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.
