flipper wrote:
>
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:27:10 GMT, Patrick Turner
> <info@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Trevor Wilson wrote:
> >>
> >> "Patrick Turner" <info@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> >> news:47DD0B84.E12FE8B9@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> >
> >>
> >> <SNIP>
> >> >
> >> > More about noise and its causes is in RDH4, and because j-fets were
not
> >> > invented in 1953
> >> > when RDH4 was being written, I suggest interested ppl search on the
net
> >> > and read many books to put themselves
> >> > in touch with what makes a quiet preamp.
> >>
> >> **Thanks for all that, Patrick. As always, very interesting. Just a
minor
> >> nit-pick though. FETs have actually been around for a long time. A
very long
> >> time. Here's a few patent references:
> >>
> >>
http://v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=US1745175&RPN=CA272437&DOC=ca9239e0872ee7a55e19d3915900a7771e
> >>
> >> http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=GB439457
> >>
> >> Of course, neither device was commercially available. Imagine if
people had
> >> paid attention to this technology back in the 1930s. Having said all
that,
> >> practical FETs did not arrive until around 1958. Long after RDH4 was
> >> written.
> >
> >It has been said by some folks that had someone been able to make a
> >reliable and
> >useful and saleable j-fet or mosfet devices before the germanium
> >transistor was
> >invented then nobody would have bothered with germanium.
>
> The operative phrase is "had someone been able to make (it)"
>
> >Germanium transistors were rather awful creatures and every real
tubeman
> >laughed at them.
>
> At the time, germanium was the only crystalline semiconductor material
> that could be made pure enough to work
>
> >Then came the silicon variety, and nobody laughed any more, they cried
> >instead.
>
> Everybody had known that silicon would be a better material but it was
> Texas Instruments discovering a way to make silicon pure enough that
> made them possible.
>
> People way underestimate, like generally ignore, the contribution of
> materials and manufacturing technology to a 'great idea'.
>
> >The consecutive discoveries only became im****tant when there was an
> >application,
>
> There is seldom a 'shortage' of applications. The problem is usually
> in being able to make whatever it is.
>
> For example, almost all of the automobile's mechanical devices we
> consider 'modern' were tried within a decade or two of the
> automobile's invention. But 'automatic transmissions' made with
> leather belts don't last very long and turbochargers made with the
> crude metallurgy of the day burned up, not to mention the problem of
> how you keep the heads and seals on the block with that much power in
> the cylinder.
>
> Same kind of problem with the gasoline engine itself. People thought
> it would be a good idea but no one could make cylinders and pistons
> accurate enough to contain the explosive force and the steam engine's
> solution of leather seals just didn't cut it.
>
> >and now developments spur applications, and applications spur
> >development,
> >and as a species we have learnt to develop many things just for the
heck
> >of it because a
> >good use will come along soon enough and money can be made.
>
> The reason people 'make money' is because other people find their
> idea/invention useful. This is called a 'good thing'.
And its called a good thing even when the result is bloody misery for
many and only good
for a few, like the invention of the atomic bomb.
Think of the "better" purposes that the expenses wasted on arms world
wide could have been
spent on. One man's good idea is a devil of an idea to another.
>
> >Usually good uses are defined as being initially useful to the
military,
> >so its all a sham anyway.....
>
> There are infinitely more things invented for peaceful purposes, such
> as Franklin's lightning rod to prevent house fires, the steam engine
> for pumping water out of mines, the steamboat for passenger and
> freight service, the telephone coming from Bell's work with the deaf,
> the vacuum tube triode for telephone repeater service, and the
> transistor coming from a search for a better telephone 'relay' switch.
Wars hustled the whole inventionality along at a great rate of knots,
no?
Was not the repeating rifle a boon the North in the American war of
Independance?
Thousands more than necessary were shot because of it and because
men didn't know how to resolve issues peacefully.
But you make interesting points about the im****tance of technical
feasablity.
I heard that young bright scholars were talking dreamily about
digital information transfer in the cafes of the 1930s,
and knew a whole new world awaited them.
But huge numbers of very cheap fast switches were required, and memory
storage.
Then WW2 got in the way a bit
and many inventions were needed to fix that problem.
Another 20 years passed and technology matured a tiny bit
and then in 1997 the Internet became mainstream, ie, slightly more
"maturity,"
and now we find we are still scratching on the very surface of knowledge
about lots of things, and in 100 years time our wonderful technical
revolution of the last century will seem like very inefficient and
wasteful
horse and buggy days.
We may look back and think the whole deal about the Internet to be the
height
of imaturity and waste.
But we have better dentists and doctors than in Athens in 500BC.
( Mind you, Micheal Moore has a few words to say about modern health
care... )
Life was grand in 500BC, to be sure, and quite good enough in many ways,
except for the brutal dentists, and the doctors who'd more likely
speed your death from some minor ailment.
>
> <snip of 'hate mankind' babble>
Quite OK with me Flipper. I find much to dislike about humanity.
Don't let it bother you.
Patrick Turner.
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