Elston is presumably third party so maybe it was an older design?
On 4 February 2026 04:31:11 GMT, Tony Duell via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: >On Wed, Feb 4, 2026 at 1:55 AM Peter Coghlan via cctalk ><[email protected]> wrote: > >> I don't think germanium power switching transistors enjoyed a long and >> stellar reign. Maybe this acounts for the apparant rarity of this >> version of the board? Or maybe their reliability was poor and they >> were quickly superceded by the board version with the silicon transistor >> as soon as that technology became available? > >The only germanium horizontal output transistors that I've come across >are the AU101, etc, used in the Perdio Portarama portable TVs. They >were not very reliable (and a right pain to change in that set, the >CRT has to come out first...) > >I am surprised there's a VT100 using them. Silicon horizontal output >transistors were well-known by that point, and a lot more reliable. >The VT52 uses a silicon NPN horizontal output transistor. The VT05 >seems to have used at least 2 monitor PCBs, one of which uses the >2N3731 horizontal output transistor which is germanium PNP. But the >other version uses a silicon NPN transistor. So by the time the VT100 >as introduced silicon NPN transistors were established in this >application. > >-tony
