Norman Krim
His drive to create a transistor product for the electronics experimenter-hobbyist market contributed to paving the path for a generation of American electronics engineers and technicians during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
"The result was that a whole generation of aspiring engineers — kids, really, working in their garages and basements — got to make all kinds of electronic projects.
[1] He began as an engineer at Raytheon when he was hired in 1933 during his junior year at MIT for 50 cents an hour.
Given the extremes of aircraft target range and speed, and of shell accuracy of the day, the proximity fuze dramatically increased the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire.
[4] Although the Belmont Boulevard did not sell well, he later was given another challenge by Laurence Marshall the head of Raytheon to start making semiconductor products.
A Time article in 1953 stated, "This little device, a single speck of germanium, is smaller than a paper clip and works perfectly at one-tenth the power needed by the smallest vacuum tube.
Seeing this window of opportunity Krim linked up with Radio Shack to market the hobby grade transistors.
According to Consumer Reports Magazine articles dated April and July 1955, the Raytheon was a better radio (used 7 transistors vs 4 in the Regency), but quite a bit larger.
[2] For a brief time he left his VP position at Raytheon and served as CEO of Radio Shack from 1961 to 1963.
According to Jack Ward's Semiconductor Museum, Krim is credited with inspiring the transistor hobbyist and experimenter market with the creation of the CK721 and CK722.
As Jack Ward, curator of the Semiconductor Museum website, states: Many of the talented and dedicated professionals and amateurs who have been responsible for the tremendous rise of the electronics industry over the past four decades can still remember the time when, as a young hobbyist, they were able to scrape together enough money (maybe through saving allowance or cutting the neighbor’s grass) to buy that first CK722From the CK722 came articles in electronics magazines, and books and pamphlets on do-it-yourself building projects, as well as competition, notably General Electric who, following Krim's lead of recycling out-of-specification transistors, came up with the 2N107 transistor.
