Transistors were once on cutting edge
Technology today is light years ahead of what it was when I was a child. Oh, I recall getting a space helmet as a gift once that had a flip up visor made of a mirror-like material that I could see out but no one could see in. It was made of plastic but the visor was a one-way mirror.
Anyway, apart from that, we had television and radio and not much more.
So when the first transistor radios hit the market, that was something from Buck Rogers.
Here was a device you could carry around that ran on batteries and was no bigger than a paperback book. A far cry from today’s palm pilots but for the time, great technology.
Anyway, I knew I wanted one. But it took a few years to get one. They were a little costly at first so it took some time for them to come down in price.
In fact, my first transistor radio was a gift from my aunt and uncle who lived in Monroeville. My brother and I would visit with them and their son, my cousin, each summer when we were kids. My aunt became affectionately known as “sarge’ because she brooked no laziness in keeping our beds made and clothes picked up. We had chores that we had to do, too, but still had lots of free time to swim in the community pool, visit the local strip mall and go to movies. They also had a color television, which, at the time, was another major leap forward in home entertainment technology.
But getting back to the transistor radio, one was never quite sure what kind of gift he or she would get from my aunt. She was extremely frugal and visited the bargain areas in some of Pittsburgh’s top department stores. You might wind up with a sweater or some other article of clothing. Not the kind of thing a kid enjoys getting.
When I removed the wrapping paper and saw the picture on the outside of the box, I was extremely pleased. I remember taking it out of its Styrofoam box, inserting the nine-volt battery and turning it on for the first time.
The sound was small, scratchy. Speakers were tiny and there was a good deal of static.
It had a short antenna that telescoped from a hole in the top of the device. I learned that by tipping the radio one way or another I could get the signal to come in better.
I played that radio so much in the first few days and nights that I wore the battery out. This was before alkaline batteries had hit the market so I relied on the old standby dry cells. Nine-volt batteries were not exactly cheap then. I learned to moderate my listening.
After a few years, the novelty wore off. I graduated to stereo systems that no longer had “on/off’ switches but came with “power’ buttons.
Believe it or not I still have that radio. Or I should say parts of it. I took it apart, first to see just what a transistor looked like.
There was very little in the way of stuff inside the black plastic case. After mulling over it I put the parts in a box and just forgot them.
When we moved about a year and a half ago I discovered some of the pieces. At first I didn’t know what they were. Transistors have gone the way of the dodo, what with microchips and all the other high-tech stuff available today.
Of course, like many other things from the late 1950s and early 1960s, I should check to see if there is any value in the pieces remaining from that first noise box.
I might have something worth megabucks.
What do you think?
Don’t quit my job just yet, you say?
Have a good day.
Jim Pletcher is the Herald-Standard’s business editor. E-mail: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.