The History of Texas Instruments - Part Two

is going to be part two. It was almost part one of the history of Texas Instrument but thank goodness for the undo button because our producer deleted our first episode. And then yes, but we have to share that because we must shame him that, and and and we're still calming down. The breathing is returning, like, oh, we don't have to redo that, alright, So yes, part two of

the History of Texas Instruments. Now, you may remember that in our last episode and the last episode of tech Stuff, we left off where Texas Instruments had gone in D space. I think yeah, around around the time also when when Jack Kilby who uh was, was forced to work while everyone else was taking a break because he hadn't been with a company very long and had a crude vacation time, just fooling around the office and decided to come up with the integrated circuit. No big deal, just something he

did on everyone else's vacation show. You guys, you will go to Hawaii. Wouldn't make an integrated circuit get more rewards than all of you put together? And he did? Um didn't, well maybe not put together. No, he didn't needn't. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who would do that. But in nine t I came out with

the first commercial integrated circuit. Uh. Basically, you know it was commercialized the product, right, the one was clearly just a prototype, just as the transistor that Bell Labs made, uh like a decade earlier was to prototype more than a decade earlier. Yes, so they're they're starting to come on the market. And again something we talked about not too terribly long ago on tech stuff and something we have a nifty needo article about the first gallium arsenide

solar cells were produced. Um. This is a period of intense development. Again, we're talking post war United States. There's a lot going on in in industry. Space race is starting to yep yep um, and there's a lot going on the company is uh we were we were talking about Mr. Haggarty, who had been a lieutenant in the United States Military who came on board after working with the company as a a manager for procurement, came on

board and joined Texas Instruments. UH. He ended up being one of the company's very important leaders, and he came up with the objective strategies and tactics approach. UM. This is basically the kind of UH, you know, finding ways to get the semiconductor tech achnology that they had developed into all kinds of electronics and computing products. UM and you know, there were companies in Japan taking advantage of it.

You might have heard of a couple of these guys, I don't know, um Mitsubishi, Sony, Canon, IBM Japan, and Furukawa, which was the parent company of Fujitsu. UM And basically t I became a supplier for these companies during this period in the early nineteen sixties, UM and UH you know, they they talked about the possibility in January of nineteen sixty four, working with the Japanese government of UH coming up with a subsidiary of t I. It based in

Japan itself. Um and basically they you know, they took him a little while, but they worked that out. UM. And uh, you know in the in the nineteen sixties, you know, this is when t I was an industry leader and semi conductors and circuits. UM. They were supplying companies all over the world and they were developing international subsidiaries. Yeah. At that point, again, you wouldn't necessarily be owning a

product that says Texas Instruments. You would be owning products that had lots of texture Texas Instruments components inside them. Because apart from the transistor radio that really helped Texas Instrument get a foothold in this industry. I mean that that demonstrated the power of the transistor. Apart from that, they really had not invested in the consumer electronics market at all. That just wasn't their focus. They were focused

on corporate electronics. So they're electronic components. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean their B two B if you will with you know, business to business. So they are they are an O E M manufacturer. They give the the parts to the guys who make the other stuff that you buy off the shelf. They make the other stuff possible. Yes, that's a sky But actually B A s F does that kind of thing to so, um, they really do well. I mean, that's your Thingum, So, where where are you

on your timeline? Nineteen sixty seven is about where I'm at. Okay, So in nineteen sixties seven, Texas Instruments went and invented the first handheld calculator. Yeah. Um, if you haven't ever been to t i's website t I dot com, you really should go and check out the interactive timeline because that's that's where I've gotten a lot of my information.

