In July 1954 Texas Instruments and Industrial Development Engineering Associates (IDEA) embarked on a project to produce a pocket-sized radio for the Christmas market. The result was the Regency TR-1, the world’s first pocket radio. Over 100,000 were sold during its first year of manufacture in a range of colours1.

A radio of this size was made possible by the development in 1948 of a solid state amplifier – the transistor – by William Shockley, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen. Up until this time the vacuum tubes used in the electronic circuits of radios required more space and power to run them.

The Regency radio’s simple shape, perforated grille and tuning wheel presented a set of solutions that were imitated by almost all pocket radios that followed.

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