When humble transistors first appeared they were too expensive for consumer use. Now silicon technology developed for the consumer business has been finding its way into specialised niches once the exclusive preserve of pricey proprietary components. IT MIGHT be hard to credit now, but the early history of the transistor did not actually have much to do with the mass market. Up to the 1980s, the story of the electronics industry was one of technologies developed for niche industries trickling out into the wider consumer market.
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