But they actually have a picture of this thing. It looks like, Um, if you've ever seen the old style keyboard with a detachable number pad, this sucker is huge. It's pretty enormous, but but still is small compared to the calculating and adding machines that were popular at the time. And you gotta remember that before the integrated circuit, before the transistor, calculators were all mechanical devices. Yeah, you know, these were mechanically based calculators, and so the transistor in

the integrade circuit really led to the electric calculator. So in nineteen sixty seven, Texas Instruments, Uh, they demonstrate the first handheld calculator. It's not meant for uh consumers yet. This was really again another prototype and it was able to do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and that's it. And it had eighteen keys at a visual output that displayed up to twelve decimal lights. What Yeah, twelve decimal digits all the way up to that um which, when

you think about it at that time, extremely impressive. Yeah. I mean this is in a way this is the beginning of the electronic computer industry as well. I mean there are other developments going on in various other companies, all at the same time, but this is leading the way to the consumer computer market. Developments like this really

were very instrumental in that. Now in nineteen seventy one, oh, you have some more information between and just even Jack Kilby received the nineteen sixty nine National Medal of Science from President Richard M. Nixon on February friends. So just just a note, I tracked the Jack Kilby Express when

I was going well. In nineteen seventy one, Texas Instruments develops the single chip microcomputer for calculators, which means that they've now reduced the circuitry, the size of the circuitry, the miniaturization process has gotten to the point where they can put everything that a calculator needs to be able to perform calculating functions on a single chip. Now, this, this coincides with this is like a demonstration of what

Gordon Moore had said just a few years ago. Now, Gordon Moore, as you may remember, was one of the co founders of Intel, Yes, and he had come up with this observation that we now call Moore's law. But truly it is an observation that the number of discrete elements on a UH on a given sized chip of

silicon will double every twelve to twenty four months. The the actual number varies depending on when you look at Moore's law, but in general now we say every two years that the number of elements on a chip will double. So that means in effect that not only are they becoming twice as complex every two years, but twice as powerful. They're able to do twice as much as the ones from two years previous. So this is really kind of the single chip micro computer for calculators is kind of

a demonstration for that. Just just two years previously, it would have taken a chip twice the size, or two chips to be able to do what they could fit on one chip in UH. So we're actually seeing Moore's law play out in the market. It's it's showing to be a true observation, which I think is really interesting. Now, it wouldn't be until nineteen seventy two that Texas Instruments

would introduce its own calculator to the marketplace. Up to that point, what Texas Instruments was doing was just what we've been saying all the time. They've been supplying elements to other manufacturers. But in seventy two they decided to get into the consumer marketplace with the t I hundred, which is not a terminator, uh, it is the data math calculator, which cost a hundred and forty nine dollars

and nine cents as its retail price. And so this was the first consumer electronics piece that Texas Instruments had had really gone for since the radio and uh and and this one actually looks pretty clunky too, if you ever take a look at it. Yeah, it's it's big. It has that that um uh two thousand and one

rounded space. Look and look to it which is I think characteristic of what the space age will look like when you're in nine seventy two, right right, it's very kind of modular, almost like you're looking at like this, this would fit aboard the space station in in uh two thousand one. Um, how could could do your taxes on it? I'll could do your taxes. I'm afraid I can't video right off on that, Dave. I'm afraid I'm not a dependent Dave. So my next date is in

would that be for the SR fifty two? Actually, when Jack Kilby got the v k's Working Award from the National Academy of Engineering, so you definitely have the Jack Kilby Award Timeline. Oh yeah, I got it all right, Well we'll just keep going with that. Well, I just it just I mean, it's sort of a funny aside for me and apparently Jonathan, but it also shows how important the I C was. You know, Jack Kilby's family crest is a barracuda eating Neil Armstrong. Why do you

do this? Okay? So yeah, that that was and also the thing that Jonathan, yes, the is the thing that Jonathan said, yes, a programmable calculator. It had magnetic card storage, which meant that you could actually program stuff on the calculator in order to do scientific calculations UM, which that was revolutionary as well. And it was again Texas Instruments

own product. So this is another consumer product. It used the algebraic operating system which was developed by Texas Instruments itself, and it came with twenty two program cards and it costs just just a few bucks short of four dollars. Yeah, yeah, three dollars. Had uh those program cards. I'm not sure it said the t I sight says non volt non volatile. So I'm thinking that that you couldn't do a lot of you know, programming and storage. I think I think

it means that you couldn't make them explode. Okay. So, and they also in seventy five began to make another consumer product which other companies were working on as well. Uh. And also UM had had uh it featured in the works of a Mr. Douglas Adams digital watches. Yes stuff what beeps, Yeah, the digital watches, of course, we're uh,

