Their factories are in developing nations as well. They make radios which run on wind-up and/or solar power. We’ve told you about Freeplay in the past. Forget about HDTVs, DVDs and high-speed Internet lines. Batteries are usually out of the question too. In many places on this planet, where a transistor radio would provide entertainment for a number of families or a village, there’s little money to buy one and no electricity. There’s plenty to listen to but people can’t afford transistor radios - or if they can they can’t afford to run them. In other parts of the world the situation is reversed. but that’s another story which I’ll save for another time. The only problem in 2004 is that there’s usually very little to listen to on AM or FM radio in the U.S. Japanese companies started to mass produce them - prices went down and the radios got smaller, better, more efficient. But if you have one, or are lucky enough to find one, you can still purchase a 22-volt battery to power it at the nearest Radio Shack store.įor transistor radios the rest is history. Today, original TR-1s sell for hundreds of dollars at auction - if you can find one. Amazingly, Regency sold something like 100,000 of them in the first year. First adopters always pay for the right to own the latest and greatest. The TR-1 sold for $49.95 in 1954 - which would be $350 today. The transistors cost $2.50 each back then - that’s like $17 for each one in 2004 dollars. He wanted them to be able to be informed and get breaking news before anyone else. Legend has it that the boss at IBM was so enamored by the unbelievable idea of the world’s first pocket radio that he bought a bunch of them for other movers and shakers at his company. But it was Regency who began mass-producing radios using four transistors - powered by a standard 22-volt hearing aid battery - in bright, colorful plastic cases. Bell had even experimented with making a transistor radio. The transistor had been invented a few years earlier at Bell Telephone Labs - but had seen limited use. But the people at Regency based their radio on a product from a company called Texas Instruments - the transistor.
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