EARLY TRANSISTOR HISTORY AT GENERAL ELECTRIC Dwight V. Jones
Biographic Note Mr. Dwight V. Jones was employed at General Electric for forty years, from 1947 to 1987. He started at the beginning of the GE’s transistor efforts and was involved with semiconductors for most of his career. Dwight is the author of numerous technical papers, holds several patents, and may be best known to transistor engineers as a major contributor to the series of “Transistor Manuals” developed by General Electric in the 1950s and 1960s. His many contributions to early semiconductor applications include transistor audio, transistor test equipment, and SCR motor controls. This 12 Watt transistorized audio amplifier was designed and built by Dwight Jones and described in detail in both the Sixth and Seventh editions of the GE “Transistor Manual”, published in the early 1960s. Dwight was responsible for the high fidelity audio circuitry sections of these Transistor Manuals. He published numerous articles relating to early transistorized audio applications and was well known throughout the industry for his significant contributions to this newly emerging field. ______________	Oral History – Dwight Jones Which years did you work at GE, which positions and at which facilities? I graduated from Kansas State University in 1947 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I had sent applications for employment to both RCA and GE, and was accepted by both, however the acceptance telegram sent by GE was misplaced and not delivered. So, I then accepted a position with RCA and headed off to the Victrola/Radio division. I soon learned about GE’s offer and promptly accepted, asking to be assigned in Syracuse. At GE, I was first sent to the General Engineering Lab in Schenectady for short assignments in several areas to find the best fit. Over the next forty years, I had a variety of assignments with GE, all involving transistors and semiconductors. What was your first transistor assignment? One of my first assignments was in what we called “Bldg 7” in Syracuse. This is where we built test equipment for other GE groups. This was in 1953 or 1954. Anyway, there was a lot of transistor device development work going on at this time and they needed a good test system, to check for things like gain, noise, frequency response – all this was new with transistors. So I had the assignment for designing and building a test set like this. I was successful and this work led to my first patent, which was filed in Aug, 1954. Go To Jones Oral History, Page 2
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