The "FIRST PC" and personal timelines (Was: And what were th

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Sat Apr 24 17:04:40 1999

< The ham radio or electronic hobbyist would have been more likely building
<or adapting tube technology to solid state.

Yes, they tended to be frontrunners but the various ARRL handbooks (I have
many going back to '47) which tend to be a good indicater of the hot radio
technology of the time. Aywho the transistor was far to expensive and to
cranky to work with until the 60s. Some of the tranistors failings were
they were poor at anything but audio and low RF and very expensive. I found
it hard to find a good RF transistor until the mid-late 60s that weren't
several bucks a peice.

So there wes another little aspect of the technology that had to happen.
devices that could do logical switching (tubes, transistors...) available
in low enough prices and compact enough to consider.

The first HOBBYIEST IC based frequency counters were not appearing until
1967 give or take 6 months. Now a frequency counter is a pretty trivial
logical device but one that has immense value to radio folk. Again
convergence of technology is one factor. Discussing the 50s is fairly
pointless as even the portable transistor radio was a late 50s advent.

Allison
Received on Sat Apr 24 1999 - 17:04:40 BST