those were several companies were making digital watches at that point. Again, we've reached a point now where the integrated circuit has has reached level of manjurization where you could do some tiny circuits in a watch and replace the old analog watches with digital ones. And now, most digital watches at that time were a hundred dollars or more, maybe a

hundred fifty dollars or more. So Texas Instruments decided to try and aim for a lower price market, so most of their digital watches were priced at forty dollars or less. So that that helped them get a jump on on that particular segment because there were plenty of people who thought digital watches were pretty cool click Douglas Adams, but they just couldn't afford them. Yeah, a couple a couple of things that we UH skipped because my notes are frenetic.

They have lots and lots of things in them. Uh. Nineteen seventy three, uh t I founder Eugene McDermott passed away UM and nineteen seventy four there was a new program that t I established in the company called Idea and basically it was an R and D group where they wanted to see UH the I. The idea was that if an idea came through idea UM that managers were authorized to go ahead and give it the green light. You know. Oh dude, that's really cool, go with it.

And a lot of the educational uh materials that that t I produced later on were products of this particular group project. Yes, one of Jonathan's favorites, which will come up in a minute. That's why I wanted to set the stage because one of the things that they were working on was a speech synthesizer, yes, which does come in to play a second. So I just want to make sure that we we covered that real quick before we get into one of Jonathan A couple of Jonathan's

favorite yeah. I actually the next two products I have to talk about I owned as a kid. R This dates me somewhat and I didn't so I thought they were cool, but I didn't have one. In nineteen seventies six, Texas Instruments introduced the Little Professor, which looks like a calculator with a little owl like visage on the calculator and guys wearing a miter board. Yeah, he's he's yeah, he's got he's got one on the top of his head where actually the black part of the calculator there's

supposed to be the mortarboard. Uh is uh where the readout is? Yeah, so uh it was actually not just a calculator, but it was a a learning device. It was to teach you how to uh perform mathematical operations. And um I was you know, I owned one of these. I actually used these to one of these to learn how to do basic mathematic operations. And and I have fond memories of this device. Um. You know, because I was a geek even as a little kid, I was

a geek, and I found learning to be fun. And I've always found learning to be fun, which is coincidentally why I love my job here. So I have incidental I have, ironically is why I enjoyed In an Atlantis more setway, it's ironic that I enjoyed my job, you know, um T I I have T I to thank a lot for some of these uh devices because they were instrumental in my learning process. So the Little Professor was definitely one of the ones I owned, and I also owned the other one I was going to talk about

that was introduced in nine. Development had been going on for several years before that. When seventy eight it hit the market, and it was the Speaking Spell and spin Spell also was very important in uh the documentary film Toy Story Um, as I recall, also can give you an idea when you need to phone home. Yes, also important in the documentary e T The Extraterrestrial Uh. But yeah,

this is part of the idea program. Yeah. And it had the synthetic speech incorporated into it, where the the toy would say something and you would be asked to spell it. And it was a way of learning how to read and to spell. And uh, I remember having one of these, and I actually I think a couple of kids in my neighborhood had them. And yeah, I enjoyed using one of these as well. I mean again, thank you t I. And in fact, the next product I have to talk about I own that too. Would

this be the T Stroke four? Yes, actually be slash for a for me but uh, which technically didn't come out until nine. T I decided to enter the uh personal computing market, and at that point there were very few other personal computers on the market. Is the earliest days of the personal computer age. Yeah, you could have seen one of these if you were at CS in June nine nine. Of course, I was only eight years old at that point, so yeah, I was I was

busy awaiting. I was I was. I couldn't go because I was spending all my time eagerly awaiting the Empire strikes back, which wouldn't come out until Um there was only fifty dollars. Yes, that was one of the reasons why we had the T I T I N N slash four A because that one was slashed to five dollars. But the this was a This was a computer which probably doesn't really resemble the way we think of computers

