Echoes of the Past: A Journey to Re-Create the Invention of the Transistor and the Earliest Transistor Circuit: Appreciating the Technical Challenges and Genius of Bardeen and Brattain

The invention of the first transistor—the point-contact transistor—by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain in 1947 marked a pivotal moment in electronic technology, and arguably an inflection point in human history. To honor the transistor’s 75th anniversary, this work presents a historical perspective of the invention of the point-contact transistor and efforts to fabricate replica devices. Rediscovery of contact forming methods from the days of crystal rectifiers are required to produce point-contact transistors with any gain. The history and accounts of Bardeen and Brattain’s work is traversed to help further inform the design parameters and test protocols needed to create a replica device. Finally, a working point-contact transistor is made and used to power a replica of a famous demonstrator circuit used to showcase the first transistor: the “Bardeen music box” or “oscillator-amplifier box.”