Without it, computers today might possibly be as large as the ENIAC or the SSEC, and still using bulky vacuum tubes and human operators. The transistor, ranging in size today from the head of a pin to a fist(depending on appliance) was probably what made the hope computing age possible. The man responsible (in part) was William Shockley, a highly educated mathematician and scientist since his childhood. Having worked in the field of vacuum tubing, Shockley had a bit more of an understanding of the demand for a regulation device that was smaller, more powerful, and operated with greater efficiency than the vacuum tube. He worked in the vacuum tube department of Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey. He looked forward to the day when the vacuum tubes were replaced with a more electronic means of transfer. The transistor was his answer. With such installments in any computer, a new infinity was defined. The possibilities were completely rearranged. A computer that previously would occupy two basketball courts could now fit in a suitcase. But transistors, being the first step in miniaturizing computers, was not at all the last.Using circuit integration - a concept devised by Jack Kilby, a new type of internal organization of the hardware was born. Microprocessors would change the way a computer operated, channeling all data within a machine through one central magic box. The microprocessor used integrated circuitry (smaller conductors that closely followed the lay of the land within the computer) to simulate an intersection of all tasks and procedures that a computer had to carry out. Marcian E. Hoff would come to be known as the inventor of the Computer on a Chip. Now, boards that essentially housed what would have been considered a computer in itself was now simply a component and part of a greater whole. What was a computer is now a chip, and what is now a computer is the equivalent to hundreds of times the technology...
