ABSTRACT
American and Japanese manufacturers of radios, stereos, and tape recorders effectively brought the reign of the vacuum to an end by the early 1960s. Transistors were the building blocks of electrical circuitry and the first stage in the evolution of increasingly small, efficient, and versatile integrated circuits that now make up the essence of computers and most other electronic devices. Transistors can have many functions but are primarily used for amplifying signals and switching control signals. The first practical transistor was developed at Bell Labs in 1947 and was in widespread production and use by the early 1950s. Transistors had several advantages over their vacuum tube predecessors, including small size, durability, low power consumption, and a highly automated manufacturing process. Transistors could withstand shock and did not require a warmup period like vacuum tubes. All of these factors made transistors ideally suited for use in commercial audio products, including those components commonly found in the electronic music studio.
