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 Beginning in the 1980s, however, cheap AM transistor radios were superseded by devices with higher audio quality such as portable CD players, personal audio players, boomboxes, and (eventually) smartphones, some of which contain radios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.
History of the transistor
Further developments included the grown-junction transistor (1951), the surface-barrier transistor (1953), the diffusion transistor, the tetrode transistor, and the pentode transistor. The diffused silicon 'mesa transistor' was developed at Bell in 1955 and made commercially available by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1958. The spacistor was a type of transistor developed in the 1950s as an improvement over the point-contact transistor and the later alloy junction transistor.