Transistor radio

The transistor radio is a small radio receiver.
RCA demonstrated a prototype transistor radio in 1952. The first commercial transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, was announced on October 18, 1954 by the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana and put on sale in November of 1954. It cost $49.95 (the equivalent of $361 in year-2005 dollars) and sold approximately 100,000 units.
The use of transistors in its place of vacuum tubes as the amplifier elements meant that the device was much smaller and necessary far less power to operate than a tubed radio. The characteristic portable radio of the fifties was about the size and weight of a small laptop computer, and contained several heavy batteries: one or more A batteries to heat the tube filaments and a large 45 to 90 volt B battery for plate voltage. By comparison, the "transistor" was about the size and weight of today's cassette-playing Walkman and operated off a single compact 9 V battery. The now-familiar 9 V battery was introduced particularly for powering transistor radios.