With regards to the Baghdad Battery, I'm one of the folks who thinks somebody discovered electroplating by accident and was running a scam with it.
For Steve and Bucky, the problem is multipronged.
First, things have gotten smaller and we went to transistors and then to ICs.
But the bigger problem is that there was a major paradigm shift in there.
In their day electronics was high voltage and fairly low frequency (be our standards). That was because of tubes. Signals tended to vary by voltage.
There was also a lot of electromechanical stuff (like telephone exchanges and early computers). and things were very much analog.
But transistors led to low voltage, stuff that varied *current* at a more constant voltage, since transistors can act like a very fast switch, we went digital.
Any of those is a major WTF for someone from back then. But all together they really make it hard to get started.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-03 03:04 pm (UTC)For Steve and Bucky, the problem is multipronged.
First, things have gotten smaller and we went to transistors and then to ICs.
But the bigger problem is that there was a major paradigm shift in there.
In their day electronics was high voltage and fairly low frequency (be our standards). That was because of tubes. Signals tended to vary by voltage.
There was also a lot of electromechanical stuff (like telephone exchanges and early computers). and things were very much analog.
But transistors led to low voltage, stuff that varied *current* at a more constant voltage, since transistors can act like a very fast switch, we went digital.
Any of those is a major WTF for someone from back then. But all together they really make it hard to get started.