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Transistor Radio Turns 50
theodp writes "Before the iPod, there was the Regency TR-1. Fifty years ago Monday, tiny Indianapolis-based I.D.E.A. partnered with TI and shook the world with the first pocket-sized AM radio, so impressing IBM chief Tom Watson that he provided a $49.95 (roughly $345 in current dollars!), four transistor TR-1 to each of his senior managers to kick-start the company's transition from valves."
For a neat one page history of the shirt-pocket sized transistor radio along with a picture of the TR-1, go here: transistor radio
http://www.busyweather.com/
Valves = tubes in Brit-speak ...
And I, for one, want to welcome the arrival of our new iPod Overlords!
-Ocelot Wreak.
"I figure you're here 'cause you need some whacko who's willing to stick his finger in the fan. So who are we helping?
Especially considering more than half of that inflation occurred between 1970 and 1983.
Actually, it's not that bad.
345/49.95 = 6.9 (= 590% inflation)
power(6.9,1/50) = 1.04 (= 4% inflation).
4% inflation is not such a big deal.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
You have missed the point. The submitter wants to underscore the similarity with the IPod by showing that even their prices are similar once you adjust for inflation.
yeah -- a "vacuum tube" is precisely the same creature as a "thermionic valve"
"vacuum tube" is the better description of what such a component basically is, while "thermionic valve" is the better description of what it's good for.
Probably a reflex design, with one transistor amplifying both RF and/or IF/audio?
Be thankful that you didn't live in Hungary in 1946. They had 41,900,000,000,000,000% inflation in the month of July alone.
A general rule of thumb for inflation is that prices double every twenty years. By this standard, the given price is a little high, but not terribly so.
Because in much of the USA in those days, drugstores were among the few stores permitted to do business on Sunday.
Seven-Elevens had tube testers as late as the mid-Seventies.
rj
PBS has an excellent timeline that describes the history of the transistor,
'Transistorized! The History of the Invention of the Transisor'.
Actually, you cant get a better quality amp than a class A amp. You will get near perfect signal reproduction. Admittedly you will get better linearity if you use a multi-stage amp with feedback, but yeah.
:)
Power 'handling' wont be low but power 'efficiency' will be crappy since the transistor will always be biased in its ON state. Therefore it will dissipate power even when no signal is beeing pass through. Other than that its power dissipation for a given signal will be the same as for any other amp except class d
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
A Transistor radio mini-history has a picture of an early transistor circa 1947. From the website:
...USA research scientists of Bell Laboratories, Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain managed, in December 1947, to invent a solid state device that they called THE TRANSISTOR. They succeeded in creating a completely new amplifying device just by adding a second contact point to the already popular CRYSTAL DIODE based on a piece of germanium crystal with a pointed "cat's whisker" touching its surface. In 1956 in recognition for their extraordinary work they were awarded the Nobel Prize. (Can't tell from the website if this one pictured was the very first one invented by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain of Bell Laboratories.)
Transistor inventors Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain were awarded a Nobel prize for their work in 1956. It's amazing how something so primitive went on to revolutionize the electronics industry.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
GNP (Gross national product) measures the amount of output produced by all people/firms/capital from a nation, regardless of where that input is located; a Korean car plant in Kentucky counts for Korea's GNP, not the USA's. So, in a sense, the GDP doesn't measure national wealth, but output produced within a particular country.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
If you look at the expanded pic of the "shirt-pocket radio", you also see a Zenith hearing aid, which has a shape (especially considering the location of the earphone) surprisingly similar to an iPod...
"Why a hearing aid?" you may ask. Interesting history there - Bell Labs, probably in view of the work done by Alexander Graham Bell with the deaf and hard of hearing, allowed transistors to be used in hearing aids without royalty payments. If you have ever seen the large B batteries once used with vacuum tubes, you will understand why the transistor was such a breakthrough in creating a wearable hearing aid.
Have you recently visited a store (e.g. Target or Wal-Mart) and tried to buy a new transistor radio (defined as a battery powered radio the size of a pack of cigarettes)? I wanted one to listen to the presidential debates. I couldn't find a transistor radio, or a headphone radio, the smallesst thing they had was a $9 portable radio cassette player that was large enough to have a carrying handle.