If the store associate is under 30, they may not even know what you are talking about.
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What's a radio?
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
If the store associate is under 30, they may not even know what you are talking about.
Actually the Best Buy has a full selection of Amazon and Google smart speaker products. They will likely direct you there.
But none of those devices can receive AM/FM without an internet connection.
The local chain drugstore has a Sony transistor radio next to the headphones and other electronics gizmos. They must sell enough of them to carry them.
Your under 30 associate may not know what a radio is, but probably knows what a boombox or alarm clock radio is, as their parents probably had/have one.
Standalone radios are indeed a specialty item, as are a lot of non-phone electronics. It's not just radios. What's a stereo? And -- soon enough -- it will be "what's a TV?"
Your under 30 associate may not know what a radio is, but probably knows what a boombox or alarm clock radio is, as their parents probably had/have one.
Standalone radios are indeed a specialty item, as are a lot of non-phone electronics. It's not just radios. What's a stereo? And -- soon enough -- it will be "what's a TV?"
Are they even called that anymore? Haven't they been on a chip for at least the last 40 years?
Yes, but those chips are really miniature transistors so it's not inaccurate to refer to them as such. You are correct though, the term is an anachronism. It was used most prominently when the transition from tube type radios was going on, a process which was effectively complete by the early 1960s and the use of the term fell accordingly.
Walgreen's, Family Dollar and Dollar General routinely stock at least one model of portable radio. If your point is that they are not as prominently for sale as they once were, that is obvious and that is the point you could have made. However, you said it was not easy to buy one and, quite to the contrary, it's quite easy to do so.
You can also find them, in various states of repair, at Goodwill and most other thrift shops. Although, if TheBigA doesn't patronize Family Dollar or Dollar General, it would be hard to imagine him poking around the vintage electronics at Goodwill!
They're still available at Walmart and Best Buy as well, but they're in hard to find areas of the store.
I find just about every area of Walmart hard to find. Apparently others have no problem navigating its time-tested layout, but I find it illogical, non-intuitive and confusing. Jewelry and women's wear greet me every time I enter, with groceries to my left, but I have no need for the former and do my food shopping elsewhere. Finding anything else usually has me looking for help, even if I do find the general department my item might be in.
When I was a kid, you could open the battery compartment and count the transistors. It seems like most pocket models used six and the larger ones more like ten or twelve.
In the early days of solid state radios, the number of transistors was a selling point. The more transistors, the better. Some manufacturers started putting in superfluous transistor "stages" that didn't really do anything, to increase the count. I've heard of radios with transistors that weren't connected to anything, just soldered to the circuit board.
True.....I remember seeing pics of boards that had transistor leads soldered together.....after they were removed, the radio worked just fine!!
OTOH....some companies used "extra" transistors as "diodes" in power supplies -- totally crazy!
During the tube era, there were a few manufacturers that had more tubes than necessary also. Most discrete transistor radios I've got, the number is appropriate. And mine date from about 1967 on. Maybe before that there was some padding by some manufacturers.
The IC chip era started in the late 70's and became prominent during the 1980's. Now it's a chip with an SDR program inside. They use miniature transistors in those chips -- I think. I really don't know what components are inside an SDR chip -- probably thousands of transistors is my guess.
The IC chip era started in the late 70's and became prominent during the 1980's. Now it's a chip with an SDR program inside. They use miniature transistors in those chips -- I think. I really don't know what components are inside an SDR chip -- probably thousands of transistors is my guess.
My latest CPU, a Ryzen Threadripper 3960, has 19.2 billion transistors in the package. That is the sort of figure that is hard to even grasp.
Here's one. If each of those 19.2 billion transistors was the size of the transistors in those 1970s pocket radios, the size of a pencil eraser, it would consume about 384,000 square meters, or 95 acres. That's roughly the size of the grounds of the US Capitol, including the reflecting pool as you look toward the Washington Monument.
In listener research projects, it is very common for "radio" to be used for any kind of audio service that does not have accompanying pictures.
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