It’s difficult to imagine how our lives would be without these little fellas around, we’d probably be living among dirt and lice, enjoying tyrannies, pests and death… Yeah the past was all shit.
The development of electronics as we know it was only possible thanks to the invention of this silicon sandwich, and few people know the story behind the most important invention of the 20th Century, a story of darkness and despise.
It all began at Bell Labs, one of the most epic research centers of all time (they fucking invented laser technology and C language!). Well, back in the late forties a justice league of scientist were given the task to find an efficient substitute for the vacuum tubes used to amplify signals in telephone lines. The problem: these tubes heated as hell and wasted too much power.
Although many scientists contributed down the road, it was three great minds that really brought the transistor to the land of men.
No, not these guys.
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. You could say that Shockley was the brain while Bardeen and Brattain were the muscle, truth is that the bastard made them do all the work while he “offered direction and made comments”.
Long story short, after 2 goddamn years of hard work, Bardeen and Brattain came out with the first working transistor, and that’s where the messy part begins. Shockley thought he deserved all the glory (and the full patent) for this new invention, all in all it was him who had the initial idea of a solid state amplifier.
Bardeen and Brattain claimed that there was “more than enough glory for everyone” but no, Shockley wanted it all, so he did what any evil scientist would do in a case like this. He fucking killed the traitors… Naaah he actually put his ass to work and built a much more awesome transistor in only 4 weeks.
Insane as everyone would think, nobody at Bell Labs really cared about this new invention, that’s why Shockley left for good and founded Shockley Semiconductor in Palo Alto, California… A little company that just happened to be the freaking beginning of the semiconductor industry of Silicon Valley!! but that’s another story, enough said that some former employees of Shockley Semiconductor flew away and founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
The three stooges got their meetup reunion in 1956 to receive the Physics Nobel Prize for their joint invention. And that’s pretty much it, a clashing of egos that revolutionized electronics.
Well, that was my first post. I am sorry, I just love Cracked.
If you want to know more about transistors and the magic inside, check out these links:
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/index.html
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howtransistorswork.html
The development of electronics as we know it was only possible thanks to the invention of this silicon sandwich, and few people know the story behind the most important invention of the 20th Century, a story of darkness and despise.
It all began at Bell Labs, one of the most epic research centers of all time (they fucking invented laser technology and C language!). Well, back in the late forties a justice league of scientist were given the task to find an efficient substitute for the vacuum tubes used to amplify signals in telephone lines. The problem: these tubes heated as hell and wasted too much power.
Although many scientists contributed down the road, it was three great minds that really brought the transistor to the land of men.
No, not these guys.
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. You could say that Shockley was the brain while Bardeen and Brattain were the muscle, truth is that the bastard made them do all the work while he “offered direction and made comments”.
Long story short, after 2 goddamn years of hard work, Bardeen and Brattain came out with the first working transistor, and that’s where the messy part begins. Shockley thought he deserved all the glory (and the full patent) for this new invention, all in all it was him who had the initial idea of a solid state amplifier.
Bardeen and Brattain claimed that there was “more than enough glory for everyone” but no, Shockley wanted it all, so he did what any evil scientist would do in a case like this. He fucking killed the traitors… Naaah he actually put his ass to work and built a much more awesome transistor in only 4 weeks.
"Fuck you all gentlemen"
Insane as everyone would think, nobody at Bell Labs really cared about this new invention, that’s why Shockley left for good and founded Shockley Semiconductor in Palo Alto, California… A little company that just happened to be the freaking beginning of the semiconductor industry of Silicon Valley!! but that’s another story, enough said that some former employees of Shockley Semiconductor flew away and founded Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
The three stooges got their meetup reunion in 1956 to receive the Physics Nobel Prize for their joint invention. And that’s pretty much it, a clashing of egos that revolutionized electronics.
Well, that was my first post. I am sorry, I just love Cracked.
If you want to know more about transistors and the magic inside, check out these links:
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/index.html
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/howtransistorswork.html
Notice:
ReplyDeleteJust a little of history, even thought the transistor is more complex than a simply pn-diode, it took 6 wasting years to this fellows (evil doctors) of the Bell Laboratories to make a diode from the transistor.
In this instance, the chicken definitely came before the egg. WTF.
Indeed my child, indeed.
ReplyDelete