Regency TR-1

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The Regency TR-1, announced on October 18, 1954 by the Regency Division of I.D.E.A (Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana) and put on sale in November of 1954 was the first practical transistor radio made in any significant numbers.. Patented by, Dr. Heinz De Koster, Ph.D. of physics, a dutch employee of the company. It cost $49.95 (the equivalent of roughly $364 in year-2006 dollars) and sold about 150,000 units.

The TR-1 used four Texas NPN transistors and had to be powered by a 22.5 Volt battery, since the only way to get adequate radio frequency performance out of early transistors was to run them close to their collector-to-emitter breakdown voltage. This made the TR-1 very expensive to run, and it was far more popular for its novelty or status value that its actual performance, rather in the fashion of the first MP3 players.

Still, aside from its indifferent performance, the TR-1 was a very advanced product for its time, using printed circuit boards, and what were then considered micro-miniature components.