right now. Um, if you were to buy just the very basic set, like if you if you had just the base unit, it was a It looked like a keyboard that on the right hand side had a big cartridge slot that was in there, and you would slide the cartridges in horizontally, not vertically. They didn't stick out. They stuck. They didn't stick up, not right, not like an Atari, more like a Nintendo. But there was no cover that came down over the cartridge. And uh, you

would plug this into a monitor or television. We had ours plugged into our TV, and uh, this is the computer system where I played Hunt the Wumpus. I've talked about Hunt the wamp Us a lot. It was. I mean, there's certain things in your childhood that stick with you, and Hunt the Wumpus stuck with me. I was terrible at that game. I hated it, but I played it a lot because it's what I owned. So anyway, Uh,

the Texas Instrument computer. That's one of those computers that you hear a lot of engineers talk about how you know they cut their teeth sometimes literally on the Texas instruments. Uh, t and um, it's a it was. It was pretty revolutionary. It the price tag definitely kind of hurt the sales for the first couple of years, which is why t I went back and started to make some changes to

the device and then released the new model at five. Yeah, except it wasn't all sunshine and roses for this one, because there was a manufacturing problem that lead to disastrous results for t I. Yeah. And I actually wasn't aware of this until I did the research, because I guess

because I never had a t I ninety nine. But yeah, apparently there was a manufacturing problem that could cause people under certain circumstances to get an electric shock when using the computer, which you know you don't want well, standing in a bucket of water is not the ideal situation for you to use your computer anyway. Well, I'm pretty sure that in this case it was it would take a little more than that. It was actually the power supply and was it was the power supply sentence I

didn't have one of these. Was the power supply external

on this computer? I honestly can't remember. I just curious, you know, I honestly do not remember I remember using this device, but I remember my memory is firmly of me sitting on the floor of a living room with this device plugged into a television set and playing Hunt the Wampus beyond that can't help you, Yeah, they did, um t. I had to recall all these devices and send out new ones, so they were off the shelves for a while, and that didn't That never helps well,

especially during this era. You gotta remember Apple is tearing it up with the Apple two. The Apple one was not a huge commercial success. That was mainly a curiosity for hobbyists, and it was sold. Do you remember how much the Apple one was sold for six centered in sixty six dollars and sixty six cents. So at this point, the Apple two is on the market, and that's really tearing it up in the in the home market place.

So t I being off the shelves, it was definitely definitely a big blow to the company because they were losing ground rapidly to Apple. And then of course later on you had the ibm UH compatible computers really taking off, and and at that point t I was sort of left behind as far as the personal computer age is concerned. Ah, so what's next? Well, the next one I have is an eight one. The next one you have is an eight one? Okay, do you have anything before that? Or

should I just launch into it? Well, I'm catching up on on my notes. Pat Haggarty passed away in um, so the the old guard, the people who started the company are are starting to us pass on. Um oh, well I have I have one in uh? Okay, Well, in eighty one, the first solar powered calculator launches. Ah, yes, the t I seventeen sixty six, which is pretty cool. Yes indeed, yeah, yeah, I mean I I had a

Texas Instrument solar power calculators too. It almost sounds like when I look back on my childhood that I was like a Texas Instrument fanboy without knowing it. Yeah, you know, you know one thing that's missing from their interactive timeline that I think is odd the T I thirty. Yeah, that's it isn't showing up, which I think is odd that they don't see it as a big deal. We had a T I thirty. I wasn't allowed to mess with it, um, but yeah they had, uh you know,

they might want to explain to our listeners. T I thirty was, in my opinion, the calculator that kind of really made a dent in the marketplace. It was ubiquitous for a while there. I think, and and derivations of the T I thirty. We have a couple around my house now which are later model, you know, more sophisticated solar powered this thing um that had the the red l e eds for the display. So it's not you know, I think of calculators today as having you know, l

c D black and white displays. Of course, people should know smart would eventually evolve into cylons, right, I thought those were toasters? Well it was. It was actually a terrible, terrible, uh tragic love story between a T I thirty and a toaster. Okay, all right then, so moving on. You said you had something from two Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. In two Uh, Jack Kilby was inaugurated Inventors All of Fame. I'm telling you it was

a big deal. Like I said it it were. I don't mean to make what's a joke because he's continuing continuously getting honors. Doesn't do push ups, he pushes the earth down. It was a big deal. Well, I mean, at this point, integrated circuits are in so many different kinds of things, from inventions all around the world, from from companies all around the world. He revolutional, revolutionalized, revolutionized electronics.

