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Transistors, 1948
NY Times ^ | September 1, 2009 | By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Posted on 09/02/2009 1:05:58 AM PDT by neverdem

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first time the word “transistor” appeared in print was in The New York Times on July 1, 1948, in a Page 46 roundup headed “The News of Radio.”

The unsigned article opened with a report of two new radio shows, one called “Mr. Tutt,” and the other titled “Our Miss Brooks,” “with Eve Arden playing the role of a school teacher who encounters a variety of adventures.” The column’s last item began, “A device called a transistor, which has several applications in radio where a vacuum tube ordinarily is employed, was demonstrated for the first time yesterday.”

There followed a technically accurate description of the gadget, a small metal cylinder consisting of two fine wires connected to a tiny piece of semi-conductive material soldered to a metal base. The transistor, it said, was used as an amplifier in a radio receiver “which contained none of the conventional tubes.”

But the first transistors did not work well, and it was not until Jan. 1, 1952, that an article — on Page 30, by William Laurence — reported on the development of a new and more practical “junction transistor.” On Dec. 30, 1952, an unsigned article on Page 29 described the first consumer product to use transistors: a hearing aid produced by the Sonotone Corporation...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: computers; electricity; physics; science; transistors
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1 posted on 09/02/2009 1:05:59 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Interesting piece of trivia...

Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, an Austro-Hungarian physicist invented the MOSFET in 1925 and the electrolytic capacitor in the 1920’s. He filed several patents describing the construction and operation of transistors as well as many features of modern transistors. When Brattain, Bardeen and Shockley tried to get a patent on their device, most of their claims were rejected due to the Lilienfeld patents.


2 posted on 09/02/2009 1:14:44 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: neverdem

Speaking of the transistor, there is now a drive to prevent a park being named after its lead inventor, William Shockley, because of his views on race. Pretty soon the leftists will try to remove or rewrite the first few centuries of the U.S.’s history.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125167291476670823.html


3 posted on 09/02/2009 1:15:39 AM PDT by ruination
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To: neverdem
The integration of tiny transistors led to the first microchip in 1958 built by both Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor.
4 posted on 09/02/2009 1:17:20 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld ("We will either find a way, or make one."Hannibal/Carthaginian Military Commander)
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To: neverdem
1947: Invention of the Transistor

No doubt reverse-engineered from the Roswell crash of the Radio Shack delivery saucer from Alpha Centauri.

5 posted on 09/02/2009 1:30:02 AM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hussein: Islamo-Commie from Kenya)
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To: ruination
There is a segment of the late-nite conspiracy radio crowd that believes the bipolar junction transistor was the result of reverse engineering extraterrestrial technology from the supposed Roswell UFO crash of 1947. If one examines the professional qualifications of Bill Shockley as a physicist, it becomes clear that he, an expert in quantum and statistical physics was well qualified to invent, construct, and fully describe the operation of just such a device. It becomes even more ludicrous in light of the 1920’s Lilienfeld patents described above.
6 posted on 09/02/2009 1:30:36 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SpaceBar

Coast to Coast?


7 posted on 09/02/2009 1:36:33 AM PDT by ruination
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To: neverdem

How far we’ve come. Got my headphones on, plugged in to my laptop.


8 posted on 09/02/2009 1:36:42 AM PDT by allmost
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To: ruination

Yup Coast to Coast. I refrained mentioning them by name to protect the guilty, but yeah.


9 posted on 09/02/2009 1:37:28 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: neverdem

The CK722 was my first transistor, sometime in the mid 50s, followed by the 2N107..Wow, I am getting old, but remember some things :(


10 posted on 09/02/2009 1:40:06 AM PDT by AlexW (Now in the Philippines . Happy not to be back in the USA for now.)
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To: SpaceBar

Those people have way, way too much spare time. But it’s fun to listen to occasionally.


11 posted on 09/02/2009 1:40:18 AM PDT by ruination
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To: SpaceBar

Do you realize that you are arguing against a theory that transistors were reverse-engineered from the crash remnants of an alien spaceship?


12 posted on 09/02/2009 1:45:12 AM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: ruination
On a side note, back in the nineties, a caller phoned Art (pre Noory) to discuss aircraft contrails. Art didn't hear the caller clearly and said “chem trails?”. And thus the widespread hoax and misinformation of chem-trails with the government poisoning us with each commercial airline flight was born.
13 posted on 09/02/2009 1:46:56 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: SpaceBar

I think I’ve heard one of those shows. Nutty.


14 posted on 09/02/2009 1:55:54 AM PDT by ruination
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To: PhilDragoo; Quix

American Computer Company had a story about the transistor and Roswell in the late 90’s. Below link is for your entertainment.
http://www.american-computer.com/

(Note: Web site is archived and some links may or may work.)


15 posted on 09/02/2009 2:14:00 AM PDT by Las Vegas Dave ("Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." - Ronald Reagan)
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To: Lancey Howard

a theory that transistors were reverse-engineered from the crash remnants of an alien spaceship?

Don’t be silly, it they were they’d be called “Roswells”.


16 posted on 09/02/2009 2:17:24 AM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: neverdem

Al Gore invented the internet and now the NYT invents the name “transistor”. Gee, I’m not so sure about this. Wouldn’t it have been published in scientific papers, proposals, journals, etc., first? Just guessing here, don’t clobber me.


17 posted on 09/02/2009 2:20:15 AM PDT by CanaGuy (Go Harper!)
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To: CanaGuy

The NYT didn’t invent the name “transistor” as it was named that by the developers at Bell Labs as a compound from the words “transfer resistor” meaning that the device seems to have an output resistance that varied in accordance with voltage drive to the base. (Greatly simplifying here).

The NYT just used the word “transistor” as it was given to them by Bell Labs. This is cited, however, as the first public appearance of the word.

Jack

who also recalls his first CK722, built into a code practice oscillator when working on his first amateur radio license.


18 posted on 09/02/2009 2:27:58 AM PDT by JackOfVA
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To: neverdem

Always rhought Bell Labs invented it?
Was an AE in the CG ..Hardest course I ever took was Tran Theory at NAS Jax...nothing made sence it all just “was”..PNP,NPN etc geshhhh


19 posted on 09/02/2009 2:28:18 AM PDT by CGASMIA68
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To: t1b8zs

All those Valance, J shells and K shells. L0L


20 posted on 09/02/2009 3:01:49 AM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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