So looking at the Fallout wiki gave me this idea. What would happen if the transistor. Was never invented? How might current 2013 OTL look like?
WI: the transistor was never invented?
- Thread starter Anonymous01
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The Transistor was a very logical step for the Vacuum Tube. I don't see short of an ASB how it could not be invented. Going to the Moon would have taken longer and the US Space Program would look more like the USSR's with computers on the ground instead of in the space craft. Although I wonder if you could make Vacuum Tubes in Space with no glass, still needing more power, which is really what the Transistor is.
David S Poepoe
Banned
We would have a far more advanced space program than we do now - if you believe what Arthur C. Clark wrote about. We would have orbiting communications satellites but they would be manned since someone would have had to of been on hand to replace any vacuum tubes or fuses.
I highly doubt orbiting communications satellites would be economically viable if they had to be manned.
Oh, they would be. No fiber-optics, after all; copper especially is much too limited for transoceanic work, which is exactly where satellites are best. And that's also not mentioning that a crewed satellite could easily fulfill multiple roles: weather and land-use, espionage, science. It wouldn't cost very much to take a satellite for one role into multiple roles if it had to be crewed.
For the transistor to NEVER get invented, you have to prevent any sort of solid state physics. Which probably means no one ever discovers diodes or crystal radios, since if you have either of those, physicists will want to know how they work.
Or, i suppose that the world could degenerate into a set of antiscience power blocks, eg Nazis vs a fundamentalist US. But that would likely take a pre1900 pod.
I just cant see transistors NOT getting invented. Delayed a decade? I suppose. But not never.
Or, i suppose that the world could degenerate into a set of antiscience power blocks, eg Nazis vs a fundamentalist US. But that would likely take a pre1900 pod.
I just cant see transistors NOT getting invented. Delayed a decade? I suppose. But not never.
Three major impacts would be in 1. energy 2. East Asia and 3. entertainment
The modern car would be enormously different. The transistor enabled latter-day ODB sensors and microprocessors. They allow the car to make precise changes to fuel/air mixtures, ignition timing, etc. I'm not sure that the same improvements in MPG could be achieved without solid-state transistors and the associated miniaturization. Oil prices may have stayed high as a result of steady demand, or societies may invest more heavily in alternate energy sources.
Sony would never have been able to produce the Walkman. Nintendo could not produce the Famicom/NES - and its predecessors would be so much fantastic speculation. No video game crash or recovery. As a result, Japan may not have become a technological mecca. This has the potential of downstream impact since its work culture may not have been lauded as vigorously. Management techniques imported into the United States, as a result, have a different anecdotal foundation.
Uwe Boll would be an underpaid literary theorist at the University of Cologne.
The modern car would be enormously different. The transistor enabled latter-day ODB sensors and microprocessors. They allow the car to make precise changes to fuel/air mixtures, ignition timing, etc. I'm not sure that the same improvements in MPG could be achieved without solid-state transistors and the associated miniaturization. Oil prices may have stayed high as a result of steady demand, or societies may invest more heavily in alternate energy sources.
Sony would never have been able to produce the Walkman. Nintendo could not produce the Famicom/NES - and its predecessors would be so much fantastic speculation. No video game crash or recovery. As a result, Japan may not have become a technological mecca. This has the potential of downstream impact since its work culture may not have been lauded as vigorously. Management techniques imported into the United States, as a result, have a different anecdotal foundation.
Uwe Boll would be an underpaid literary theorist at the University of Cologne.
If we assume computer technology continues to improve, and we find a way to make a better tube (micro-tubes?) I could see getting a computer down to a cubicle or two in size. Granted, the best computer in such a world would probably pale in comparison to some of our more advanced cell phones. Long lasting satellites would still be a problem as even a better vacuum tube would still have a shorter life than a transistor, and even if we could get a decade out of a tube by the year 2000, I doubt many private companies would be send satellites into orbit unless the passive reflectors are effective.
Delaying the transistor is another problem as even a fire at Bell Labs (or multipul fires) could only delay it so long. Without to much handwavium you could probably stop it from showing up till 1955ish, but after that you'd just have to have everyone never reserch it, which is probably ASB.
Delaying the transistor is another problem as even a fire at Bell Labs (or multipul fires) could only delay it so long. Without to much handwavium you could probably stop it from showing up till 1955ish, but after that you'd just have to have everyone never reserch it, which is probably ASB.
