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To: Reily

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On a computer that was the result of telecom’s discoveries in the physics of semiconductors, of course.
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214 posted on 11/24/2016 10:17:44 AM PST by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: editor-surveyor

That’s not the complete story, what was driving the work was DOD needs based on requirements from WWII. These needs became even more apparent with the Cold War. WWII showed the importance of radar technology. That eras tube based circuits didn’t switch fast enough to meet the growing technical needs for advanced radars. Solid state diodes were being looked at, at both Bell Labs & at Purdue University. Purdue produced the best quality germanium so Shockley started using that material. So DOD needs started the initial effort and I include space research (NASA) in that category. They were one in the same in the beginning.

The real story is integrated circuit technology otherwise computing devices would be huge unwieldy & too hot to touch. The first proposal of such technology was by a British radar engineer from their MOD at I believe some NATO Conference in the early 1950s. There was an American engineer at the conference named Kilby who got a US Army. (I think it was administered from Harry Diamond Labs in Adelphia, MD.) Kilby later went to TI and got an Air Force contract to take it further. Then Robert Noyce developed his ideas at Fairchild but used silicon and the rest is history.

Yes telecom is the driver now but that certainly wasn’t true in the beginning.


245 posted on 11/24/2016 11:13:19 AM PST by Reily
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