For basic science and engineering: The 1940s through the 1960s, during which Bell Labs created the transistor, did work that won Nobel Prizes, and built the fir

For basic science and engineering: The 1940s through the 1960s, during which Bell Labs created the transistor, did work that won Nobel Prizes, and built the first communications satellites. For computers: The 1970s, the Heroic Age of Unix.