How to operate your Regency Model TR-1G transistor pocket radio receiver (1954) [pdf]

Technology moved fast in those days as well. My dad bought me a transistor pocket radio around 1960. It stretched the definition of 'pocket'. Definitely not a shirt pocket, though it would fit in a pants pocket barely. If I remember it used two AA batteries.

Gave it to my dad after college so he could listen to Detroit Tiger games. Dad ended up using it until a couple of years when it finally gave out. I wonder how many electronic things we buy today would end up lasting a half century?

http://www.mequonsteve.com/regency/. Very cool.

It was only manufactured for a year and sold for an astonishingly high price (for the 1950s) of $49.95.

In the event of an enemy attack, your Regency TR-1G will become one of your most valued possessions.

But don't forget, you need a Regency No. 215 22½ volt battery!

Seems like they may have been the source of inspiration of VALVe for the Team Fortress 2 manuals: http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/440/manuals/Sen... Or this whole generation of manuals in general.

Now I know why older folks think of modern gadgets as complicated and difficult to use. The dramatic increase in functionality is accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in complication. Compare the learning curve for somebody using an ipod for the first time to the learning curve for using this for the first time.

nice photo of TR-1 in Wikipedia entry for CONELRAD

First Commercial Domestic portable perhaps: Definitely not the first Transistor Radio.

The literature shows many earlier radios from various Research Laboratories and Radio Amateurs.