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