America's biggest mistake

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AT&T was broken up, there was no more regulated monopoly, before cell phone service rolled out in the USA. The breakup came in the early 80s.

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That might be true with mobile phones, but it's not true with actual cell phones.

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ROFL. Where did you come up with that? Sure, the moon program helped accelerate the pace of semiconductor technology, but it was never the only application. IBM, DG, DEC and others were building computers for commercial use, the military and commercial users were using semiconductors. Like all technology, it would have been a huge commercial success with or without the Apollo program, and with or without NASA.

I'd love to hear one that would justify the enormous cost, especially when we are already running massive deficits, running on borrowed money. Probably better to leave it to rich billionaires who claim they will be giving rides to rich folks.

DL should be worried that he's always wrong. I see you're getting to know him.

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

You are a true idiot. IBM was using tubes and that was not going to cut it on the moon. Yes the transistor was being put to use, but you have no grasp of scale.

NASA and the military worked with Fairchild to make the very first integrated circuit chip, and other chips which were used on the Moon shot. Intel came out of those original scientists. Oh and that chip was not "commercially available" for many years, so your conclusion jump fails like all your other quick google glance and act like you know f*ck all methods. You know NOTHING about what went down then. Even a turbine impeller blade shape was top secret in 1960. You are an absolute dope.

Texas Instuments made the first intergrated circuit. NASA and the military were not involved in making the first ic.

Dan

You're *always* wrong, AlwaysWrong. The IBM 7070 came out in 1958 and the 7090 in 1959. Neither used tubes.

You know *nothing*, AlwaysWrong. You insist on proving it to the world every day. At least you're consistent.

And GPS is just the Apollo ranging system (which I described in another thread today), turned upside-down, with relativistic calculations to locate the birds, and triangulation to compute the position.

Clifford Heath

" snipped-for-privacy@krl.org" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Germanium

Yes they were. The first Silicon IC chip, which was by Noyce and Fairchild. Far superior to the TI Germanium device.

Perhaps you should have read a bit more.

snipped-for-privacy@notreal.com wrote in news:uu0ajetdmd8fnu5lsm91rtj9q7ltolfat6@

Neither used IC chips either. They were 100% discreet wired.

Try again.

Idiot.

You said (being always wrong):

"IBM was using tubes and that was not going to cut it on the moon."

IOW, you're wrong as always, AlwaysWrong.

I don't have to, moron. You're clearly wrong. As always.

Wrong, always wrong. The first semiconductor based computers were in existence in 1953, both in the US and the UK. The UK not only hasn't been to the moon, they didn't even have a space program. Yet they had a solid state computer in 1953. IBM was using transistors, the iconic 360 line was introduced in 1964,

"The UNIVAC Solid State was a magnetic drum-based solid-state computer anno unced by Sperry Rand in December 1958 as a response to the IBM 650. It was one of the first computers to be (nearly) entirely solid-state, using 700 t ransistors, and 3000 magnetic amplifiers (FERRACTOR) for primary logic, and 20 vacuum tubes largely for power control. "

Noyce and Kilby had independently invented the first IC in 1959, that's before there was a space program.

That;s a big lie. Noyce who was a founder of Fairchild and Kilby at TI are credited with the invention of the IC. It's well documented and there is nothing in it about NASA and the military being involved. Obviously NASA could not have been involved because it did not even exist at the time . Wrong, always wrong.

and other chips which were used on the Moon

Intel did come out of Fairchild, when Gordon Moore and Noyce left to start it. But, so what? It's just like it is today, creative talented entrepreneurs leaving a company to start another. And that was AFTER we had landed on the moon. As for the

Oh and that chip

More BS. What chip is this? Intel's first chip was a static ram, fool and it was commercially available. The moon shot computers were built out of very basic gate technology ICs that were commercially available at the time.

so your conclusion

Wrong about computers, wrong about ICs, now the village idiot segues into impellers. Wrong, always wrong.

ROFL

You claimed IBM was using TUBES. Now it's "discreet wired". Discreet wired what? Transistors, moron.

Wrong, always wrong.

It's not the weight and size, but the poor lifetime. Those old-style batteries quickly degraded, leaving users with a bad experience... unreliable, unusable.

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The military customers would have been pretty insistent on high reliability , even if there hadn't been a space program. Computer systems did demand hi gh reliability parts - they contain a lot of components - so they would ha ve been equally interested.

ything about satellite links - even low orbit satellites are too far away f or the customers to let the cell dimensions get small enough to be useful.

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IBM might have used tubes in their very first computer, but they moved to transistors early.

The first computer I used was an IBM 7040/44 in 1963, and while it didn't use any integrated circuits, it also didn't use any tubes - it was a discrete transistor based machine, like the PDP-8 which I also used around 1967.

Transistors had been around since Bell Labs invented them in 1948, but it took Fairchild's 1959 planar process to make them reliable and easy to use

By the 1960's tubes were restricted to specialised high voltage and high power applications, and integrated circuits were starting to show up.

Sadly, the absolute dope here seems to be you. As a graduate student in Australia I bought a couple of integrated circuits - uA709 op amps - around 1967 so they were definitely commercially available.

The military were never the major customer. MIL-spec parts were good from 125C to -40C and very expensive. Industrial spec parts were good from +85C to -20C while the bulk of the production was commercial parts good from 70C to 0C.

I don't think that I have ever designed in anything but commercial parts.

Some of the ECL parts I have used came in ceramic packages and were industrial spec, but that was just because they ran hot, and commercial plastic packages wouldn't have lasted - we used them as a stopgap until Motorola started selling ECLinPS in volume.

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news:b7441221-ca6f-4855-9876- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

But NOT with IC chips. They were not around yet. The logic circuits were all discreet components. Not that you have enough brains or experience in the field to even know what the term means.

You really don't get it.

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news:b7441221-ca6f-4855-9876- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Apples and oranges.

There are no 2 ton computers on any spacecraft.

The IC chip made it possible to make a computer small enough to be part of the payload of a spacecraft.

NASA worried about the weight of individual solder joints.

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

You are about as stupid as it gets.

Mainframes computers back then had no ICs in them because the ICs did not exist yet.

You do a good job of googling but only prove you have no actual been around to see it knowledge.

You are a fat assed punk, at best. I doubt that you are even 30 years old. Your eleven year old mental age is sure glaring.

snipped-for-privacy@optonline.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

No, idiot. It was AFTER NASA began. And it existed before it was even called NASA as well, you stupid little putz.

It was simply before the Moon mission goals. It was primarily about rocket guidance. Not that you have a clue about that either.