If there are no transistors, vacuum microelectronics will take their place.
This is an actual OTL technology, where microscopic diodes and triodes are etched into a silicon wafer to form integrated circuits; at that scale, they can use field-emission cathodes that don't have to be heated (and hence don't burn out like macroscopic tubes). VME gadgets need higher voltages (10V instead of <1V), but are much more tolerant of heat and radiation (no doubt the main reason that defense contractors developed the technology).
So, computers would consume more power, but would be roughly the same size and processor speed as OTL, and would not need cooling fans. Wireless phones would be larger and heavier, not because of the chip but because of the battery.
This is an actual OTL technology, where microscopic diodes and triodes are etched into a silicon wafer to form integrated circuits; at that scale, they can use field-emission cathodes that don't have to be heated (and hence don't burn out like macroscopic tubes). VME gadgets need higher voltages (10V instead of <1V), but are much more tolerant of heat and radiation (no doubt the main reason that defense contractors developed the technology).
So, computers would consume more power, but would be roughly the same size and processor speed as OTL, and would not need cooling fans. Wireless phones would be larger and heavier, not because of the chip but because of the battery.
ComradeHuxley
Donor
Another technology that might find more interest are cryotrons although they have more drawbacks since they need to kept cool all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryotron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryotron
It will. It would've been invented earlier than OTL if not for the Nazi brain drain and WWII.
Just because they're more tolerant of heat doesn't mean they won't need cooling fans (and, I must note, it's perfectly possible to build a completely passively cooled computer with microchips). There are other components like hard drives to think about, after all, which may not be as tolerant of the heat, and heat-resistant doesn't mean heat-proof. Especially for high-performance applications like scientific computing, gaming, or commercial servers, active cooling will be necessary at some point.
Smartphones certainly will be slower because one of the main limitations on their processor power is the amount of heat they produce--not because the chips will burn out, but because the humans will. (I can testify that mine gets pretty steamy under load, for example).
Satellites would have to be manned for tube replacement. Sorry, crewed
arthur clarke had some stories set with such tech in the ?early 50s?The advantage geostationary comsats provides is is enough that i think theyd happen.
Power would be provided by solar thermal electric, think steam engines where the boilers heated by concentrated sunlight. Since if theres no solid state physics, theres no solar cells.
Satellites would have to be manned for tube replacement. Sorry, crewed
Vacuum microelectronics would last for several decades without tube replacement. And are more radiation resistant.
Solar thermal? Nah, plutonium RTGs.
Not enough power output and very inefficient. A modern communications satellite requires several kilowatts of power to operate; if you take one of the more mass-efficient types of RTGs, the GPHS used on Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons, this produced about 300 We per 60 kg. To match a 7.5 kWe communications satellite would take 25 GPHS, massing 1500 kg just for the power supply. Note that even large modern communications satellites are usually only 4000-5000 kg, so this means over a quarter of the mass would be dedicated to just powering them...not taking into account by your own admission that these things are less power-efficient than microchips. This means you would need much larger rockets to launch even a basic communications satellite, or you would have to launch them in pieces and build them in orbit (obvious human applications!)
And this is all besides the fact that this would be producing almost 110 kWt of waste heat (!) which would be quite difficult to dissipate effectively and would require 200 kg (!!) of Pu-238 per satellite. These alone would be major barriers to using RTGs.
Also, having poked around vacuum microelectronics a bit, they weren't developed until the 1970s OTL and relied on IC fabrication techniques to be created, at least at first, so I am highly skeptical that they will arrive as replacements for vacuum tubes before there is interest in building satellites. Generally, if something's never been heard of IOTL except in specialized circles, there's a good reason for it...
Any possible replacement for solar cells is going to be thermal of one sort or another, and have HUGE radiators for heat, for any decent sized power source.
But as someone pointed out, no transistors means no solid state lasers means no fiber optics, so ocean cables are still copper. Which means satellites are going to happen even if they are blasted expensive.
The funny thing is this could finally get $/kg down, as there would be a lot more mass going up.
But as someone pointed out, no transistors means no solid state lasers means no fiber optics, so ocean cables are still copper. Which means satellites are going to happen even if they are blasted expensive.
The funny thing is this could finally get $/kg down, as there would be a lot more mass going up.
It is now because the breeders for it have been shut down. It would be trivial to get the amounts needed if eg we built more isotope breeding reactors or maybe if we just reprocessed nuclear fuel.