Articles History of Electronics - 3

Len Sherman EDN The June 23, 1988 issue of EDN included a Maxim Design News insert where we asked Who in their right mind would choose a computer interface standard that uses 12 V supplies, requires expensive connectors, works over a limited ...

Martin Rowe EDN The late 1950s and early 1960s saw perhaps the most dramatic change ever to hit electrical engineering. When transistors came along, many engineers needed to quickly learn how they worked and how to use them. Engineering managers ...

There was a time when it wasn't so rare to discover an unusual, scope-like object in an electronics lab. This was the curve tracer, able to display detailed characteristic curves of many components. Early models displayed vacuum tube curves; ...

Sam Davis Power Electronics What do horse racing and engineering have in common? The answer is “Nyquist.” Nyquist, the horse, recently won the Kentucky Derby, although he didn’t win his next race, The Preakness Stakes. Nyquist, ...

Jessica MacNeil EDN Alan Turing was the father of computer science and his Turing machine laid the groundwork for the modern computer. Born in London on June 23, 1912, the mathematician and scientist took an interest in both subjects early on. He ...

Amy Norcross EDN In 1875, while working on a harmonic telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson made an important discovery by accident. Bell had opened the School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech for deaf students in Boston in ...

Max Maxfield EDN I've been in the electronics and computing industries ever since I graduated with my BSc from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK back in 1980. Since that time, I've designed all sorts of weird and wonderful things (some ...

Suzanne Deffree EDN ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), the first electronic general-purpose computer, was formally announced on February 15, 1946. ENIAC had been heavily veiled before its first announcement, although its ...

Louis Westphalen HODINKEE Throwback To The Past: it is 1977, quartz watches are still less than 10 years old; it's the year Star Wars hit theaters for the first time.. and you are actually looking at, not a piece of science fiction, but what ...

People have been converting digital-to-analog quantities for a long time. Probably among the earliest uses was the summing of calibrated weights (Figure A1, left) in weighing applications. Early electrical digital-to-analog conversion inevitably ...