
The Transistor, Part 3: Endless Reinvention - Hooke
https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/the-transistor-part-3-endless-reinvention/
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pgcudahy
This series of longform articles is incredible. The first batch are on the
history of the switch and probably add up to a shortish book in length.
There's a nice focus on how at several steps there were many who discovered a
new innovation, but there were fewer who had a clear grasp of what their
innovation meant and could carry the field forward. Can't wait for this author
to publish a book.

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fernly
I'm amazed at how fast things moved in the computer industry. Per the article,
FETs only just began to work in 1960, but by 1964 Seymour Cray at CDC was
completing the 6600[1], a "supercomputer" with massive numbers of them.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_6600)

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dbcurtis
I'm pretty sure the 6600 was done in 10K ECL, which was a bipolar technology,
not FET. In ECL, the transistors are biased such that they never saturate,
which decreases switching time at the expense of power consumption. Also, the
inputs are configured as a diff-amp, which helps switching speed also.

Some time after the 6600 (1980's) I was a logic designer working in 100K ECL
and compatible gate arrays (144 transistors per chip). Each gate array
required 5 Watts of cooling. We had one 20,000 BTU Ton water chiller for the
CPU, and that was the design-limiting constraint.

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squarefoot
I have next to none experience with ECL chips, but recall in the 80s the 11C90
ECL divider which was the only affordable choice if one needed a prescaler for
his frequency counter to measure frequencies of several hundred MHz. That chip
ran hot compared to other TTL ones, but a few years on, probably late 80s, I
used a 8 pin DIL ECL chip for a PLL (can't remember the name) which I recall
running much cooler than the 11C90. They probably improved the technology
before it got surpassed by more modern ones.

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rwmj
I'm always amazed by the story of Shockley (repeated here). He was surely a
smart guy, didn't he at any point stop to think that his own behaviour might
be the root cause of his problems, and at least not in his best interests?

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ggg9990
The more successful someone is with a behavior set X, the less likely they are
to feel that they should change anything about X. Today’s best example of this
is Trump.

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gwillen
The photo of Shockley's lab in Mountain View is at least two teardowns out of
date now. The small plaque visible in the picture is gone in the latest
construction, but in its place there is a larger plaque, and several huge,
towering sculptures of electronic components. It's a pretty neat display.

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sveit
This series was very well researched and written. He is starting a new series
on the history of the Internet. I'm really looking forward to it.[0]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17322090)

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agumonkey
holy... fantastic material

