There are no family photos or mementos. Not a single plaque,
diploma or trophy. The white walls in Jack Kilbys office are
ready and waiting for someone anyone to hang something on them.
Whats the deal? Did the renowned inventor just move into his
small office in north Dallas? "No," replies Kilby in his slow
baritone. "Ive been in this office for 13 years." Most people,
having won a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics three months
before, would probably make time to hang up one maybe even two
things. Perhaps a photo of themselves shaking hands with Carl
XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden, as a reminder that they have done
well, that their life has met with some success. Call it
strange, if you like. Few people would argue; not even his
friends. "He puts things in a different order than most people
do," says Charley Clough, a former colleague of Kilbys at Texas
Instruments. Perhaps thats how Kilby by putting things in a
different order was able to leap past hundreds of others in the
1950s with an invention that changed