Philco

Philco produced Socket Power "A", "B", and "AB" Battery Eliminators, starting in August 1925. Model A-60 "A" Socket Power Battery Eliminator shown.

Philco Socket Power A & B Battery Eliminators - 1925 August brochure

Philco Model B-60 "B" Socket Power Battery Eliminator - August 1925

A very successful August 1925 consumer product, called the "Socket Power Battery Eliminator", was a rectifier unit which enabled users to operate their battery-powered radios from standard light or wall sockets. By 1927, over a million of these units had been sold, but the invention of the vacuum tube rectifier (incorporated into the coming 1928 line of radio sets) made this technology obsolete.

In 1926, Philco decided to begin making radios.[7] The first Philco radios were introduced in mid-1928, and 96,000 were produced that year, making Philco radios 26th in the nation in production volume. Up to that time most radios were handmade and priced for relatively wealthy consumers. Atwater Kent, the leading radio seller, coincidentally was also located in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Storage Battery Company decided that prices of radios could be scaled for a mass market by incorporating assembly line techniques then only used by the automobile industry. By the 1929 model year, Philco was in third place behind Atwater Kent and Majestic (Grigsby-Grunow Corp) in radio sales. In 1930, the company sold 600,000 radios, grossed $34 million, and was the leading radio maker in the country. By 1934, they had captured 30% of the domestic radio market.[8]

A Philco 90 "cathedral" style radio from 1931

Philco radios were economical without sacrificing quality or durability. Like other makers of the era, they offered a wide line of radios beginning with five-tube sets all the way up to high-fidelity consoles with 20 tubes in 1937–38. Philco also made battery-powered radios which were by then called "farm radios", most of which had cabinets identical to their AC powered versions. The Philco "Baby Grand" (today called "cathedral" radios by collectors) was a shape that featured an arched top that wrapped from the sides over the top. This was for economic reason partly, as one piece of wood formed both the top and sides. Philco sold far more of this style than any other maker, a total of over two million (in over twenty models, with from four to eleven tubes) from 1930 to 1938;[9] many of them exist today in collections. By today's standards, most are still excellent performing AM band radios when restored.

A few of their innovations were very futuristic. From 1939 to 1941, they sold radios that were operated by wireless remote control, the one-tube "Mystery Control", used on their 13-tube model 116RX-SU (or 39-116).[10] This feature was not offered by any other maker until the 1970s stereo receivers. Philco ranked 57th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[11]

Another interesting product was the Philco "Beam of Light" 78 RPM record players offered in 1941 and 1942. These units had a tiny mirror attached to the player's needle. A beam of light was focused on the mirror which caused a vibrating light to hit a photoelectric cell and produce the audio signal. While this system had some advantages over the standard crystal phono cartridge of the time, it was unreliable and is today a very difficult unit to restore.

In late 1953, engineers at Philco Corporation invented the surface-barrier transistor,[14] the first high frequency transistor suitable for use in high speed computers.[15] Philco Corporation had produced a late 1950s production film about its surface-barrier transistor manufacturing processes and product developments that was titled, "Philco Transistors - The Tiny Giants Of The Future".

A May 1954 news article describes Philco's development of a pre-production indium-coated transistor that used silicon instead of germanium that relied on further improvements in silicon refinement to bring to production.[16]

In June 1955, the National Security Agency and the United States Navy entered into a contract with Philco to build a specialized scientific transistorized computer based on Philco's surface barrier transistor technology. The project was called SOLO, since the idea was to have powerful personal workstations, and the computer was later commercially named the Philco Transac S-1000.[17] The SOLO transistorized large scale scientific computer was finally built and delivered to the National Security Agency in November 1957.[18] Philco also entered into a contract with the U.S. Navy's David Taylor Basin Research Division in 1955, to build a larger scale fully transistorized computer using its surface-barrier transistor technology, which was named the CPXQ model and later became the Philco Transac S-2000.[15][19]

