Regency Radio and Advertisement

Today, pocket-sized technology is nothing new, but in the 1950s tiny gadgets were technological marvels.

To push Texas-based technology company Texas Instruments (TI) into the next generation, electrical engineer and TI Executive Vice President Patrick Haggerty developed the Regency TR-1, the first commercially manufactured transistor radio. Working in partnership with Industrial Development Engineering Associates (IDEA) of Indianapolis, TI built the first TR-1 in only four days. Rushed to market just in time for the 1954 holidays, 100,000 transistor radios were manufactured by IDEA under its Regency trade name. Transistors were the building blocks of the electronics revolution, paving the way for the invention of the integrated circuit and leading to the development of hand-held calculators and the computer microprocessor.