The Transistor: The History of the Transistor in a 1953 Documentary

Today we can say with some certainty that modern electronics would not exist without the transistor. Everything changed after the creation of the MOSFET in 1959, but in the preceding years it was already shaping up as a revolutionary development, capable of rewriting all the rules in terms of miniaturization and energy consumption. A good part of the admiration for the transistor is reflected in the mini documentary The Transistor published by Bell System (now AT&T) in 1953.

An obsolete processor like the 80486 easily surpasses a million integrated transistors. But in the 1950s, a single transistor was announced as something miraculous. Think of all the radios and televisions of that era. Huge equipment (and sometimes not entirely stable), which used vacuum tubes and components with extreme tolerances, carrying risks even for the repair and maintenance experts of the time.

All that would be left behind. More compact, safer and cheaper products, with greater durability and lower energy consumption. The transistor was "the" solution, but communicating its benefits to the population presented certain difficulties. The mini documentary The Transistor published by Bell System in 1953 (and today part of AT&T's historical archive) starts from the beginning, highlighting the virtues of vacuum tubes, the advancement of radio, telephone, TV, and radar.

Thus came the so-called point-contact transistor, invented in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, who started from a different concept, based on the research of solid substances and the behavior of their electrons, without the need for a vacuum environment or high-temperature elements. This team of physicists ended up sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956, just three years after the mini documentary.

The video explains one of the most notable benefits of the transistor, which is the reduction of energy consumption. A conventional tube can demand a watt or more, while some transistors require only a microwatt: A homemade and very crude battery is more than enough to power them. Another advantage is its temperature. Every device that uses tubes needs some ventilation, as does a minimum distance between them. Instead, transistors can go much more "together" in a circuit, without any problem.

In summary, they are less than ten minutes that definitely deserve your interest, even if you have some knowledge of electronics.