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"if it wasn't for the invention of X we wouldn't have Y"
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jmelson:

--- Quote from: tom66 on August 20, 2022, 09:23:29 am ---A BJT-based CPU would probably require a refrigeration system to keep it sufficiently cool at just 50 MIPS. 

Are there examples of non-CMOS CPUs that were commercially produced?

--- End quote ---
CPUs on an IC?  Yes, HP made a series of machines with Silicon on sapphire substrates, for lower parasitic capacitance.
Under a microscope, you can see thriugh the chip like glass.  I don't know what the circuit topolgy was.
IBM made the 370 series with the bipolar junction transistor technology they called MST4, which was essentially similar to Motorola's ECL.
The original Z-80 was implemented in XMOS, I think.
Jon
mikeselectricstuff:
Often statements like that are predicated on an assumption or suggestion that something might never have been invented, but in practice it's more often just a matter of time (when rather than if) and available materials/processes, as well as commercial incentive.
Something like a MOSFET would almost certainly have been invented eventually.

It's often said that Clive Sinclair invented the pocket calculator, but all he did in reality was figure out how to make it cheap enough before the competition did, it would have happened anyway. I think this is true for a very large number of "inventions"

Another interesting thing to consider is the opposite - what progress has been hindered by the invention of a non-optimal solution. For example if valves (vacuum tubes) hadn't been invented, would we have got semiconductors sooner ?
daqq:

--- Quote from: jpanhalt on August 20, 2022, 07:36:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: daqq on August 20, 2022, 05:41:17 pm --- You can trace the origins of a sex lubricant formulation* to the US space program
* - [NSFW?] https://astroglide.com/blog/our-roots-in-rocket-science-out-of-this-world-pleasure-endless-possibilities

--- End quote ---

Although K-Y Jelly was first marketed in 1917 long after the Chinese invented rockets, it was not a product of the US space program.
https://www.k-y.ca/pages/frequently-asked-questions#faq-1  Wikipedia gives an even earlier date (1904).  Maybe the Wright brothers used it to lubricate their control cables?  I'm satisfied with 1917.

--- End quote ---
Didn't say it was the first and only one ;) The question is, would we have Astroglide without Teflon?
langwadt:

--- Quote from: daqq on August 20, 2022, 08:52:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: jpanhalt on August 20, 2022, 07:36:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: daqq on August 20, 2022, 05:41:17 pm --- You can trace the origins of a sex lubricant formulation* to the US space program
* - [NSFW?] https://astroglide.com/blog/our-roots-in-rocket-science-out-of-this-world-pleasure-endless-possibilities

--- End quote ---

Although K-Y Jelly was first marketed in 1917 long after the Chinese invented rockets, it was not a product of the US space program.
https://www.k-y.ca/pages/frequently-asked-questions#faq-1  Wikipedia gives an even earlier date (1904).  Maybe the Wright brothers used it to lubricate their control cables?  I'm satisfied with 1917.

--- End quote ---
Didn't say it was the first and only one ;) The question is, would we have Astroglide without Teflon?

--- End quote ---

and Telfon (PTFE) was an accidental discovery while working on a new refrigerant

Circlotron:
And what if someone had invented really really good batteries in the late 1800s? So good that no one would have bothered with internal combustion engines? So much of the 20th century would have been different. Oil rich nations would have remained a backwater. Probably fewer wars. Less environmental damage of the type we see today. But I expect people collectively would have found another way to do the horrible things they do.
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