allows.

[@michaelfixedsys7463]

We always feel we’re at the peak of technology When we’re only on a ledge

[@scsi_joe]

True enough. I guess people feel like that because they're comparing it to what's been up to this point.

[@ruslbicycle6006]

Physical Technology was advancing faster back then than it is now. Back then, they were anticipating things quite well. And the predictions they made were quite accurate in that decade. Now computer technology isn't so rapid. Hard Drives have stopped getting cheaper. Biological innovation is a lot more likely to bring dramatic change to our live. We see that with new classes of drugs designed rapidly at the molecular level, and vaccines. And social change, as the internet communication standard rearranges social connections. But new phones are only slightly more advanced than they were 10 years ago, not like the radical changes you had mid century.

[@Mrclish5000]

Well stated

[@qwertyiuwg4uwtwthn]

thx moores law ;;;;;;DDDDD

[@OriginalMergatroid]

@@ruslbicycle6006 Hard drives are not used so much now, but their price per gigabyte keeps going down because of increases in capacity. SSDs are taking over just as transistors did for vacuum tubes. Tech is advancing every bit as fast now as it did back then. Look at communications. Not using wires so much now. How about display technology? OLED and quantum dots anyone? How about wifi, and streaming? Medical science is advancing like crazy, I mean we have mapped the human genome and can edit genes as simple as 123. And how about space programs? We did amazing things in the 20th, and it's still happening in the 21st. I'm not even touching the tip of the iceberg here. We haven't even mentioned AI, or drones, or robots. Yeah, robots in the 21st century don't need to suck back a cigarette to impress, they just run over ice and snow, and up and down stairs, not to mention flying at hundreds of miles per hour. There are advances in areas now we didn't even know existed back in the mid 20th.

[@esahg5421]

cant wait for this to come out, its gonna be a game changer

[@Blade0983]

This vid is, to say the least, heartwarming. We need more of these for children of today and... forever, i guess.

[@subject_5056h]

Thank you for making available these wonderful historic films

[@marcelbuquet365]

I used to have a neighbor who worked on computers when they still used vacuum tubes. He said that no matter what they did, there were always a few of them that were burned out, so the thing never worked properly. By the way, I still have an old transistor radio somewhere and yes, it works. The first record player that I received from my parents as a child had a mainspring to power it. Go figure.

[@medexamtoolscom]

That's one of the problems about having a hot cathode in a vacuum, it's inevitably going to have a limited lifetime, rather like an incandescent light bulb.

[@robertromero8692]

The term "bug" is derived from something that happened in 1947. Engineers working on Harvard University's Mark II computer discovered a bug caused by a moth trapped in a relay.

[@williamnavarre8169]

​@@robertromero8692If you look at the note they made at the time, it's clear they knew they were making a pun. So while Grace Hopper claimed that that was the first use of the term, I dont think it's actually true.

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

The war time Colossus code breaking computer was never turned off, heating and cooling caused the valve/tube failures.

[@michael7324]

I like to run laps around the Bell Labs property. The water tower on the property is built to look like a transistor. Very cool.

[@BangMaster96]

Technology always progresses rapidly once we discover or invent something. It's amazing that from the first flight in 1903, we went to the Moon in 1969, and from the first big transistor in 1947, we now have transistors about 10 nanometers in size, which is only like 5x the size of the diameter of a DNA strand which is about 2 nanometers.

[@TedRichley]

Todays standard CPUs are produced in 7nm, highend CPUs already 3nm and they're heading for 2nm... 😲

[@francoispf3418]

Depuis la découverte du transistor c'est impressionnant les progrès de l'électronique et de ça miniaturisation. Et cette invention n'est pas si vieille. Et merci pour cette vidéo historique 👍👍👍👍👍

[@paulm1241]

4:05 The man on the left taking lab notes is John Bardeen, a theoretical physicist who later won a second Nobel prize for the theory of superconductivity. It's not that common to see theoreticians doing experiments these days :)

[@Winterstick549]

Memories of operating the projector during grade school. I loved these films. Remember the Bell and Howe films?

[@antikoerper256]

I've always been a big fan and loved these documentaries from the 50's & 60's. Amazing stuff!

[@Pisti846]

The Bell System and Bell Labs are greatly missed. Never again will the US have such an engine of progress.

[@mhammadalloush5104]

Yeah, all we see nowadays is how to milk the consumers dwindling income even more.

[@bennri]

Google's doing the basic research now

[@kennewton9369]

Right wing horse bleep. AT&T's telephone monopoly at that time afforded them the luxury of conducting much basic research and discovery. Over focus on immediate wealth creation for shareholders is the problem with business today.

[@gertraba4484]

no need for corporate think tanks with the advent of AI and groups that want to control our tech inputs

[@Oneness100]

Now all of the R&D of technology is done by literally thousands of companies around the world in many different disciplines.

[@edmonk4912]

I grew up with this. Dad was a radio technician for the Canadian military. As tubes became less and less used, and the transistor being integrated more and more, entire rooms of equipment were replaced by small boxes that didn't need air conditioning. But tubes are not affected by EMP radiation like transistors are. And tubes can handle huge amounts of power for radio transmitters and rock band amplifiers.

[@giddycadet]

one of my favorite things to do is watch old documentaries about computing and stuff and then just use my computer in awe for the next 20 minutes. like hey guy from 70 years ago LOOK I CAN DO THIS

[@dulynoted2427]

My dad worked with transistors. It’s heartwarming to think he watched this when he was a kid.

[@stayc8999]

I love these historical videos! Wow!

[@SI-ln6tc]

Same here!

