This picture is about the transistor. There are three transistors here in this
collection of small electronic parts: the original point contact type, the junction type, and the photo
transistor. And here's a more complex type of
transistor. This is called the junction tetrode. These tiny transistors are destined to
play a big part in our electronic age. They will make possible smaller more
compact electronic devices, and will need less maintenance and have a
longer life. But to grasp fully the importance of these new members of the electronic family, let's recall the wonders made possible by
the high vacuum tube. The common radio tube. The roots of the
electronic age reach back into the early years of our
century. In 1907 Dr. Lee de Forest discovered that
a grid of fine wire placed between a filament and a metal plate
in a vacuum tube could control the flow of electrons between the filament and plate and the tube could be made to amplify as well
as detect the electrical wave. He called this amplifying tube an Audion. Weak signals applied to the import or
grid of the Audion caused similar and much
stronger signals to flow from the plate or output. A few years later two scientists,
Dr. Arnold of Bell Telephone Laboratories and Dr. Langmuir of General Electric. working independently,
found that by pumping out the Audion tube to create a very high vacuum, they obtained
greater fidelity and stability. Here's one of the first high
vacuum tubes that started us on the way to the wonders of
our electronic age. By 1915 telephone research physicists and
engineers had succeeded in developing methods of manufacturing a vacuum tube with sufficiently uniform characteristics
so that hundreds of them were installed as amplifiers thus making possible the first
telephone line between New York and San Francisco. And 3,000 mile transcontinental
telephone calls became a reality. The same year 1915 at Arlington, Virginia telephone
engineers hooked together 500 vacum tubes to generate enough radio power to send the
human voice across the Atlantic for the first time in history. Words spoken into a radio telephone transmitter at Arlington were heard by engineers listening at
the Eiffel Tower in Paris and also at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1920 brought the beginning of radio
broadcasting when a vacuum tube radio receiver was a real luxury. Then the next 10 years gave us talking
motion pictures, trans-oceanic radio telephone servicev television demonstrations, and ship to
shore telephony. With our electronic age in full swing
the coaxial cable, the cathode ray tube, the iconoscope and the image orthocon, aided by hundreds of more conventional
vacuum tubes, gave us television, radar for war, radar for peace. And then microwave radio relay to speed hundreds of telephone calls as
well as television programs from coast to coast. The heart of all these
electronic systems has been the vacuum tube. But the Bell Telephone Laboratories have
added an entirely new and different heart to modern communication systems. The transistor. Operating on a new and
different principle arising from basic research on solid
substances and how the electrons inside them behave. How
did it all come about? Well, Doctors Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain, and their associates at the Bell
Telephone Laboratories, were working on a problem in pure research, investigating the surface properties
of germanium, a substance known to be a semiconductor of electricity. Their studies suggested a way to amplify
an electric current within a solid without a vacuum or a heating element. And
after months of calculations, experiments, tests, the transistor was born. The
transistor - a new name, a new device that can do many
of the jobs done by the vacuum tube, and many the tube can't do. Let's see how
the transistor and tube measure up. First off, the vacuum tube is power hungry. While a tube like this generally demands a watt or more of electricity a millionth of a watt is enough for the transistor. Even a makeshift battery of moist blotting
paper wrapped around a coin can power transistor. [Electronic signal tone] The vacuum tube gets pretty hot. Sometimes a little too hot. That's why in
complex devices the tubes must be spaced far enough apart for
proper ventilation. Since transistors remain cool they can be crowded together in a small
space. In size, reliability and ruggedness too, the tiny
transistor has many advantages. And research goes on to make it still more
useful. Many new and improved types of
transistors are probably early models, but transistors are no longer just an
experiment. Here they are being produced at the
Allentown, Pennsylvania plant of Western Electric, the manufacturing and
supply unit of the Bell System. Different types for different purposes. The Bell Telephone people have lots of
jobs lined up for them jobs based on the transistor's ability to
amplify speech sounds in this way: [Man demonstrating, voice low] "This is how my voice would sound over a 75 mile
telephone line that has no amplifying device. [Voice louder] Now with a transistor amplifier in the line, my voice is amplified so that you can hear me
distinctly." This, for example, will mean that in isolated
farmhouses far from central exchanges the transistor, right in the telephone,
will make it easier for the farmer to hear and be heard on his rural telephone. And transistors can replace many of the
vacuum tubes used in providing long distance telephone service. Because they are so tiny transistors have made it possible to miniaturize many types of electronic equipment This equipment requires less space and will
cost less to maintain. Transistors may also be used in
multi-channel telephony which increases the number of calls that
can be carried at the same time along telephone lines. When you dial direct from your town to a distant city, transistors in this
route selector may be helping to mark out the pathway
along which your call will go. Transistors may some day go under the
sea, built right into underwater telephone
cables. But transistors go well with lots of other industries too. Many manufacturers have been licensed to
produce transistors and devise new applications. Through their
efforts you may be able to get music with a flick of your wrist from the so-called Dick Tracy radio. And with a portable television set you may be able to enjoy video
entertainment anywhere you go. For the military the transistor opens up
fantastic possibilities, most of them in too early a stage of
development to be talked about. Transistors will take
their place in the complex calculating machines that have often been called electronic brains,
because they enable man to save days, month, even years in solving
mathematical problems. Of course we cannot build a calculating machine as flexible
as the human brain, but even a man-made computer designed to do hundreds of brain-like
calculating jobs might need an Empire State Building to
house it and a Niagara Falls to power and cool it, if vacuum tubes were used in its
construction. Substituting transistors for tubes, such a versatile machine could fit into
a good-sized room, and power and cooling needs would be relatively
low. With the transistor man has drawn far toward matching some of the capacity
of the human brain. He has done it with imagination, with the inventiveness and teamwork of
the Bell telephone scientists who are looking forward to the age just beyond the Age of Electronics.
It’s so surreal, watching them fantasize about the possibility of a portable tv or radio while watching on an iPhone. Incredible
What great potential this tech had.
Transistors really are one of the greatest tech advancements of the modern age
It didn't take long to take over the world. The first transistor pocket radio (with a 22.5 Volt battery!) came out only a year later in 1954.
Transistors will power all the five computers in the world making them only twice as big as a Cadillac!
What I don't get is that almost all of that talk was about amplification, and not switching. Was that not considered an important job of transistors and vacuum tubes at the time?
Is there a youtube channel dedicated to old 40s and 50s documentaries? I fucking love them every time one pops up.
It’s mind blowing that someone who was 12 in 1953 and saw this film about these weird little “transistor” things... they could be alive now... 78 years old, but wow... the change they’ve seen.
We have come SO FAR in such a short time.
70 years old on July 1st!
(transistor born on July 1, 1948 according to op's vid)