Texas Instruments was started on
May 16, 1930 as Geophysical Service to use
seismology to find
oil in
Texas with J. Clarence "Doc" Karcher and Eugene McDermott as founders. By
1939, the name had been changed to Coronado Corporation, with Geophysical Service Inc. as a subsidiary, and the company expanded to work in
Panama,
Canada,
Mexico,
Saudi Arabia,
India, the
Persian Gulf, and a number of other areas around the world. It was
World War II that brought the company into the
electronics industry in
1942 at the request of the
US Army and
Navy and by
1948 they'd received their first airborne
radar system contract.
In 1951, the company's name was changed to Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) and the focus changed to transistors and semiconductors. By 1954, they'd produced the first commercial silicon transistor and first commercial transistor radio which brought TI a great deal of business including work for NASA. TI transistors and semiconductors were found in the Apollo spacecraft and a number of satellites.
What TI is known best for today are its calculators. The first TI calculator was the Datamath hand-held calculator, introduced in 1972. Mathematics students worldwide know TI for its popular calculators such as the TI-83, TI-89, and TI-92.
Today, Texas Instruments is a leading producer of DSPs, calculators, transistors, processors, and a number of other electronic and communications equipment. Other well known products include the Speak & Spell line of toys which teach children basic mathmatical ideas. They've also continued their work for the military with radar, communications, computer, and even AGMs.
Sources:
http://www.ti.com