Milestones in Electronics

Heinrich Geissler- removed moved most of the air from a

glass tube and found that the tube glowed when there
was current thru it
Sir William Crookes found the current in vacuum tubes
seemed to consist of particles
Thomas Edison experimented with carbon filament
bulbs with plates and discovered that there was a current
from the hot filament to a positively charge plate
Sir Joseph Thompson measured properties of particles
called electrons
John Fleming - constructed a vacuum tube that allowed
current in only one direction, 1904
Fleming Valve forerunner of vacuum tube diodes
Lee DeForest added a grid to the vacuum tube,
Audiotron, could amplify a weak signal, 1907
it made transcontinental telephone service and radios
possible
1912, a radio amateur in San Jose, California, was
regularly broadcasting music
Hervert Hoover secretary of commerce, issued the first
license to a broadcast radio station, 1921
Edwin Armstrong invented the superheterodyne radio,
which solved problems with high-frequency
communication
Vladimir Zworykin invented the first television picture
tube, 1923
1930s -development in radio, incl. metal tubes, Automatic
Gain Control, midget radios, and directional antennas;
development of 1
st
electronic computers. Modern
computers trace their origins to the work of John
Atanasoff.
1937 - John Atanasoff envisioned a binary machine that
could do complex mathematical work
1939 ABC was constructed by Atanasoff and Clifford
Berry (Atanasoff-Berry Computer); ABC used vacuum
tubes for logic and condensers for memory
1939 magnetron, a microwave oscillator, was invented
by Henry Boot and John Randall
1939 klystron microwave tube was invented by Russell
and Sigurd Varian
1946 John von Neumann had developed the first stored
computer, ENIAC
1947 Invention of transistor by Walter Brattain, John
Bardeen, William Schokley
1947- Printed Circuit Boards began (PCB)
1951 commercial manufacturing of transistors began in
Allentown, Pennsylvania
1958, September 12 invention of the first IC by Jack
Kilby
1960s space race begin and miniaturization and
computers
1965 first successful op-amp, uA709, designed by Bob
Widlar at Fairchild Semiconductor; 741 the most
popular op amp that became the industry standard
1971 the first microprocessor was introduced, the 4004
chip by Intel
1971 Intel announced the first 8-bit processor, the 8008
1975 first personal computer was introduced by Altair
1990s widespread application of internet
1993- there were 130 websites
1995 the FCC allocated spectrum space for a new
service called Digital Audio Radio Service