![]() ![]() The pocket calculator is also partly his invention. “He said you may work on that full time and see what comes out of it,” Post explained.Īt TI, Kilby then co-invented the integrated circuit, a way to put transistors and other components on chip without a rat’s nest of wires. Instead, TI’s boss said Kilby could focus on what he wanted. A rival firm nearly hired him but stipulated he could only do the work with part of his time. This culture attracted an engineer in 1958 named Jack Kilby, who had a passion for jamming circuits into smaller spaces for important stuff like hearing aids. And there was no penalty for failure in those days,” Post said. He would build a company with the culture to become a mini Bell Labs. ![]() Haggerty came to Dallas in 1945 after buying technology for the Pentagon during the war, where he’d seen that vacuum tubes had to go. “He persuaded the company - ‘Let’s get into manufacturing.'” “There was so much volatility in both the petroleum market - up and down on exploration - and also military contracts were not very stable in those days,” Post said. But a new Texas Instruments boss, Pat Haggerty, saw this work as too cyclical, said Max Post, a longtime TI employee. The company had roots in electronics for oil exploration. Regency made these at the invitation of a Dallas firm which had just started manufacturing the four transistors inside, “because that would show that yes, the transistor is a practical device,” according to Pies. They didn’t sound great, but you could take them to the game or the beach. The design looked good enough to eat: multiple colors, big brassy dial. They couldn’t make enough of them at first,” said Don Pies, son of the co-founder of the Regency company of Indianapolis. “What was amazing was that people were so transfixed with it, that it sold out at that price. The first one was the Regency TR-1, and on its launch just before Christmas 1954, it was priced at $50, about $550 dollars in today’s money. It didn’t need big vacuum tubes, so it made carrying a lightweight, more mobile listening device possible. But the transistor had to travel to Dallas for it to become music to our ears.īefore there was the first iPod and before the Walkman, there was the transistor radio. The old Bell Telephone Labs in New Jersey was powered by genius and corporate monopoly power. We’ve been looking at the ecosystems of innovation that grew the transistor into the interconnected, digital revolution. The future began 75 years ago this week with the invention of the transistor. ![]()
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