Tiny Tuesday - Transistor

My "Editor" is (justifiably) very gently persuading me to sort some of the junk I've accumulated over very many years. So I've started on my box of electronic bits and bobs. I think it may keep me supplied with Tiny Tuesday blip-fodder for several weeks months years(?).

This may look more like some weird alien from "Doctor Who" or Star Wars, but in fact it's an old OC81 transistor from the days before integrated circuit chips. I suspect it was once part of a radio or amplifier which I built in my teens. So it is decidedly old! However I've just checked it with an electrical resistance meter and it still gives the correct readings.

This single transistor is just over 1 cm tall (although that does include the casing of course). The fourth-generation Intel Core processor in a PC has 1.7 billion transistors. So they've found ways of making them a teensy bit smaller over the last 50 years! (A human brain has about 100 billion nerve cells - Intel expects to equal this by 2026, but as nerve cells can have thousands of connections to each cell I don't think we're comparing like with like.)

Many thanks again to Lizellen for hosting TT this month.