Don't eat the yellow snow
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Transistor two years older than Mageek
WE NOTE THAT on December the 16th, it is the 60th anniversary of the transistor. We'd forgotten, because we are entering advanced old age, but Intel decided to remind us.
According to Intel, the transistor is the "building block" of today's digital world.
It was invented by Bell Labs.
We won't get into the burning question of whether a US billion is the right term when the British billion is so much bigger, but instead will relate a personal anecdote, if you will allow us that latitude.
When
I was 10, I saved up all my pocket money for weeks and weeks and weeks so I
could buy one single Mullard transistor. I was already familiar with valves
(tubes) but hadn't realised it was very very important with trannies to keep the
pair of pliers active as a heat sink when you got your soldering iron out.
Yeah, you guessed it. Blew four weeks of pocket money (£1 and one shilling which in those days was called a guinea) in three seconds. And that was a year before the Schmitt Trigger was baked into a cake.
Said Intel: "On April 19, 1965, Electronics Magazine published a paper by Moore in which he made a prediction about the semiconductor industry that has become the stuff of legend. Known as Moore's Law... etc., etc." µ
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My first transistor was a Raytheon CK-722 costing $1.50 with which I made an amplified crystal set using a Miller 4000 ferrite rod antenna tuned with a compact mylar insulated variable capacitor and a 1N34 germanium diode detector. The tuning was broad as a barn door and certainly no superhetrodyne, but the bloody thing worked! This was a heady experience for a young teenaged boy who is about to become an official "old fart" on his 65th birthday in January 2008!
I vaguely remember reading a science fact article in Analog magazine 20 or 30 years ago that said transistors were patented around 1929. It had a picture of the patent, which described how transistors could be used for amplification. It obviously didn't make a big splash at that time! Maybe somebody could track this down.
It ages us all1 Don't forget the Red Dot as the identifier for Collector-Base-Emmitor or the the fact that it was said that it would never be of use above Audio frequances and never be able to be used for a power output sage. Then there were the first rectofiers good for 400 V @ 400 ma. as you mention those were several pounds each. At the time I was a first year electrical apprentice making 42 shillings and 6 pence a week.

Great information or this site.

Bob H.
The scientists that invented the transistor did indeed work for Bell Labs, who funded their work and supplied the lab.
Mine was the OC71.
I'd scratch off the black coating to see if I had the clear or opaque version.

The clear one could be used for light detecting.

Not that I'd use it for that. I was just curious which version I had... Hey I was only 12.
A Nerd in the making.... :-)

Bell labs did NOT invert or discover the transistor , or anything of the sort.
Consider Bell labs to be the leach that profited from the inventions of others.
Like how we enjoy to scorning the japs for nicking all our best ideas.Well, Bell labs where the japs back then.They nicked it , good and proper.And have the audacity to this day to claim that they invented it !
Didnt a Russian guy actually develop the original transistor & diode back in the 20's, but the documents have only been released relatively recently?

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/04/led-older-than-we-thought.html