The transistor – or 25 miles on a hunk of Germanium (1953)

[jesterpm]

https://www.robkalmeijer.nl/techniek/electronica/radiotechniek/hambladen/qst/1953/03/page13/index.html

[Trouble_007]

Also, the Selenium Rectifier : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selenium_rectifier

[mc32]

There is a lot in there, but the one piece of trivia is they use the term Megacycles instead of Megahertz...

[SigmundA → mc32]

My grandfather was an early HAM radio operator and TV engineer, my dad still has some of his old equipment and the tuning dials are in cycles rather hertz, I grew up hearing him say kilocycle and megacycle.

[Gordonjcp → SigmundA]

I still use megacycles in some contexts, mostly because of using my dad's old 1940s-era radio equipment when I was a teenager.

It's crazy to think that his Panda PR-120V was about the same age then as my early-80s Trio TS520 is now.

[joezydeco → mc32]

Hertz became an SI unit in 1960. It's odd to think it only gathered heavy adoption in the last 50 years.

[CamperBob2]

I'm blown away at the fact(?) that they got that thing to oscillate at 146 MHz. Wasn't aware that any transistors with an fT that high could be made in the early 1950s.