[@gijbuis]

It's fascinating to hear how people reacted to such a great technological breakthrough. They don't know where it is going, but they do see its tremendous potential...

[@oiltycoonbillionaire]

And so the accelerated evolution of man began

[@Pandaxtor]

And now we use it to post memes. The way I like it.

[@Mediumal]

Yeah! TikTok.😢

[@sumerianliger]

Fascinating watch. I love learning where people thought we were going, and how it stacked up to what we got. This got everything right, just without details and terms nobody back then could have known.

[@oldtwins]

Let's look at this way as to how much space the integrated circuit saves us with our modern equipment. The CDC 6600 supercomputer, launched in '67 was a pure transistor "real" computer (not just a calculator) at the top of technology that had about 400k transistors and could do a blitzing 3 mega flops of processing power. Not including tape or card drive units, the physical size of the CDC 6600 was two big ass cabinets, each the size of about two modern side by side refrigerators. These failed often, so you needed a lot of space to work around it. So more or less about 100 square feet needed for the two cabinets containing 400k transistors. Fast forward to 1986, when the 80386 CPU came out, it had just about a little less transistor count than the CDC 6600. Fast forward to the modern i7 quad core which has about 1.5 billion transistors. So your modern i7 CPU has about 3750 times the transistor count of the CDC 6600 that took up 100 square feet of floor space. The modern i7 therefore would in itself take up about 375k square feet of space today if we were still using pure transistors only. That's roughly about the size of two Walmart stores. Of course, this isn't entirely accurate since we're not even talking about modern storage, or even will get into graphic cards issue.

[@jameshay7247]

So what?

[@TheFoggyjones]

So your smartphone fits inside your pocket. Rather than inside a 17-storey building.

[@HappyFlapps]

I'd still rather use vacuum tubes. Records sound way better.

[@Windowsfan100]

Fast forward to 2018: AMD be slapping more than 19 billion transistors on a CPU that is roughly the size of a hand. I wonder what those engineers would have thought of transistors getting so small and dense.

[@sequri]

Just imagine how the i7 will look in 50+ years. "What, dad? You did computations on that old thing?" I do remember the fascination of doing course work on an IBM System/370 mainframe, as a student back in the late 70s - Fortran, both batch (punched cards) and interactive teletype). The mainframe definitely seemed alive: lights and knobs all over the place, big drum drives and clattering TTYs and card readers.

[@RandyBaumery-s4i]

In my opinion, learning to manipulate electrons was one of the most important advances in human technology.

[@brendawilliams8062]

The flower of life is a passion and computer science an echo

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

The TV repair man was common in my childhood, he had a big box of valves/vacuum tubes and he would change the ones in the TV one by one until he found which one had burnt out, like a light bulb, the light bulb is becoming a thing of the past too! Small radios had ‘Solid State’ labels on them meaning no valves/tubes, a customer knew they would run on cheapish disposable batteries which seemed an advance back then.

[@LectronCircuits]

Transistors must never cease to transist. Cheers!

[@MrROTD]

This must have seemed really amazing back then, I wonder if anyone thought it would be possible to place a billion transistors on an inch by inch wafer?

[@lwilton]

"Billion" wasn't a term that was used much in the 1950s and 1960s. Most big or small things came in millions or millionths. In the rare cases you needed to talk about something bigger or smaller, you talked about a thousand million or a million million. Could someone imagine a thousand million transistors in a square inch in the 1950s? No, probably not. Not even a million transistors as part of a single thing no matter how big it was, unless that thing was the continental telephone system and you were counting all of the offices.

[@klafong1]

That is an interesting observation. As an example, electronic schematics drawn up into the 1960s do not use the unit "pico Farads" for 10^-12 F. They use uuF (micro micro Farads).

[@DrunkenUFOPilot]

"you talked about a thousand million or a million million" Yes, like with capacitors in that era. No "picofarads" or "nanofarads", but most often it was "MMF" for micro-micro-farads. And not even using the Greek μ. What quaint old times!

[@Hopeless_and_Forlorn]

I don't feel particularly "quaint," but I did take my first course in basic electricity in 1960. You are correct about the terms used for small values of capacitance. We also used cps in place of Hz, and did all our calculations on slide rules. Beginning in 1959, my mother was a corporate secretary at Texas Instruments, and she knew Jack Kilby quite well. Her direct boss was in charge of the Small Signal Transistor Division, but by that time the real focus was moving into integrated circuits.

[@mantisnomo5984]

I remember when I was first secretly shown a secret chip which was claimed to be the first IC containing slightly over a million gates. Even then, no one believed it.

[@Virtual_and_Augmented_Reality]

Watched this video on my phone with an LTE connection. Wow... We've come a long ways.

[@cengeb]

5G....Samsung S20 Ultra 5G is smaller and better than Capt. Kirk's communicator, heck, they are even doing "Bones" medical analysis!! In 20 years, all this will seem like JUNK.

[@feraudyh]

You meant a long way.

[@Virtual_and_Augmented_Reality]

@@feraudyh You comment a year later to correct my grammer...

[@Mp57navy]

@@Virtual_and_Augmented_Reality "grammar"

[@thespud1094]

@@Mp57navy no stop! he's already dead

[@fabioalvescorrea]

I like how realistic was their expectations around such a revolutionary invention that was the transistor. Today any new invention or discovery is hyped all through the roof and beyond. Very few lives up to their expectations.

[@jamespardue3055]

It's good to remember that this was only 70 years ago. I worked for Intel in the 90's, and some of the old guard from Bell and Fairchild Semi were still around.

[@mescko]

@ghost mall I suspect there would be a few of them that would not be surprised at all. Geoffrey Dummer, for instance. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Dummer