2026-08-24 02:46 UTC
In 1970, Scientific American's legendary publication The Amateur Scientist ran an article on homemade transistors.
Not MOSFETs, but thin-film transistors made by Roger Baker with a DIY spray pyrolysis system. With handmade drawings like this.
In 2026, Google could not find this. I only found this from a StackExchange post which linked to a 2009 blog post that mentioned it. Then to see the actual article I had to go to JSTOR, sign in with my institution, re-sign-in to EZProxy, wait for the 2FA prompt, wait like a minute for their stupid website to load, click download, agree to not share it amongst the other terms and conditions, then download it.
I have no desire to go back to the world of 1970s, but I somehow feel the way that tech megacorps and licensing bs runs the world of 2026 is a scourge on human creativity and experimentation. /thread
Replies (1)
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@xeno@hexokina.se 2026-08-24 02:46
Here's the blog post, which is awesome, and I am licensed to shout out in all of it's old-web glory /thread http://sparkbangbuzz.com/cds-fet/cds-fet.htm