CompuServe Messages

The CK722 and the 2N104 were the first transistors that could be bought at a price of less than $10, so their appearance was quite a breakthrough. The CK722 was NPN and the 2N104 PNP, so you could try one of each. Economical power transistors started arriving a year later. > xistors .. had an mtbf of months or weeks .. That's the myth that was being put around by the old tube hands .. tubes were sturdy, transistors would blow if you even looked at them hard, if you weren't equipped with special soldering tools and techniques, that trivial voltage fluctuations would pop them, that they would wear out soon … … all nonsense. You COULD pop a transitor by putting too high a voltage on it, or trying to make it drive an unprotected inductive load (same thing). But it was almost impossible to destroy the little devils with heat; I often demonstrated heating an in-circuit transistor with a cigarette lighter (changed the operating characteristics but didn't bust it). Wearing out? Anyone who has a transistor radio from the 60s knows that doesn't happen. The world was shot through with myths about transistors back in the 1960s .. much of my article was directing at debunking this stuff. And saying, "Switch your thinking from voltage to current". –Jim