Transistors Changed Everything. Here’s How They Work
This piece explains the fundamental role of transistors in modern technology, tracing their development from 19th-century electric relays. It highlights how these components serve as the essential building blocks for all modern computing and digital communication.
Why it matters
Understanding the transistor is crucial for grasping the foundation of the modern digital economy and the hardware that powers AI and global connectivity.
Life would be completely different without transistors. For starters, there would be no personal computers or cell phones, so no Amazon, no video games, no dating apps, no messaging, no streaming, no social media, no Apple Pay or Google Maps, and no AI (hmm). Cars contain billions of transistors. They're really everywhere. So what is a transistor?
The best way to understand this pivotal technology is to follow the evolutionary trail, all the way back to the electric relays used in telegraphs in the 1800s.
Electric Relays
Telegraph lines were basically long electrical circuits. And you probably never thought about it before, but they ran on batteries—primitive, low-voltage batteries that filled an entire closet at the telegraph station—because there was no electrical grid back then.
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