Schockley, Bardeen, and Brattain had a contentious relationship by this point. As the photographer prepared for the shot Shockley sat down at Brattain’s bench and peered into his microscope, putting himself at the center of attention. Shockley had been working on the theory for years, but it was Brattain and Bardeen who made it a reality. Shockley resented that he had not been fully involved in the fruition of his ideas. All publicity photos and press around the new invention of the transistor were required to include Shockley.

Image Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

The fiercely competitive Shockley could not stand to share credit for the transistor and spent New Year’s Eve 1947 conceiving of a way to improve upon what Bardeen and Brattain had done. He took out a patent on his improvements, excluding his former team members from the transistor project from that point forward.

Image Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

This replica shows the first draft of the point-contact semiconductor version that Bardeen and Brattain made in 1947. John Pierce, a visionary at Bell Labs, helped name the transistor. The name comes from a combination of two words: TRANSfer resISTOR.

Collection of AT&T Archives and History Center.

Compare the size difference of this vacuum tube to the much smaller transistor. When vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors, electronic devices, like radios, could be made smaller and cheaper. The size of a transistor is now so small that the newest cell phone models contain as many as 15 billion of them!

Collection of AT&T Archives and History Center.

The Negative-Positive-Negative (NPN) junction transistor was Shockley’s clandestinely theorized improvement to the original point-contact transistor. This 4C model was made to use in carrier systems for rural customers. One of the units here is bisected to reveal its three leads.

Image Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

The Regency TR-1, the first commercially produced transistor radio, went on sale in time for Christmas 1954. Japanese companies, rebuilding industry after WWII, soon jumped on the opportunity to use the new technology to make small pocket radios. One now-familiar name to rise to the top was Sony. Another Japanese company, Magnavox, made this fun red model. The portable nature of the radios meant that people could catch world news on the go, and that teens could develop their own tastes in music away from parental supervision in their living room – perfect for cranking up some rock’n’roll!

Collection of Jonathan Allen.