Personal Portable Electronic Evolution

The BP-10 Becomes Obsolete

After WWII the public need for and interest in portable radios waned somewhat, but did not go away.  The portable radios were still too heavy and battery life was too short to be of use to anyone except the die hard radio fan.  That changed in 1947with the invention of the transistor.  By 1955 about a half dozen radio manufacturers were producing small transistor portable radios with long battery life.  Finally radios were truly portable and small enough to be carried almost everywhere.  Initially, the new transistor radios were expensive. But, by the late 1950s the cost of the transistor radios was driven down to very low levels by the Japanese radio industry.  Almost everyone could afford one.  In fact, the price was driven so low that by 1970 most American manufacturers no longer built portable radios in the U.S. ¹  Most were made in Japan.

The Japanese built on their success with the transistor radio when Sony introduced the Walkman in 1979.  The very portable and personal Walkman changed forever how the world listened to recorded music.   When compact discs (CDs) replaced audio tapes Sony quickly came out with the Discman for CDs.

The 1970s also saw the introduction of many other personal portable electronic devices.  These included pocket calculators, pagers, digital watches, and cell phones.  All were made possible by integrated circuits made up of thousands of transistors.  As with most things electronic, the cost of these products started high but dropped drastically as the public bought them by the millions.  

The 1980s and 1990s saw an explosion of portable personal electronics.  Everything from GPS receivers to electronic games was available from various manufacturers.  Unfortunately, most of the manufacturers were in the Far East. U.S. sources for portable electronic gear were quickly disappearing.  By 1981, the Zenith Corporation, the last U.S. radio producer, ceased production in the United States.  By the late 1990s most consumer electronics, especially the portable kind, were no longer made in the U.S.  The big exception was cellular phones.

The cellular phone situation was a little better.  The main reason for this seemed to be that the cellular technology was invented in the U.S.  By 1985 the U.S. based Motorola Corporation became the world leader in personal portable cell phones.  In 1995 Motorola contrasted their Microtac cellular phone with the first truly portable two-way radio, the BC-611 “handie-talkie” of WWII (developed by Motorola).²  Their “Razr” line became a best seller by 2003.  But, U.S. dominance in the cellular phone industry became a struggle.  By 2007 the lead in manufacture of cellular phones was taken up by European and Asian companies such as Nokia and Samsung.    

True Portable Electronic History

Technical history explains how things came about and often give hints about things to come.    Unfortunately, history in general is not a popular topic.  Military, sports, and political history sometimes merit notice, but technical history is of minor interest to most people.  Yet, it’s technical history that has shaped the last two hundred years.   

Schiffer, in his book The Portable Radio in American Life, talked about false history.  He specifically mentioned the false belief that the transistor radio was a Japanese invention.³  Much false history seems to evolve from published articles that make incorrect statements that are not recognized as such.  That sort of history can be corrected.  Forgotten history is another matter.  That seems to be the fate of portable radio technology.  Although all our modern portable electronic gadgets can trace their roots to the evolution of the vacuum tube portable radio, few people recognize the fact. 

Although most people own some type of personal electronic device most have no idea how they came about.  Amazing electronic devices are quickly taken for granted.  From satellite radio to smart phones, they all seem rather ordinary today.  Yet less than fifty years ago neither the satellite radio nor the smart phone was even imagined.   Electronic history has been forgotten.

The editors of Popular Mechanics magazine recently assembled a panel of the world's most renowned tech gurus to create a definitive list of gadgets that have changed the world.  The placed the smart phone as number one followed by radio as number two.⁴   Both smart phones and radios are electronic devices enthusiastically accepted by the public.

All of the Apple “I” devices (Ipod, Iphone, Ipad, etc.) owe their linage to the first portable radios and specifically to the personal portable radios of the early 1940s like the RCA BP-10.  In fact, it might not be too much of a stretch to say that all personal portable electronics stem from the personal portable radio.    The tree in Figure 6 shows the linage of many portable electronic devices.  The tree doesn’t show all the branches, but the general evolution of portable electronic devices should be apparent.                                                                                                

Figure 3.  A Portable Electronics Family Tree

References

1     Schiffer, Michael Brian, The Portable Radio in America, 1991, The University of Arizona                            Press Tucson & London, p223

2     http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=612207 ,Gartner Newsroom, Egham, UK, February 27, 2008, Gartner Says Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales Increased 16 Per Cent in 2007

3   Schiffer, Michael Brian, The Portable Radio in America, 1991, The University of Arizona                              Press Tucson & London, p225

4    Popular Mechanic magazine, “101 Gadgets that have Changed the World”, http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/reviews/101-gadgets-that-changed-the-world#slide-1  Also: History Channel “101 Gadgets That Changed The World”  shown August 24, 2011