Transistors have come a long way. Like everything else electronic, they’ve become both better and cheaper. According to a recent IEEE article, a transistor cost about $8 in today’s money back ...

Many people giving talks had complained about the current germanium transistors -- they had a bad habit of not working at high temperatures. Silicon, since it's right above germanium on the ...

So What Was the Transistor Good For? Transistors may have been useful to the phone company and to a handful of scientists building computers, but that wasn't enough to build an industry.