Transistor

A transistor is an object, both mentioned and found throughout the Fallout series.

Mentions

 * In a Fallout 3 random encounter, the player character can remove all transistors related to "basic operations" on a malfunctioning Mister Handy in the Capital Wasteland, rendering it inoperable.
 * In the Slavers Escort random encounter, the Lone Wanderer can attempt to free slaves from slave collars. One of possible outcomes found in the game files mentions tweaking a transistor to disarm them.
 * In Fallout: New Vegas, Robert House mentions electronics and silicon, the primary component of transistors and semiconductors: "I'm flesh and blood, not silicon."
 * In Fallout 4, Jack Cabot utilized transistors to create a portable version of the Abremalin field generator.
 * The soldier on duty at Listening Post Bravo lamented that they only had, "military rations, old magazines and a transistor radio to keep me company" for four weeks.
 * One of Proctor Quinlan's possible responses about Paladin Danse is that they, "wouldn't 'miss' a synth any sooner than I'd miss a transistor radio."
 * The Fallout 76 quest The Messenger requires a memory transistor for completion.
 * Scott Conroy attempted to chase down cryptids in Appalachia, and brought along a General Atomics BS7 transistor radio while doing so.
 * In Fallout Tactics, the Reavers mention transistors.

Behind the scenes

 * Developers disagree on the origins of transistors in the Fallout series and few interviews regarding transistors contemporaneous to the 1997 and 1998 games have survived. In addition, they are not mentioned in the 2002 Fallout Bible compiled by developer Chris Avellone.
 * In June 2003 on the Interplay Forums, developer Joshua Sawyer and a user on the No Mutants Allowed forums debated over a claim that a developer had stated "Imagine a future where the transistor had never been invented", to which Sawyer cited examples where transistors and integrated circuits can be found in Fallout, such as The Glow. He also notes that he was unfamiliar with any Fallout developer at the time who used the lack of transistors to describe game's setting.
 * In a followup tumblr question in March 2019, Sawyer maintained his position on transistors in Fallout, reiterating how robots in the series are affected by EMP blasts "so the state of technology isn’t represented consistently."
 * In 2016, in a Ubisoft livestream's closing Q&A, developer Joel Burgess mentioned transistors in terms of advanced technology, in that the Fallout world reached milestones of advancement without inventing the transistor, which shines light on culture priorities.
 * In 2018, in an interview with YouTuber Matt Barton, developer Leonard Boyarsky stated that the choice to stay with vacuum tubes instead of advancing to transistors was intentional, commenting that without transistors, enemies "wouldn't be as susceptible to an EMP blast."
 * Concept art in the Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Collector's Edition describes Mr. House's helmet apparatus, stating that it was designed to be potentially "fitted with transistors."