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The Switch and Transistor

Former Member

How the relay, switch, Vacuum tube and transistor brought us to the computer age.

The different between a mechanical switch and a transistor is that in a switch you can think of

it like a mechanical draw bridge that can interrupted or passes the flow off energy or water through it.

This switch require a mechanical movement to take place. Thus in a switch the amplification is your fingers or

muscle which open and close the flow of current. Note, the power of a switch can turn on one light in one room

or it can turn infinite lights in many other rooms on and off.

Here come the idea of the transistor with it's amplification, the amplification or electrical muscle can cause

one transistor to turn on or off many others transistor, like the mechanical switch except here the use of a movement is

not the finger but electrical signal to accomplish this. These lights or loads can store numbers, which intern can

represent,pictures,text,sound or any magnitude entity such as points on a screen.

Why a switch or transistor? Well these device can be also used as an on or off, true or false,

one and zero devices.Think about it, one in it self can be a multiple of any number(except zero). Just like you can

represent any decimal numbers in an infinite world with just ten symbol, therefore in a "binary system" with two symbol

you can also accomplish this task also, which they call machine language. So at the end, a simple device like a switch or

transistor can be very powerful instrument to be used.

  • Well, any rational number anyway.  It gives me the blues that you failed to mention an earlier device used for audio amplification, saturable reactor-based amps.  Qs go back to 1928:  Julius Edgar Lilienfeld - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

     

    The idea of the generality of binary numbers is attributed to George Boole.  The idea that algorithms are generally serializable is attributed to Alan Turing.  A practical way to implement a Turing-equivalent machine is attributed John VonNeumann.

     

    We should not ignore man's long history of mechanical (and human) computing.  At the heart of computing is the analogy and the model.

     

    Brilliant analog computers have been created with boards, nails and soap bubbles.

  • in reply to D_Hersey

    Thank you for the feedback. My explanation is in layman terms.

     

    Sent from my iPhone

  • Well thank you for your post!  We need more groovy up in heah!

     

    //bein from Chicago, I've always had lifelong respect for BB, Albert and Freddie King.

  • in reply to D_Hersey

    You are right about the rational numbers. It is true that this does not explain the whole world or Universe but it does help us to extend are sense. But you could have other Universe going off in tangent from here, or may be

    what Stephen Hawking said about parallel Universe in existence. Of course we do know about irrational numbers such as pie in it's self which cannot fit in a perfect package

    or "imaginary numbers. Which I don't comprehend". And of course we can not for get those ideas and people that came before us and give credit where it is do, Which you had pointed it out.

    In are society the credit was given to Charles Babbage Father of the Analytical Machine or mechanical computer "which he never built because the gears and technology were not available at that time".

    It is true that you can have nails, boards, soap bubbles, Napier's  bones and slide rulers to compute result in a analog computer. " but remember you are putting together a machine" Or the "analog magnitudes equivalent" together that computes the result, but it take a expert to decipher this. Sometimes I think about the internet like the crystal ball you ask it any question and it shows you the result(or tries to).

    And I would like to thank you for the points that you made.

    Freddy King Jr.