I fired up my laptop to show Travis some pictures today. As we’re waiting, I nonchalantly told him “hang on now, we’ve got to wait until it warms up.”
I blinked and realized how that phrase dates me. Few kids remember when you had to wait for your television or stereo to warm up.
So you wet-behind-the-ears, solid-state generations know what I’m talking about, once upon a time electronic switching was done with vacuum tubes instead of today’s transistors. The tubes had to warm up in order to function, and when they were warm, they were really warm. They chewed up electricity and air conditioning and often wore out, inviting a visit from the TV repairman. Remember TV repairmen?
Now its rare to even see transistors. They now live with millions of their tiny friends on integrated-circuit chips, putting a handful of parts into a product that once took a suitcase-sized number of tubes (or transistors, for that matter). Imagine an iPod Nano rendered in vacuum tubes. You couldn’t fit it in your garage!
Hmm, maybe I should add a “geezer” category to my blog!