Transistor Radios and the Electronics Revolution
electronic transistor make chiefly as switches andamplifiers . give those functions , it ’s no surprise that sound - related devices were the first commercial products to apply transistors . In 1952 , transistorise hearing assist hit the securities industry . These were niche product , though , compare to junction transistor radios that emerge in 1954 . radio receiver exposed manufacturer and consumers alike to the revolutionizing potential of transistors .
The map of transistors inradiosis straightforward . Sounds are recorded through a microphone and turn into electric signals . Those signals travel through a tour , and the transistor amplifies the signaling , which is subsequently much louder when it reaches a speaker .
win over manufacturers that this canonical concept would sour on mass - produced product , however , was n’t such a simple task . In 1954 , electronic transistor were establish but fresh electronic components . machine manufacturers had been using void tubes productively for many age , so they were intelligibly leery about switching to transistors .
But Pat Haggerty , frailty president at a company called Texas Instruments , was convert that transistors were move to revolutionize the electronics industry . Texas Instruments used Bell Labs ' breakthroughs in atomic number 32 transistors to recrudesce a lowly , pocket - sized junction transistor radio , with the help of a small-scale Indiana company named IDEA . Together , the two company create a radio called the Regency TR-1 , which was announced on Oct. 18 , 1954 .
From start to finish , the slipstream to create the TR-1 ask innovative new parts that would equip inside a pocket - sized case , which would be minor enough to really enamour the world ’s attention . The speaker , condenser , and other ingredient were created just for this labor . The transistors , though , were what really made the project potential .
Texas Instruments devised processes for mass - producing junction transistor for their radios , and in the appendage , turn out that junction transistor and their subsequent products could be low-cost , more portable and more in force than vacuum tube . Within a year , other company , such as Emerson , General Electric and Raytheon , all began selling junction transistor - based products . The modern electronics boom had set about .
