Well the question is in the subject header. A friend is researching information for a museum display about semiconductors and needs to know when the first Silicon transistors were introduced. There seems to be plenty of information about the historical Germanium semiconductors but little about the early Silicon ones.
Perhaps Jim could help???
-- John B
John
My datasheet has a 1973 date stamp but I am sure it is older.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
I don't know for sure. As a kid, around 1958-59, they were certainly available for purchase, but I don't remember when they were first available.
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Thanks John, I'll pass that on.
-- John B
Oh, just a youngster then ;-). I completed my first transistor radio kit in 1955 (2 days after my 8th birthday) using an OC71 and an OC72. It worked! Since we only lived 15 miles away from the BBC Home Service long wave transmitter at Brookmans Park, it could hardly fail could it.
It was 50 years later (to the day) that I retired.
-- John B
In 1955, I was 15 years old ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
I remember the Practical Wireless series a little later (possibly ~1960 when I was 10) that used a wooden base with wood screws and copper washers to make connections. It started with a simple crystal set then added transistors in ever more complex designs.
It was 40 years later that I retired ;-)
Ian
I can't compete then. My first one had a AF126. The next ones went retro because transistors cost several Dollars a pop, a whole lot of money back then, and tubes were virtually free. Lots of discarded TV sets provided a large stash of those. That was when I realized that transistors were kind of ok but tubes had a dynamic range from here to the Klondike. Only when Fets such as ye olde P8000 (or lots of BF245s in parallel) appeared did that situation really change but those were also very expensive.
Nose will be to the grindstone for 1-2 more decade here.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
"John B"
** The Philips BC107,8,9 series became available in the mid to late 1960s.However, these are NOT early silicon types.
** Err - ever think of using Google ?...... Phil
The Philips Databook SC2 of Nov 77 has the BC107 to BC109 entry with dates of June 77 for page 1, Nov 68 for pages 2 - 13 & March 69 for page 14.
Their 1985 S3 Databook dates the last page (which seems identical) as also Nov 68.
These dates probably only reflect when they wrote those datasheets because the earliest germanium date in SC2 is only April 68 for the AC125 & AC126. Other germanium devices have dates in the 70's.
-- Regards Malcolm Remove sharp objects to get a valid e-mail address
"Malcolm Moore"
** It sure is.High school friends of mine were building tape head pre-amps with BC108s and BC109s in 1968.
The devices were so cheap & popular, that at least one UK component shop sold them to users by weight to save time counting them !!
....... Phil
. . .
. . .
Hi Phil,
Yep, but it's not as much fun as posting here and then ducking behind the fireguard is it. ;-)
-- John B
In Germany you really had to watch it. Yeah, they'd also sell them cheap or in bulk but a lot of times those must have come from a re-labeler. Some were leaky, some had dismal beta, others plain didn't work at all. These guys probably got a hold of product that had "fallen through the cracks" in final QC. I learned the hard way that transistors scrapped from partially transistorized TV sets (very hard to come by back then) were the only way to get quality stuff, except for rich folks. Only the tuners had transistors and it was a lot of work prying them out. But the rewards was a couple of AF239 hotrods.
A genuine brand name version of almost any kind of transistor was about
4 Deutschmarks in the 70's. Each one was packaged in its own little paper box. The situation might have been a bit better for the guys who lived in larger cities.-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
Was it really that bad in Germany? By the late '60's I had transistors coming out my ears... even built a 30W stereo by 1967 ;-)
...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
"John B"
** OK - so we have another self confessed TROLL.A right PITA pommy one.
....... Phil
My first job interview, about '64, I told the guy that I preferred tubes, because they were free and hard to blow up. He sniffed "that won't do" and threw me out. Next interview, I said the same thing, he laughed, and he hired me. I designed about $150 million worth of stuff for the second guy.
John
I just googled "first silicon transistor." There's lots more.
John
I worked summers at the University of New Orleans, '64 ish, and we had boxes of free Fairchild planar silicon transistors, sent as samples. They were roughly 2N2219's.
John
Not necessarily if you lived in a big city. If not you had three options: Take a train to a big city (costs money), go to a 2nd tier more local place and risk receiving re-labeled product, or wait until the next bulk waste collection day comes around and develop Eagle's eyes for spotting "high-yield" TV sets. There were some brands we wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole.
I am not complaining at all because this taught us a valuable lesson before even thinking about an engineering career: Make do with what's available. Don't do boutique designs or copy magazine ideas that clearly contain unobtanium parts. Remember all those tunnel diode or UJT oscillators? Plain baloney because no ordinary person could ever lay hands on one. At least not over there. So I did audio stuff with AF239 transistors which is like hauling firewood in a Porsche. But it worked and they were free. Well, except for the band-aids needed after extricating them from tuner boxes but mom paid for those ;-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com
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