So I just basics of computing and electronic It's a running gag in this episode, but I really it's amazing and he is being honored by people of all stripes of engineering and electronics, so that is a positive thing. So I really don't mean to make collided this. So the next thing I have is actually the the date of October. This is when t I officially announced it

with with withdrawing from the home computer market. And so it looks like once once it's all said and done, it looked like t I lost over half a billion dollars due to the t I problems um which included all the different various uh drains on the their income. So that was that was a pretty spectacular failure. Yeah, but you know, I would I would argue that it was one of those failures, it wasn't ultimately a failure.

Well and certainly, like I said, there's so many computer scientists out there who will talk about owning a t I as well as their first machine and how that really got them into computing. So in a way, even though financially it was it was not a success. Uh, it was one of the most influential pieces of consumer

hardware to hit the market. Yeah, I mean it just without that, we might not have had some of the great computer scientists who have come out since then who have really kind of shaped the way we use computers, things like everything from the way computers network to the sounds computers make. I mean, there's some pretty spectacular stories that come out of people who credit the TIN with their interest in the field. So my next date is six when Jack Kilby got the I E. E. Medal

of Honor. And let's see, there are some pretty big things that happened. I mean a lot of the things that happened to t I in the nine eighties or sort of behind the scenes for most of us, things like stock splits and you know, moving branching out and establishing branches around the world. Um, it did in get rid of its interest in g S. I just an interesting note the dow physical origins of the company. Now you know, the company is letting go of that, yep. Um.

And let's see. So we're moving into the nineties, I think. Yeah. And at this point, you know, the consumer technology is starting to wind down a little bit. They still make plenty of calculators. Um. Sorry, I was gonna stay. In the late eighties and nineties, they had those really awesome graphing calculators which were huge and extremely I mean huge. Listen,

this was a big deal. Uh. And in the late eighties, I was in high school when I was starting to take physics and chemistry and and calculus, and and you know, I was really jealous of all these people who had these graphic calculators. Of course, at that point we weren't allowed to use them because you know that cheating things like the t I eight one now you have to have them. Yeah, yeah, these were these were big deals. I mean I remember seeing them too. I think I

actually did have a graphing calculator at one point. We did have to have one, and that was a big deal because they were they were they were not the cheapest electronics out there on the market. They were expensive, but you know, they were very sophisticated, especially again for their time. UM. So, yeah, most of t i's consumer products at this point are really in the educational field. Yeah, a lot of them certainly are, at least the stuff

that people actually see. UM. Again, they're they're doing all kinds of things in the in the background. UM. They got rid of their Unix business, in their UM industrial systems, in they actually got out of a lot of business in the nineties. Basically, they're finding that they all the things that they were working on over the years, they just weren't working out for them anymore. They just sort of gradually sloughed off. They felt that it was pulling

focus from their core competencies. Yeah, Jack killb won the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology UM and Eric Johnson inten passed on. Uh. That was when t I launched t I dot Com. So they were and that was again that was kind of early for the Internet days. Yeah, when you think that the Worldwide Web really didn't start

until about nine two. The Internet, the Internet had been around for a while, but the the ability for the average person to access the Internet in any way beyond email or other like basic Internet commands, um, that was really limited until until the World Wide Web. Uh. And ninety six, they got rid of their printer business and ven they got rid of a whole lot of stuff.