Philco had developed and produced a miniature transistorized computer brain for the Navy's jet fighter planes in 1955 and it was called the "Transac" (C-1000, C-1100), which had stood for "Transistor Automatic Computer." The Philco Transac computer brain had used its high-frequency surface-barriers transistors in the circuitry design.[20][21][22]

Chrysler and Philco announced that they had developed and produced the world's first all-transistor car radio and it was announced in the April 28, 1955, edition of the Wall Street Journal.[23] Chrysler made the all-transistor car radio, Mopar model 914HR, available in Fall 1955 for its new line of 1956 Chrysler and Imperial cars, as a $150 option ($1,639 in 2022 dollars [24]). Philco's radio manufacturing plant in Sandusky, Ohio, had produced the all-transistor car radio unit for the Chrysler Corporation, which also used Philco's surface-barrier transistors in its circuitry design.[25][26][27][28]

Philco all-transistor model TPA-1 phonograph, developed and produced by Philco in 1955

In 1955, Philco developed and produced the first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2. This was announced in the June 28, 1955, edition of the Wall Street Journal.[29] Philco had begun selling these phonographs in the fall of 1955 for $59.95. The October 1955 issue of Radio & Television News magazine (page 41) printed a full-page, detailed article, on Philco's new consumer phonograph. The Philco all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5v "D" batteries for its power supply. "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Its circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After the 1956 season ended, Philco discontinued the all-transistor portable 45rpm phonograph models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes.[30][31]

The Philco Transac models S-1000 scientific computer and S-2000 electronic data processing computer, were the first commercially produced large-scale all transistor computers, which were introduced in 1957.[32][33] It used discrete surface barrier transistors instead of vacuum tubes (the integrated circuit had not yet been invented).[15][34][35][36] It also used a fast adder, invented by Bruce Gilchrist, James H. Pomerene and Y.K. Wong of the Institute for Advanced Study. It incorporated a speed-up technique for asynchronous adders reducing the time for additive carry-overs to propagate.[37]

Actual store easel display of a 1959 Philco Safari Transistorized portable TV

In 1959, Philco developed and produced the first battery-powered portable transistorized TV.[38] This TV model was called the "Safari" and contained 21 transistors. Philco had developed the VHF micro-alloy diffused transistor (MADT)[39] and used them in the Safari portable TV.[40] The retail selling price was $250.00 ($2,510 in 2022 dollars [24]) plus the cost of the rechargeable battery, which was $5.25 extra ($53 in 2022 dollars [24]).[41]

In 1962, the Philco 2000 Model 212 computer was chosen for use in the North American Aerospace Defense Command's famous Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Three of them were installed that year and ran until 1980. They were also used by research labs at Westinghouse Electric and General Electric.

In 1960, the Courier 1B, built by Philco, became the first active repeater satellite. Courier 1B was built by the Western Development Labs (WDL) division of Philco, previously known as "Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories" (Fort Monmouth).

In 1960, NASA contracted with Philco to build the worldwide tracking station network for Project Mercury, and all subsequent man-in-space space projects until the ground station network was replaced by the TDRS communication satellites in the 1990s. Philco's Western Development Labs ultimately became Space Systems/Loral, which continues to manufacture spacecraft. In later years, the company produced automotive electronic controls, aerospace tracking systems, and artificial satellites.

In 1963, Philco was also responsible for the design, manufacturing, installation, and service of all the consoles used in both Mission Operations Control Rooms (a.k.a. Mission Control) at Building 30 of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.[42] Philco technical representatives worked with NASA staff to design and integrate the consoles with NASA hardware and systems. The consoles were used for the Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle missions until 1998. The Philco-designed and installed consoles in Mission Control 2 at the Johnson Space Center have been preserved and will be restored to their Apollo-era configuration for historical purposes. The control room is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the "Apollo Mission Control Center".

In 1971, Philco-Ford began to sell reverse osmosis-based water purification systems that used tube-shaped membranes developed by the company to filter and desalinate raw polluted water for municipal utilities and manufacturing.[43]