Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks and First Transistor

I picked up this book from British Library. But read in parts, sparingly.
This is what we missed out in college days…hacking around with hardware using our electronics-engineering skills. I still fear laying hands on electrical equipments.
Can somebody teach me…handling basic electrical appliances, measuring voltages and current, how large is 1 Ampere and some electrical wiring, fixing,soldering etc.

Physics in 20th century, the book I picked up from Book exhibition has this picture of the first transistor and there’s a description of “Controlling Resistance”.
What caught my attention when I browsed the book, was this.
It reads something like this:

Researchers knew, that it should be possible without any mechanical devices, by exploiting the properties of doped semiconductors, that a weak current could be used to vary the resistance of the middle semiconductor, just like a small amount of energy can raise and lower the canal-lock gate.
They tried various combinations and finally figured out that two n-type devices separated by a layer of p type semiconductor (like a gate) could do the magic.

I don’t think I still have understood it quite well enough…but that aha moment is not very far.