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Comment by srvmshr | Hacker News Reader

Absolutely. But would you like to base your understanding on something well written, intuitively illustrated (not necessarily math or physics heavy) OR something which is a refined copypasta from any garden variety electronic textbook?

If I could show you where to find a better place to learn, would you still consider me to "mind my own business"

I am not HN's knight crusader. But I would be happy if people got a better appreciation of things others love. And that needs some constructive critique at times. At HN discussions I try to do that whenever I can.

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Could you please share the source you mentioned above. Although a computer scientist by profession, I had to "just accept" lots of basic electrical engineer concepts in my undergrad days just because there was no one available that I could ask.

For a very quick reference, if you don't know anything (Edit: A grandpa level introduction)

https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/transistor-basics

And then,

https://youtu.be/qhJaq3kl6Dc https://youtu.be/AnEVas6cl6Y

Someone even mentioned Ben Eater's videos on SC & PN Diodes & P-N-P/N-P-N transistors. I liked those too when I was learning. Finally the first 10-15 pages in Chapter 1 of Milman & Halkias (PDFs widely circulating) are such a clear read, if something still doesn't click.

For the deep dive details I mentioned in parent post, follow 6.004 Computation Structures' first few lectures. Nand2Tetris lectures also cover how circuits are built from these basic units to make functional units of computer (Bonus: they used to have a simulation software with the book which was neat).

This will build a conceptual model of whats going on in these tiny semiconductor bits - unlike other places which throw in a bunch of facts & expect you to build on top of them

See also https://nandgame.com -- it's not nearly as comprehensive as the nand2tetris simulator, but it's a lot of fun to work through.

I think the Digikey page is a far worse introduction than the article. It explains what transistors are, but not at all how they work. It doesn't mention what N and P type silicon are, no mention of depletion zone, there are tables filled with PNs before we even get to the word "electron", and the history is fascinating but not particularly illustrative or helpful for how transistors actually work. I think they're intended for different audiences.

I think the article is an excellent introduction to the subject. Maybe the videos explain things better, but I didn't watch them, sorry. I'd much prefer to read a 5m article than 2hrs of video, and I think that's pretty common here. I personally think this fits great on HN.

Edit: Second video was very nice; it's short and sweet and covers the same material as the article. I still prefer the article, but some may prefer the different format.

> I think the Digikey page is a far worse introduction than the article.

I started with a disclaimer: If you know nothing - absolute zero. If this was the first time you heard about it. And it does the thing its intended to do i.e. tell a concise history and introducing some of the jargons

To each his own. I think the OP article is pretty poorly written & handwavy. My complaint of not showing charge flow or polarities still holds.

Completely understood, but still completely disagree. My point is that I feel the DigiKey page is not a good introduction if you're starting from scratch. It barely introduces and doesn't explain any of the jargon. It spends less than 2 paragraphs to cover the material from the article, and includes the same plumbing valve diagram. It doesn't cover what a semiconductor is or what makes them useful. It misses all the information about how/why transistors work and jumps straight to how to design around them.

In other words, the DigiKey page fails to answer the question: How do transistors work, anyway?

> In other words, the DigiKey page fails to answer the question: How do transistors work, anyway?

No, it is to first familiarize What is a transistor anyway?.

If I had to teach Complex Analysis, I would start with a calculus refresher. Or if I had to teach Deep learning, I would probably first explain what's a neural network. My recommendation followed a structure. You could even swap out Digikey product description pages for Wikipedia, I couldn't care any less if it just has to introduce what not how. But when it comes to teaching "how the stuff works", anything less than showing biases, polarities & charge flow is a handwave. I am not making arguments for the sake of arguments - if anyone thinks they got it without touching those, they are tricking themselves in.

That's not the point of this thread though, is it? It asks and answers a very different question. I do not think the history or specs are at all helpful in understanding what makes transistors tick.

"How do tower cranes work?"

"They can carry 20 tons and have a travel of 50 meters and were invented in 1950."

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