Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 2: Modern Era (1850–1949)
1947
Bell Labs Team Discovers the Transistor

Replacing the vacuum tube-concept of ENIAC, the discovery of the transistor by the team of Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain at Bell Labs sparked a revolution in electronics. In just a few short years electronic devices including radios and computers could be produced much more reliably due to transistors.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.
Sources
People
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley
Movements
Technology and Art, computer art, Computing Machinery
Filed under
- Technologies
- ENIAC, transistor, vacuum tube
- People
- John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley
- Organisations
- Bell Labs
Related moments
Echoes across time
- 1964 · US Army’s BRL Wins Computer Art Content Top Prize for Second Straight Year
- 1966 · Teletype Corporation develops Inktronic
- 1979 · Cybernetic Symbiosis, Berkeley: Lawrence Hall of Science
Le Random editorials
Le Random podcast
- Timeline Ch 2—Modern Era with Kate Vass — listen with transcript on Le Random (20 Jul 2023, 58 min). Chapter 2’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify