[ExI] the "humble Conex" box (was Re: Sharpiegate)

[robot at ultimax.com]

To be sure, RAH didn't think the transistor was trivial, far from it.
It was his guesswork of 1950 that he said was trivial in 1965.  That is, 
the prediction "that transistor will be revolutionary", was too easy for 
him.

Sorry I was inexact in my meaning.

K3

On Sat, 1 Aug 2020 09:30:40 -0400, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 
wrote:
>> In the first edition of "Where To?" in 1950 Robert A Heinlein wrote
>> something like "there is some device, new but seemingly humble, that 
>> will
>> change the world.  We just don't know which."  At the time he thought 
>> it
>> was the transistor but by the time of the second edition in 1965, he
>> dismissed that as a trivial*
> 
> Heinlein was brilliant to predict that in 1950 and a fool to dismiss it 
> in
> 1965. Imagine how the world would be different if today we had no 
> better
> way to control the flow of electrons than with a vacuum tube.