HISTORY OF ELECTRONICS

(1888) Nikola Tesla was one of the great pioneers of the use of alternating current electricity. Tesla invented the alternating current induction generator, a device that changes mechanical energy into alternating current electricity, and the Tesla coil, a transformer that changes the frequency of alternating current. (1905) Sir John Ambrose Fleming made the first diode tube, the Fleming valve. The device had three leads, two for the heater/cathode and the other for the plate. (1907) Lee De Forest added a grid electrode to Flemings valve and created a triode, later improved and called the Audion. (1921) Albert W. Hull, an American engineer, invented a vacuum tube oscillator called it a magnetron. The magnetron was the first device that could efficiently produce microwaves. Radar, which was developed gradually during the 1920's and 1930's, provided the first widespread use of microwaves. In 1939 John V. Atanasoff a graduate student of Clifford Berry of Iowa State College built an analog mechanical computer for solving linear equations. In 1941 Atanasoff and Berry complete another computer for solving linear equations with 60 50-bit words of memory using capacitors. The computer is later known as the ABC, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. In 1945, the first general purpose electronic digital computer called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was built by the two engineers at the University of Pennsylvania, J. Presper Eckert, Jr., and John W. Mauchly. The computer contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes and occupied about 1,800 square feet of floor space. ENIAC worked 1000 times faster than the fastest non electronic computers then in use. Three American physicists-John Bardeen, Walter H.Brattain, and William Shockley-invented the transistor in 1947 in Bell Telephone Laboratories. Transistors were used as amplifiers in hearing aids and pocket-sized radios and the early 1950's. By the 1960's, semiconductor diodes and transistors had replaced vacuum tubes in many types of equipment. The first integrated circuits were patented in 1959 by two Americans-Jack Kilby, an engineer, and Robert Noyce, a physicist-who worked independently. In 1971, an Intel team developed such architecture with just over 2,300 transistors in an area of only 3 by 4 millimeters. It was called the 4004 microprocessor. It was used to build the first hand-held calculator. The microprocessor was developed by Robert Noyce, Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor. Dr. Brian Korgel and Dr. Keith Johnston, professors in the department of chemical engineering have produced silicon "nanowires" using tiny particles of gold suspended under pressure in a compressed fluid at a high temperature. In December 1943 the Colossus is built at Bletchley Park. It has 2,400 vacuum tubes and is designed for the purpose of aiding in the deciphering of German secret messages. By 1945 Konrad Zuse had developed a series of general-purpose electronic calculators, named Z1 through Z4. Howard Aiken and Grace Murray Hopper designed the Harvard Mark I, a large electromechanical computing device; unveiled 21 June 1948 The Mark V was a general-purpose electromechanical computer. In 1949 Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, and Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn the Manchester Mark I. John von Neumann (1903-1957) helped designed the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) which began limited operation in 1951.

BASIC ELECTRONIC TOOLS

Multimeter A multimeter is essential in repairing a TV or a computer. It is used to determine if the circuit board is having trouble and where the problem is. Make sure your choice of voltage probe has more than enough voltage range for the applications in which you'll be using it. Soldering Iron Any sort of electronics repair is likely going to require some soldering work, a soldering iron is a device with a tip that heats to the temperature to melt solder, a metal alloy with a melting point around 360 degrees Fahrenheit. The solder, when it cools, forms an electrical connection between two conductive components. Solder is used to attach components to each other and to provide a conduit for small amounts of electric current. Vacuum Placement Tool Vacuum placement tool has different suction cup attachments and allows you to pick up and place tiny parts to avoid bending or breaking small parts of the circuit board. Drill An electric drill is used to drill a hole through a circuit board to attach a component or to drill a hole in a metal or plastic case to house your electronic components Wire Strippers Wire strippers are used when working with wires, it is necessary to strip off the protective outer layer of insulation to manipulate the copper wire within. Pliers Two types of pliers are commonly used in electronic work: needle-nose pliers and wire-cutting pliers. Needle-nose pliers are used to hold components in place while soldering them or to manipulate small components in tight spaces that are too small for your hands or fingers. Anti-Static Wristbands Anti-static wristbands have a little clip at the end, which is attached to the case of the electronics on which she is working. The technician puts on the wristband in an effort to disperse static electricity trapped in his body and prevent zapping the electronics on which he is working. Screwdrivers Several screwdriver sets are necessary for work in electronics. Standard or changeable screwdrivers are used especially for outer screws on devices such as computer cases or stereo equipment. Smaller screwdrivers, similar to those in an eyeglassrepair kit, are needed for the inner-parts of the electronic devices. Lights and Magnifiers Lighting is important for working with electronics, and though not often considered a "tool," various lighting devices are always in an electronics technician's tool kit. Tiny lights that are easy to hold, such as pen lights, are even held in the technician's teeth when necessary. Headlamps are also common. A magnifier, particularly with its own stand or that can attach to the technician's head or glasses, helps when working with a lot of tiny parts.

