Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: rbowman Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: Have One ? "Regency TR-1" - Orig Commercial Transistor Radio Date: 21 Aug 2025 20:37:06 GMT Lines: 20 Message-ID: References: <1084pn5$dbj6$1@dont-email.me> <1086fo9$pj3r$4@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net MBPQ9OOl4CBtZX2Ls2/aRwDOgcbxBDw7V1wb/j8hZMoAcmUEiI Cancel-Lock: sha1:zd3qut3dYdLCgS11wsn4nIUdBHA= sha256:9mCn6vnqXEWJABF0VsnGgHvCO8CBCdIRJLXq9AQNyI4= User-Agent: Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:71874 On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 06:52:57 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote: > On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:30:45 -0000 (UTC), John McCue wrote: > >>> It used four Texas Instruments germanium transistors and sold for US >>> $49.95 - a fair chunk of change back in the day. Depending on how you >>> calc inflation the price would now be about US $500. >> >> wow > > You can see why the Americans never had any luck with transistor-based > consumer electronics -- it took the Japanese to make a success of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio#Japanese_transistor_radios After licensing the technology, as usual. Not to take anything away from the very capable Japanese but they were given a leg up after the war. Being under the US defense umbrella let them spend money on productive enterprises too.