Oral History Paul Penfield Jr Page8 1950s Early Transistor Construction and Audio Articles

CLASSIC 1950s ARTICLES ON EARLY TRANSISTOR AUDIO AND HOBBYIST APPLICATIONS

An Interview with Paul Penfield Jr.

Oral History – Paul Penfield Jr.

(Continued)

One last comment about transistors and my work at MIT. Our department just had its 100^th birthday party, in May 2003. As a matter of fact, I was asked to provide the keynote address on the history of our department, the 100 year history, which I did. Of course, many of the developments at MIT since 1950 have to do with semiconductors in one form or another because that technology became so pervasive and dominant, first as transistors, then as integrated circuits, then as VLSI and now as system integration. If you’re interested in following up on this, both the written and spoken version of the keynote address can be found on my website at:

http://www-mtl.mit.edu/users/penfield/

Museum Curator’s Note: In addition to providing an overview of Paul’s career at MIT, this above website also provides a very comprehensive index of Paul’s transistor related articles, published from 1954 through 1958. There are over 60 of these articles, and this total surely qualifies Paul as one of the most prolific authors of transistor material in the 1950s!

You’ll also find more details on a few of Paul’s transistor construction and hobbyist articles on the remaining pages of this Oral History:

Go To Penfield Oral History, Page 9