Imagine that your leader gathered you in May to announce that 10% of the company’s income will go towards creating a new product for the mass market, based on technology not yet ready for serial production. Moreover, the product should hit store shelves in less than six months, by the start of the holiday shopping season. Ambitious? Yes. Not easy? Definitely.
This is exactly what Pat Haggerti, Vice President of Texas Instruments, did in 1954. The result was regency tr-1, the world’s first commercial transistor radio, which debuted 70 years ago this month. The engineers successfully executed Haggerti’s ambitious plan and likely received substantial bonuses for their achievement.
Why Texas Instruments Released the Transistor Radio Regency TR-1?
How did Texas Instruments come up with the idea to create a transistor radio? The company’s origins trace back to Geophysical Service Inc. (GSI), which manufactured seismic equipment for the oil industry and military electronics. In 1945, GSI hired Patrick E. Haggerti to manage the laboratory and production unit. By 1951, Haggerti’s unit had surpassed other divisions of the company, leading to the reorganization of GSI into Texas Instruments with a focus on electronics.
Meanwhile, on June 30, 1948, Bell Labs announced the invention of the transistor by John Bardin and Walter Brattein, a development that revolutionized electronics. In 1951, Bell Labs began to license transistors for $25,000, and the following year, Haggerti secured a license for TI.
Despite limited resources in research and development, TI aimed to become a large and profitable company, establishing semiconductor materials laboratories and a team of engineers to innovate new products.
Haggerti made a strategic move by hiring Gordon Te