There were several large companies pouring lots of R&D funds into the development of the transistor. They already had an analog device with many of the same characteristics in the vacuum tube. Both could be used for logic gates and both could be used for amplification.
I had a professor, Gerald Tuma, at the University of Oklahoma, who told us there had been a conference where one of the corporate groups trying to develop transistors presented a paper giving a status of where they were, the challenges they faced, and an estimate of how long it would be before they would succeed. After they were done, one of the other corporate entities took the podium and announced: We have them! There is a table set up at the back where you can order them!
And yes, I am a EE. I am trained in quantum mechanics and have even designed masks for the process of producing transistors and circuits on a substrate.
My company, Honeywell, was planning on using substrates to replace wire wrap boards to build mainframes. They did it for years.
Excellent. I am EE as well. What about the LED? I read several places that it had come from other world sources....
Your thoughts? Have no background in your area, power and microprocessors have been my background....