They got out of this, the defense business. Uh, they got rid of software, um, telecommunications, just all kinds of stuff that they said, you know what this We're going to focus on the other things and that's not part of it. Yeah, And they continued to do that over the next couple of years. They were acquiring some companies

and then they were divesting themselves of others. Well, they got rid of got rid of their electronic to business, uh Tiger Electronic spot that so um, you know these are It's funny because I think of t I in those nineteen eighties terms, because that's really when I became aware of them. Uh. My father actually, as an electronic or I'm sorry, mechanical engineer, worked with some of t I's programmable calculators UM, and I actually there are a couple of units, uh that he had that are still

around my my dad's house. Who that you actually had to pull out a section of the calculator and snap in a cartridge and then you could lock it down with a key to this ginormous printer and the work you would do would print out on a piece on a roll of tape, very much like a um UM cash register might um. And then, you know, this was back in the the late nineteen eighties, so they were still you know, pretty involved in these other things, but these are not things that people would buy and have

in their homes. These are things that you would have for business. And then in the late nineties and early two thousand era, they started to experiment with various censor and control divisions, some of which they acquired only to to sell off later. It was again it's kind of like this, uh, this era of them testing out the other parts of the other other industry interests to see if that would be a good investment for the company.

And then some of them they kept, and some of them they realized were uh not really aligned with the company vision. They did ship their twenty million graphics calculator graphing calculator in two thousand. Yeah, you know, why don't you talk about what happened to Kilby in two thousand and that was just a really small prize, the Nobel Prize in physics. He got that in two thousands. Ye. So, and Mr Kilby is well well, uh known for his

pioneering work in integrated circuits. Just amazing how how much the world hasn't raced you know, his work. Uh. In two thousand three, Cecil Green, one of the original founders, passes away. So I believe that's all the founders at that point. He was a hundred and three or a hundred and two and a half. That's when you get to that HD go with the halfs, you know, Okay, Um, yeah, So we're winding up to getting close to the modern day now and what Texas Instruments is into. They're still

very much involved in semiconductors and transistors. I didn't I didn't even meant we haven't really even gotten into the digital signal processing stuff. They were in the first three calmft S k odems in the mid nineties. Um, there a d LP, the digital light processing technology which is on many many TV sets. They worked with fujitsu on all kinds of stuff regarding that and one of Jonathan's favorite movies of all times, and my little battery is telling me I should shut down my computer. Um uh.

One of Jonathan's favorite movies, Star Wars episode one, The Phantom Menace, showed on DLP was a terrible documentary. But yeah, I mean again, uh you know that. Of course that movie was heralded as being digital. Oh boy was a digital boy, howdy was a digital you know? And they used t I technology to show it off in theaters.

Getting a bad feeling about this, So I mean, yeah, they're they're, they're t I has faded from the public eye and a lot of areas, Um, there goes the computer, but it's still it's still very much active behind the scenes, like you're still and and of course if you are a student, then you're probably familiar with t I calculators because they still are very much the standard for those

as well. And you're you're very likely to have t I chips in uh, pretty much all kinds of technology that you may be carrying in your on your person at a given time. On the TV, I think t I is only second to qual calm for chips and mobile handsets. So, uh, there are quite a few handsets that use some sort of t I chip. In fact, if you look at the breakdown of any electronics device, there's a good chance you're gonna find at least one chip in that device that is going to be branded

by Texas Instruments. So whereas I think a lot of talk in Texas, they really do brand them. Yes, yeah, it takes a very tiny little fire. Yeah. Now I think that um, maybe people since they don't see Texas Instruments computers anymore, and they don't see you know, there were toys and all kinds of things that really got a lot of public attention. Uh, you might have thought

the company is is gone, but absolutely not. They just have really returned to their B two B O E M roots where they are supplying parts to other people who make stuff. And he knows, maybe maybe we'll get to a point where it's a full cycle and they'll go to just looking for oil. That's entirely possible, and it'll start all over again. Well, that that I think brings us up to speed, and that wraps up our

history of Texas Instruments. I was actually really interested in this. Um. I mean, I've been familiar with the company mainly through it's it's consumer products because that was during my childhood. So that's that's where I knew the company from. Whereas really what they're famous for is revolutionizing the electronics industry.

So what do I know? Ye oh that So again, if you guys have any suggestions for other companies you'd like us to take a close look at and kind of give a breakdown of what they've done and what it means to be uh, the technology industries as a whole, let us know. You can drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter or handled. There is text stuff h s W or you can send us an email and that address is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com and Chris and I will talk to you again

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