ВЭФ 12 (Astrad VEF 12 Project) - including a transistor tutorial

[ppppenguin]

The AF11x transistors were certainly not mediocre. They were high performance parts for their era and still do a perfectly good job in their intended applications. The AF114 was the best, AF117 worst, presumably done by selection from the production line. It's unfortunate that they were later found to suffer from tin whiskers. Once the whiskers are cleared by one of several well known methods they usually carry on working OK.

NB: The AF118 is a special case. I don't know if was selected from the same production as the others.