This AT&T film featuring Walter Brattain, one of the inventors of the transistor, is a fascinating historical artifact.

The introduction is of dubious value, and the actual film begins at 1:45.

 

Hello there

This AT&T film featuring Walter Brattain, one of the inventors of the transistor,

Poor man I wonder what it must have been like to collaborate with the other
solid-state physicist William Shockley? It seems he was a rather bad boy.

 

Hello there

Poor man I wonder what it must have been like to collaborate with the other
solid-state physicist William Shockley? It seems he was a rather bad boy.

Apparently. Shockley made his life very hard.

 

Shockley left Bell Laboratories in 1954 and founded a semiconductor factory. A rebellion among his employees, who set up their own companies, began the phenomenon near Stanford University known as Silicon Valley.

 

Shockley might have been the first (take your pick: success or victim) of “cancel culture”. I was a physics major at U. of Md. in 1972, and he was scheduled to give a lecture. I wanted to hear him speak, and was ready to listen to his physics, and boo his racial theories. But student protests stopped him from speaking.

Bob

 

I attended Whitman College in 1973-4 and hoped to see him. Never did...

 

Speaking of electronics history, this is an interesting 30 mins:

 

Shockley left Bell Laboratories in 1954 and founded a semiconductor factory. A rebellion among his employees, who set up their own companies, began the phenomenon near Stanford University known as Silicon Valley.

Those were the he traitorous eight who left Shockly Labs to start Fairchid across town. By this time Shockly's attention had turned to four layer diodes. He was convince they were the future, not transistors.

 

Those were the he traitorous eight who left Shockly Labs to start Fairchid across town.

Thanks for that bit of history. Intel never mentioned this Bob Graham fellow. I had to google to find out that he was expunged from Intel history.

I had the great honor of meeting some of those Silicon Valley Legends.

 

If you are interested in the human side of the invention of the transistor, this is an excellent, very well researched book:

https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Fire-Transistor-Information-Technology/dp/0393318516/

It was used as the basis for a course in the EE program at Notre Dame, where I worked in the department.

 

Hello there

Poor man I wonder what it must have been like to collaborate with the other
solid-state physicist William Shockley? It seems he was a rather bad boy.

https://books.google.com/books?id=cRb_qzEwWWAC&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false