Happy Birthday to the Transistor!
 

60 years ago today, it was unveiled by Bell Labs!


Forbes

Make Magazine

Re: Happy Birthday to the Transistor!
 

Thanks for the reminder.

One of the early mass uses of the Germanium transistor was in the Touch Tone telephone. The transistor was so expensive that they used a single transistor in the dual-tone keypad oscillator to generate both tones. A very interesting trick to make a one-transistor oscillator oscillate on two different, non-harmonically-related frequencies.

Cheers,
Bob

Cool

My multimeter broke yesterday while testing a transistor:D

Late happy birthday !

But let's not forget its older brother, the FET (IGFET invented in the late 20ies, JFET in 1945) :nod:

AND.....IMO:lickface:.....J-fet is still best for audio.......input.........:cheerful:

Thanks are due again to Shockley (50%), Brattain and Bardeen (about 25% each). However, the device invented 60 years ago was the the point-contact transistor (no longer used anywhere), not the BJT (invented by Shockley alone a few years later, and which we'll still be using 50 years from now in high-quality audio amplifiers).

I wonder what these guys would think about some of the devices we take for granted today - with specs of 1KV+ Vce, current ratings of 10s of amps, beta above a 1000, etc.

According to Wikipedia --

Julius Edgar Lilienfeld invented the FET transistor in 1925 but
no evidence that he actually built it, although some academics
showed a few years ago that it would have been possible using
the materials and tools he had back then.

Hey, he invented the electrolytic capacitor too. Lot of dedicated
people in the past have made modern electronics where it
is today.

History tends to remember the loudest ones; other slip quietly into oblivion:
http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_...VanDormael.pdf
LV

Happy birthday

http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.en...transistor.jpg

Actually, if you examine Prof J.E. Lilienfeld closer one might think that Mr Field of Lilies can be regarded as a very early audiophile.