Quote:
Originally Posted by wa2ise
Same thing happened with transistor radios in the 60's. Radios bragged how many transistors they used. I have a "16 transistor " set that had pairs of transistors wired in parallel, base to base, emitter to emitter, and collector to collector. But only the transistor with a lower B-E voltage drop will do any work. 
And about 15 years ago computers were sold on how many MHz the CPU operated at... |
OOps , I had missed your response , but now that this thread grabbed my attention again , You sir are right on ! I also remember the Phony transistor counts and found it at first odd , and then downright sneaky when I saw radios with dummy transistors in em . My favorite was a transistor with one lead clipped off being used as a diode but counted among the "transistors" . Had they said "8 Semiconductors" when it had 6 transistors and 2 diodes that would have been fine . But to count the diodes in with the transistors calling it an 8 transistor radio kinda proved to me that they learned nothing from the tube count debacle of years prior .
I know it's human nature to want to look back fondly to "the good ol days" , I do it sometimes myself . I then get a bit of a chuckle thinking about the fact that even back then the people were , in fact , people just like today's people , with all the good and bad attributes that come along with being human .