Transistor radio
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following their development in 1954, made possible by the invention of the transistor in 1947, they became the most popular electronic communication device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s. Their pocket size sparked a change in popular music listening habits, allowing people to listen to music anywhere they went. Beginning in the 1980s, however, cheap AM transistor radios were superseded by devices with higher audio quality such as portable CD players, personal audio players, boomboxes, and (eventually) smartphones, some of which contain radios themselves.
Morris Tanenbaum
When Morris Tanenbaum joined the chemistry department at Bell Laboratories in 1952, Bell was a hotbed for semiconductor research. The first transistor had been created there in December 1947 by William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain. Their point-contact transistor, built of germanium, was announced at a press conference in New York City on June 30, 1948.