On 6/29/22 7:53 AM, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 29/06/2022 06:30, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>> The sad part is that many of the Better Ideas could never
>>> gain enough market share and perished.
>> Or were bought up by big companies and buried forever.
>
> An idea usually has to be so substantially better that it instantly
> obsoletes the alternatives. A better mousetraps when most mousetraps
> catch 99% of mice, is really not that interesting (athough I bought two,
> last year). But a round log rolling versus a sled or travois is kinda
> instant obsolescence really. See also transistors versus valves (tubes)
> or jet engines versus big multicylinder IC engines in aircraft.
Valves still have certain niches. China and some
eastern European countries still make them and
there ARE markets. High-power radio transmitters,
broadcast-size, may still be using giant valves.
And MOST aircraft (lots and lots of smaller ones out there)
still use piston engines quite successfully. Cheap to make,
cheap to fix.
But for most electronics needs, transistors/FETs/etc are
the best choice. For BIG aircraft - turbines.
> If it costs far less, needs far less maintenance and performs better,
> its hard to hold it back.
Transistors were one of those "transcendent" technologies.
Nothing could stop them.
Oddly, I read somewhere that the FET was at least proposed
WAY back in like the mid 1920s. Ah :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-effect_transistor
Julius Lillenfield
But the manufacturing tech was not there ... kinda like
Babbage's Analytical Engine, in an age of gears and cogs.
He got it RIGHT, but .....
There ARE instances where "old tech" still outperforms.
A recent article about the Voyager probes ... the makers
say that its hand-wired/discrete-components design is
why the things STILL work. Nobody makes 'em that way
anymore. In one of our previous discussions/arguments
I said that I thought a particular photo film - Verichrome
Pan - still couldn't be beat (esp in medium format).
It's extended dynamic range, fine grain and unique tone
made for BEAUTIFUL landscapes if you actually used it in
a good camera with a good exposure meter. Todays electronics
can now come kinda close - but the "tone" just ain't right.
> Only e.g. the marginal difference between Betamax and VHS could be
> overcome by marketing and commercial muscle.
That WAS a "commercial/market muscle" thing. People still
say Beta was better ... but REALLY it wasn't THAT much
damned better - and the margin was mostly lost because
people were recording commercial 360i TV and replaying
on the same tech. It took a whole new gen of TVs to even
take proper advantage of DVDs. I bought one.
Hey, I still have one of those VideoDisk players - the
big record-sized disks. It works !