In 1600, William Gilbert researches static electricity. In 1745, Cuneus and Muschenbrock, in Leyden (Netherlands), discover the Leyden jar . The first electrical capacitor--a storage mechanism for an electrical charge In 1746, Ben Franklin flew kites to demonstrate that lightning is a form of static electricity that led him to invent the lightning rod. In 1785, Charles Augustus Coulomb invented the torsion balance. The torsion balance is a simple device: a horizontal cross-bar is mounted on a stretched wire. Coulomb showed electrical attraction and repulsion follow an inverse square law. In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted in Denmark demonstrated a relationship between electricity and magnetism by showing that an electrical wire carrying a current will deflect a magnetic needle. Andr Marie Ampre in France gave a formalized understanding of the relationships between electricity and magnetism using algebra in 1822. In 1826, Georg Simon Ohm wanted to measure the motive force of electrical currents . He found that some conductors worked better than others and quantified the differences. He waited quite some time to announce "Ohm's Law" because his theory was not accepted by his peers. In 1821 Michael Faraday built the first electric motor--a device for transforming an electrical current into rotary motion. Faraday made the first transformer--a device for inducing an electrical current in a wire not connected to an electrical source, also known as Faraday's Ring. In 1830, Joseph Henry worked to improve electromagnets and was the first to superimpose coils of wire wrapped on an iron core. It is said that he insulated the wire for one of his magnets using a silk dress belonging to his wife. In 1844, Samuel Finley Breese Morse brought a practical system of telegraphy to the fore front using electromagnets, and invented the code named after him. Gustav Robert Kirchhoff German physicist, announced the laws which allow calculation of the currents, voltages, and resistance of electrical networks in 1845 when he was only twenty-one. In further studies he demonstrated that current flows through a conductor at the speed of light. Thomas Alva Edison in 1878, Edison began work on an electric lamp and sought a material that could be electrically heated to incandescence in a vacuum. Edison conducted an extensive search for a filament material to replace platinum until, on Oct. 21, 1879, he demonstrated a lamp containing a carbonized cotton thread that glowed for 40 hours. Heinrich Rudolph Hertz was the first person to demonstrate the existence of radio waves. His inspiration came from Helmholtz and Maxwell. Hertz demonstrated in 1887 that the velocity of radio waves (also called Hertzian waves) was equal to that of light. In 1894, Guglielmo Marconi The "father of wireless", an Italian national who expanded on the experiments that Hertz did, and believed that telegraphic messages could be transmitted without wires. 1897, Marconi formed his wireless telegraph company, and in December 1901 he did the first trans Atlantic radio transmission in Morse code. In 1897, Sir Joseph John Thomson is universally recognized as the British scientist who discovered and identified the electron. Thomson demonstrated that cathode rays were actually units of electrical current made up of negatively charged particles of subatomic size. In 1905, Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) elaborated on the experimental results of Max Planck who noticed that electromagnetic energy seemed to be emitted from radiating objects in quantities that were discrete. Einstein used this interpretation to explain the photoelectric effect, by which certain metals emit electrons when illuminated by light with a given frequency. Einstein's theory, and his subsequent elaboration of it, formed the basis for much of Quantum Mechanics.