|
TRANSISTOR
MUSEUM™ Historic Transistor Photo
Gallery |
|||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||
|
HISTORIC
NOTES The
TA166 is a historic point contact transistor, developed in the early 1950s at
RCA’s Harrison NJ Tube Division. At
that time, RCA had established a program, managed by Bob Slade, with the
purpose of producing developmental transistors which could be used to demonstrate the commercial potential of
this new technology. The TA166 was
designated a “high frequency RF amplifier” and performed with sufficient
stability to be used in the front end circuitry of the first documented
transistor television receiver. Technical aspects of the TA166 and the TV
circuitry can be found in these TransistorMuseum Oral Histories: (Bob Slade, Fred
Hunter, Norm
Ditrick and Jerry
Herzog). The unique construction
of these early RCA point contact transistors (including the lower performing TA165)
is quite distinctive and easily recognized.
The case is an amber Araldite epoxy and clearly reveals the hand-made
point contact leads pressing on the germanium die. Each device is labeled with a hand written model and serial
number. Samples of these historic
transistors are on display at the Smithsonian museum. |
|||||||||
|
Copyright
© 2005 by Jack Ward. All Rights
Reserved. |
|||||||||
