Follow-up on the previous post, but first, a word from Heathkit
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Good Lord, I had no idea they cost so much: that would be $351.24 in current dollars. Thanks, Dad — I didn’t know
Reader “Private Confidential” sent in a link to a YouTube video on the incredible story of microchip development: “you really REALLY need to see this video to grasp the complexity behind micro chips.”
I’m posting that video below, but Private’s note reminded me of an earlier post I’ve had in my draft folder for a couple of weeks, and it serves, I think, as a good introduction to the topic:
January 23, 2026
(January 23rd) I ran across an old ad for Heathkits recently, and that got me wondering how many transistors were in the things back then, so I posed the following question to Grok:
Q: I remember assembling Heathkit walkie -talkies back in 1963 when I was a young lad, and I remember soldering individual transistors onto a circuit board, but I don't remember how many transistors were in a single simple device like that. Now that chips hold 1,000s (or more) [how hopelessly wrong I was on this guess — Ed] transistors, I'm curious: how many transistors were in those things back then?
AI Response:
In 1963, Heathkit offered a couple of popular walkie-talkie kits for the Citizens Band (CB) radio service, which were simple, license-free devices often assembled by hobbyists. The lower-cost model, such as the GW-30, used a basic superheterodyne circuit with 4 transistors.
This was a straightforward design focused on affordability and ease of building, with components like a few transistors for RF amplification, detection, and audio stages.For a more advanced option, the deluxe model like the GW-21 featured a 9-transistor superheterodyne receiver with additional features such as an RF amplifier stage for better sensitivity and range, plus 2 diodes.
Both involved soldering discrete transistors onto a circuit board, as integrated circuits weren't common yet for consumer kits.Given your description of a "simple device," it's likely you assembled something akin to the 4-transistor version, but the 9-transistor one was also widely available around that time.
These early transistor-based walkie-talkies typically operated at low power (around 100 milliwatts) on a single channel, with a whip antenna and a 9-volt battery.
Follow up question: how many transistors are in the most advanced modern computer chips these days?
AI Response:
The most advanced modern computer chips in early 2026 pack an astonishing number of transistors—far beyond what anyone could have imagined back in the Heathkit days! For consumer-grade processors (like those in high-end laptops, desktops, or workstations), Apple's M3 Ultra (a dual-die SoC) holds the top spot with 184 billion transistors as of March 2025, built on TSMC's 3 nm process.
The newer M4 Max (used in recent MacBook Pros and Mac Studios) is estimated around 90–100 billion transistors based on scaling from the base M4's 28 billion and prior generations like the M3 Max's 92 billion—still massive, but not quite at the Ultra level yet.
In the world of high-performance GPUs and AI accelerators, NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture (like the B100/GB100-based chips, released in 2024 and widely deployed by 2025–2026) features 208 billion transistors across a dual-die package on a custom TSMC 4NP process. This makes it one of the highest-transistor-count production chips for general-purpose computing and AI workloads right now.
Even higher numbers exist in specialized AI hardware. For example, Cerebras' Wafer Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3)—a massive, single-wafer-sized chip—reaches 4 trillion transistors, though it's not a traditional "computer chip" like a CPU or GPU; it's a purpose-built AI accelerator that's physically enormous (about 8.5 inches square).Looking ahead, industry roadmaps (from NVIDIA, TSMC, Intel, etc.) point to multi-chiplet designs pushing toward 1 trillion transistors or more in systems within the next decade, but single-package chips are currently in the low hundreds of billions for the absolute cutting edge.To put this in perspective from your 1963 walkie-talkie experience:
A simple 4-transistor Heathkit design → today's top chips have roughly 46 billion times more transistors (using the 184–208 billion range).
Even a deluxe 9-transistor version is dwarfed by factors of 20+ billion times.
The scale is mind-boggling—thanks to decades of shrinking process nodes (now down to 3 nm and below) and clever multi-die packaging. We're still riding the wave of Moore's Law (or something very close to it), just in more complex forms! If you're curious about a specific chip (like the latest NVIDIA or AMD offerings), let me know for more details.
Here’s that video: I’m slowly plowing my way through the entire 55 minutes, and it’s fascinating