When scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories produced the first germanium transistor, they knew they had found a long-awaited short cut through the great glass jungle of the electronics age (TIME, Feb. 11). With the ease of the old-fashioned carborundum crystal, it can change alternating current to direct; and like a vacuum tube, it can amplify faint, fluctuating currents. But where the vacuum tube is often bulky, fragile and uses large amounts of power, the rugged little transistor, no bigger than a thumbnail, works on minute amounts of energy. Last week in Princeton, N.J., the Radio Corp. of America demonstrated just...
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