Vacuum tubes powered the development of new electronics through the first half of the 20th century. That was one reason early radios, television sets, scientific equipment, and even hearing aids were so big and bulky. Tech companies were working on the problem, though, and in the 1930s, Raytheon engineer Norman Krim managed to make vacuum tubes smaller than today's triple-A batteries. These were subminiature tubes, which made the military's Cold War weapon the proximity fuze possible. It also led to the first portable radio and revolutionized the hearing aid industry. Meanwhile, it put Raytheon on the map.
But then Bell Labs gave us the solid-state transistor in 1947. Krim had spent his career miniaturizing vacuum tubes, so he could have led an all-out war between the competing technologies. Yet he was able to see the future of transistors, and made the hard decisions that led to transistors everywhere. Read the story of subminiature tubes and how the transistor took over at Tedium.
(Image credit: Engradio)
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My father loved appliances, new gadgets and such. One year when transistor radios came out my dad bought me one for Christmas. Armed with a fresh set of batteries I was holding my radio in my hand listening to music with the earplug in so as not to make noise. My dad saw me holding the silent radio and grabbed it from my hand and started turning the dials trying to hear it play. Before I had time to react he turned the volume all the way up which blasted the noise directly into my ear canal. It actually broke the hammer in my inner ear. So now you know how I am deaf in one ear.
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