Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:8503 rec.ham-radio:14777
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!aplcen!haven!uvaarpa!mcnc!rti!tijc02!eri316
From: eri316@tijc02.UUCP (Ed Ingraham         )
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,rec.ham-radio
Subject: Re: Transistor Trivia
Message-ID: <757@tijc02.UUCP>
Date: 6 Nov 89 14:40:07 GMT
References: <14290@well.UUCP>
Distribution: sci
Organization: Texas Instr., Johnson City TN
Lines: 32

From article <14290@well.UUCP>, by cygnet@well.UUCP (Joseph C. Decuir):
> In trying to settle a bet I would like to know what company and year
> the first Transistor was shipped commercially? Also, who was the
> first to sell a Transistor radio and in what year?
> 
> Would you please tell how you know this information.
> Thanks in advance.
> _Eric Cook_

From "A Biography of Mark Shepherd" in the _TI Technical Journal_
of March-April, 1988:

"While TI believed in the future of solid-state electronics, it still
needed to prove to a skeptical world the practicality of transistors
and TI's ability to produce them. In 1954, TI entered into a joint
program with the Regency Radio division of Industrial Development
Engineering Associates, and Mark's operation was charged with getting
into production a radio made with germanium transistors by October of
that year in order to place it on the market by Christmas."

"The result -- the Regency Radio -- opened the commercial market for
transistors by showing it was practical to use the small components in
mass-produced consumer products. For three years, TI was supplying
transistors for almost every portable radio manufactured in the
United States."

After a couple of phone calls to Dallas, we found at least one of the
original engineering prototypes in the hands of one of the design team.

Ed Ingraham
Texas Instruments
Johnson City, Tennessee