Chapter 1
The ancient roots of two choices
Chapter 2
The physical magic of the transistor
Chapter 3
Translating our world into bits
Chapter 4
The logic that thinks
Ch 2 · The physical magic of the transistor
007skaty Joseph Marie Jacquard’s 1801 binary-like punch cards for automating silk looms inspired Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace’s programming.
Quiz
Who is widely celebrated as the world's first computer programmer for writing an algorithm for Babbage's Analytical Engine?
Quiz
What did Joseph Marie Jacquard use in 1801 to instruct his automated weaving looms on which threads to lift?
007skaty These hot tubes represented ones and zeros but constantly burned out during calculations.
Quiz
Why were vacuum tubes quickly replaced by newer technology in the mid-20th century?
Quiz
Which massive, early electronic computer built in 1945 used over 17,000 glowing vacuum tubes?
Fun Fact
Microscopic giants: Modern smartphone chips contain over 15 billion transistors, each so small that tens of thousands of them could fit inside a single human red blood cell!
BETA
007skaty Place transistors on a silicon wafer to discover how microchips process binary code.
Quiz
Where was the transistor, the microscopic electronic switch, invented in December 1947?
Quiz
What chemical element, a semiconductor found in common sand, is the primary material used to make modern transistors?
Glossary
transistor (noun)
A semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the first working device at Bell Labs in 1947.
A semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the first working device at Bell Labs in 1947.
007skaty Engineers use photolithography to shrink computer circuits to the atomic scale.
Quiz
Which technology uses ultraviolet light to etch microscopic transistor patterns onto silicon wafers?
Quiz
What is the name of the observation that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years?