Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sco!bruces
From: bruces@sco.COM (Kid Marcom)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Transistor Trivia
Keywords: Who was first
Message-ID: <6921@viscous.sco.COM>
Date: 28 Oct 89 08:47:38 GMT
References: <14290@well.UUCP> <4383@deimos.cis.ksu.edu>
Sender: news@sco.COM
Reply-To: bruces@sco.COM (Kid Marcom)
Distribution: sci
Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.
Lines: 56


I laughed so hard I almost snorted an antler
when mac@harris.cis.ksu.edu (Myron A. Calhoun) said,
HA! In article <14290@well.UUCP> cygnet@well.UUCP (Joseph C. Decuir) writes:
HA! >In trying to settle a bet I would like to know what company and year
HA! >the first Transistor was shipped commercially? Also, who was the
HA! >first to sell a Transistor radio and in what year?
HA! 
HA! While in high school I made two 4-transistor TRF receivers.  All four
HA! transistors were CK-722, the first transistor to be sold for under
HA! a doller (i.e., 99 cents!) each.  One of the radios I built into
HA! a hollowed-out book (talk about hours of work with a razor blade!)
HA! and the other I sold to one of my high school buddies.
HA! 
HA! I used my radio to listen to the world series while supposedly studying
HA! in study hall.  I was forced to endure study hall only twice during my
HA! high school years, and I'm sure my senior year was NOT one of them.
HA! I graduated in the spring of 1959; thus the above was probably done in
HA! the Fall of 1957.
HA!                     <...>
///////////////

Wow, the CK-722.  Haven't thought about THAT for a long time.  I
can't be sure off-hand if it came first, but around the same
period I also recall that venerable dynamic duo, the 2N34 and
2N35.  As I remember, the CK-722 was a black, rectangular ceramic
unit with the Texas Instruments "TI" logo on it, while the 2N34
(PNP) and 2N35 (NPN) came in silver metal can packages that made
them look like little crystals, and were made by Sylvania and
others.  They were both available individually at retail packed on
cardboard cards, and cost around five bucks each.  

I used them with a variety of 1N* diodes to build a number of
useless radios that picked up nothing but the ubiquitous and
overwhelmingly powerful signal of the KEA860 "Page Boy" paging
service transmitter atop the Empire State Building, which did
nothing but spew endless streams of three-digit numbers all day
and all night.

I got my first ticket in the fall of 1956, and I'd say I became
aware of these babies within that Novice year.  By 1958, I
remember using later "high-power" transistors (2N94 maybe?) to
build obnoxious dog-whistle oscillators that could subliminally
make a whole classroom squirm - what a jerk.

I don't remember who made the first transistor radio, but I know
I couldn't afford one - I was happy to score a laptop-size green
portable with tubes in it that began with "1"s.

Bruce Steinberg (N6LZ)
uunet!sco!bruces
-- 
It's not what you look like when you're doin' what you're doin',
it's what you're doin' when you're doin' what it looks like you're doin'.

                                -Charles Wright and the Watts 103