this is pretty good, especially if you understand anything about how semiconductors work
see there used to just be conductors and insulators - a binary (as was accepted at the time)
then some people realized you could violate the binary to create new kinds of circuits and something called semiconductors that had properties of both insulators and conductors and could change between them
this led to all kinds of new possibilities that eventually gave rise to new functional circuits like logic gates and memory cells (flip flops) by wiring these circuits together in ways that had previously been considered impossible
this is pretty good, especially if you understand anything about how semiconductors work
see there used to just be conductors and insulators - a binary (as was accepted at the time)
then some people realized you could violate the binary to create new kinds of circuits and something called semiconductors that had properties of both insulators and conductors and could change between them
this led to all kinds of new possibilities that eventually gave rise to new functional circuits like logic gates and memory cells (flip flops) by wiring these circuits together in ways that had previously been considered impossible
Hah, I’ve been building things with transistors for 30 years and have yet to fully understand how they work. The hard physics, anyway.
I guess one doesn’t really need to know that though, as long as its properties in the datasheet are suitable for the application you’re using it for.
I’m sorry to ruin your story, but before semiconductors we used vacuum tubes to do the same stuff.
(Well, they sucked in many ways: they were bulky, heavy, slow, fragile, and hot. But they could do logic gates and everything.)
And before that, the first fully electronic computers were built with clicky-clacky relays.
A modern day example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaQETdfi5jU
Right on, I forgot about all those multivibrators they made with vacuum tubes and such.