Comments by "Scott Franco" (@scottfranco1962) on "Transistors - The Invention That Changed The World" video.

  1. A good presentation, but having to use vacuum tubes without the invention of the transistor would have slowed down integration only a bit, if at all. After the "death" of the vacuum tube, cold cathode emitters were invented, and several highly integrated solutions based on vacuum electron transport were demonstrated later for applications such as flat screen TVs. A good example of dual path technologies is CMOS architecture. That was considered a loser technology behind MOS for many years before its inherent advantages allowed it to become the predominant technology.
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  2. Just a note: The modern age of ICs would have still happened without the transistor. Micromachining can and does create vacuum based electronics, it was considered for a while as a technology for flat panel television. Similarly, cold cathode vacuum tubes were invented before transistors arrived (no need to heat the tube). If transistors had never been invented, the IC revolution would have been delayed by perhaps 5 to 10 years. The only real constant here is human ingenuity and the continuous desire to improve. In any case, according to the quantum computer researchers, we are going to leave transistors behind at some point anyways.
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