The very first transistor was the point-contact transistor, and that was Bardeen and Brattain.
NPR: Electronics Pioneer William Shockley's Legacy
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The oldest ancestor of the point-contact transistor was the crystal detector, used in early wireless sets.
ECONOMIST: The middle age of the transistor
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To create the point-contact transistor, Shockley's team modified the cat's whisker by placing two fine metal wires close together on the surface of a germanium crystal, turning it from a diode into a triode.