Tube Dinosaurs (Transistor - Part Two)

This computer, gigantic by our standards, was one of the most compact, it worked on 400 lamps, and was a miracle for 1952. The former director of BULL, Pierre Letort, described the work of GAMMA 3 in Arts et Manufactures No. 22 of June 1953: "In its current configuration, the computer acts as an extension unit for the punched card machine it is connected to. The cards are read in the reader station which transmits data to the computer.The computer in turn performs all necessary calculations and transmits the results back to the punched card machine which will print or punch these values. that there is no visible delay caused by the calculations" Rus. translation ["In its current configuration, the computer acts as an expansion module for the punch card machine to which it is connected. Cards are read at a reading station, which transmits the data to a computer. The computer, in turn, performs all the necessary calculations and transmits the results. back to the punch card machine that will print or punch these values. Regardless of the task, the computer runs so fast that there is no visible delay caused by the calculations.”]

The RAM of this monster is enough for 12 decimal numbers, it also came with extensions in the form of cabinets of 24 storage units with a capacity of 12 decimal numbers. But humanity strove for compactness, and all these huge computers, like titans, should have fallen very soon. 1956. At the Stockholm Concert Hall, three American scientists John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain received the Nobel Prize "for their research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect." They created the first working prototype stable in operation in 1951. It consisted of 3 planes of germanium, and a total thickness of 1 cm. This already surpassed the dimensions of the lamps in terms of compactness. The right to admit that 15 years earlier, the Ukrainian scientist Vadim Lashkarev, in the course of a series of experiments, discovered the injection of p-n junctions. In fact, he repeated what was done a little less than a century ago with a lamp. And we can say that he created the diode. By the way, it should be noted that in 1948 the American scientists Bardeen and Brattain. They created on the basis of an n-type crystal, the first prototype was very unstable. And so, in the 50s, the race to reduce semiconductors began, and with that came the most famous law predicting the unconditional generation of incredible power of technical devices.

The exponential growth in the capabilities of transistors was the last stone on the grave of the "lamp" mastodons. This is where a formidable player enters the scene, whose appearance was as easy to predict as the appearance of twin lamps at the beginning of the century. 1956 the first integrated circuit was born and became the father of those chips that now make your smartphone smarter than the entire NASA space center in the middle of the last century!

Moore's law came into force and now the number of transistors has doubled every 2 years. To show how everything has changed since the 50s, I will give a couple of comparisons of that time and now. crystal platform). is 14 nm, for comparison, human hair is 0.05 mm and 1 mm is a million times more than 1 nm! In the 70s, the number of transistors on one processor was measured by 10 thousand, while today it is 10 billion! after all, the clock frequency jumped 1000 times!

We don’t even think that virtual assistants, like little leprechauns, process the photo you took in a split second. Millions of devices are simultaneously in a transparent network that they support by constant processing and data transmission! There is a lot more to be said about the “holes” of impurities and growing crystals on such foundations that mankind has not even dreamed of, but this is an easy excursion and not a doctoral test))) )

Finally, I want you, my reader, to close your eyes and imagine how you are in 10-20 years, going to work to the sound of news broadcast through the neural interface to your brain, getting into a flying Uber and flying to work. You enter a small room with a chair and a neural interface connected to a small box, your quantum computer!

“If the aviation industry over the past 25 years had developed as rapidly as the computer technology industry, then now the Boeing 767 aircraft would cost $ 500 and circle the globe in 20 minutes, while spending five gallons (~ 18.9 liters) fuel. The figures given very accurately reflect the reduction in cost, the increase in speed and the increase in the efficiency of computers. - Journal "In the world of science" (1983, No. 08)