Comments on: Dawn of the Electronic Age http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/20/dawn-of-the-electronic-age/ Yesterday's tomorrow, today. Sat, 22 Nov 2008 20:23:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.2 By: Stephen Edwards http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/20/dawn-of-the-electronic-age/#comment-1050663 Stephen Edwards Wed, 26 Mar 2008 23:52:17 +0000 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/20/dawn-of-the-electronic-age/#comment-1050663 Reading old predictions of the future is always great fun. DeForest definitely contributed a lot to electronics, but did underestimate something fairly important: "As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ thermistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier." Actually, he's right in that germanium semiconductors didn't overtake vacuum tubes.. Reading old predictions of the future is always great fun. DeForest definitely contributed a lot to electronics, but did underestimate something fairly important:

“As a growing competitor to the tube amplifier comes now the Bell Laboratories’ thermistor, a three-electrode germanium crystal of amazing amplification power, of wheat-grain size and low cost. Yet its frequency limitations, a few hundred kilocycles, and its strict power limitations will never permit its general replacement of the Audion amplifier.”

Actually, he’s right in that germanium semiconductors didn’t overtake vacuum tubes..

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