The Business of Electronics

A Concise History

A. Kumar Sethi

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781137330420
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137323385
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: History

Electronics is an ever-changing field with an entrepreneurial spirit and a rich history, populated by some of the world's most famous companies and personalities. The Business of Electronics details the field's complex ecosystem in all its trials and tribulations. It looks at companies such as Apple, IBM, Samsung, and Nokia, as well as now-extinct companies such as Honeywell Bull (France) and Sinclair Computers (UK) that contributed to technology and business. Sethi shows us how a handful of US companies led the charge in designing equipment that could make millions of small, reliable components; how Nokia started in the timber business; the history of inventors like J.C. Bose, a pioneer in radio communication (who inadvertently made Guglielmo Marconi famous); and why there are numerous companies and creators that never made it or that we have never heard of. This all-encompassing book not only explores the vibrant history of electronics, it uses case studies to examine the companies and people that made history and explain how we ended up where we are today.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

(Electronics) Engineering is merely the slow younger brother of Physics.

—Dr. Sheldon Cooper in the serial Big Bang Theory (Season2, Episode 12)

It is the use in history of the Greek word “elektron” (formed by the sun), which gives us the etymology of the term. According to Rev. C. W. King,¹ elektron was connected to Helios, the Sun God, one of whose titles was “Elector” or the “Awakener.” Collings² relates the mythological story that when Helios’s son Phaeton was killed, his grieving sisters became poplars and their tears became the origin of elektron. According to Heilbron,³ it is the work of William Gilbert,⁴ of whom more later in this chapter, that showed that Amber could attract other substances and hence points one to the terms “electron” and “electricity.”

But it was Dr. George Johnstone Stoney, an Irish scientist then at the Queens College, Galway, who in a paper in the Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society in the year 1891 first formally coined the term “electron.” This was to become the forerunner of the many great developments in modern electronics.

So when did the whole “ecosystem” of “electronics” really begin? Almost certainly, the oldest known forms of communications over distances, by fires, drums, beacons, and smoke signals, existed in prehistoric days in possibly sixth century BC. We certainly know from Homer (“The Iliad”) about fire signals in the Mycenaean period, which would be 1600–1200 BC. Communications yes, but not strictly electronic!

Magnetism, in the form of lodestone (magnetized mineral magnetite) was also known in sixth century BC with initial references to their properties made by Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus.⁵ Most likely, the word “magnet” derives from “magnetis lithos,” the lodestones found in Magnesia, Northern Greece. There is a popular legend relating to the discovery of the powers of lodestone. According to this legend, in 4000 BC, an elderly Cretan shepherd by the name of Magnes was herding his sheep in Magnesia when the nails in his shoes and the metallic top of his staff got stuck to the large black rock on which he stood. This rock contained lodestone.⁶

According to a fascinating article written by Ricker⁷ and carried in the General Science Journal, the principle of the magnetic compass may have been in active use in China around 2630 BC, and further evidence is cited about compass usage in China in1100 BC.⁸ This was of course to lead to the development of the Chinese mariner’s compass, a sliver of lodestone floating on water during the rule of the Song Dynasty around the year AD 1100. The Olmecs of Central America may also have discovered the geomagnetic lodestone compass as a directional device as early as 1000 BC.⁹

Proponents of ancient Indian scientific achievements are proud to claim that as early as fourth century BC India not only had mastery of aeronautics and aircraft technology¹⁰ but also had advanced knowledge of electronics and avionics. The above-cited work as also an ostensibly scholarly work by Dr. V. Raghavan,¹¹ a professor of Sanskrit language and possibly not a scientist, have references to, among others, the following:

Digpradarshana: An appliance to project the direction of approach of an enemy plane (radar?).

Parashabdha Graahaka Rahasya: Basic transmitter—receiver designs and frequency interception techniques of communications from enemy planes.

Vishwa Kriyaa Darpana: An electronic device used to obtain high-resolution real-time imagery of objects around an aircraft.

Shaktyakarshana Darpana: A device used as a protection against harmful nuclear radiation from weapons of mass destruction.

Vyroopa Darpana: A tactical device to project holographic image on a screen.

Adhrishya and Goodha: Devices to convert an aircraft into an invisible “stealth” machine.

Indian mythology particularly in the form of the holy book Ramayana describes aerial battles using such aircraft and devices. There is, however, no documentary and verifiable evidence in modern times that can confirm the existence in that day and age of such technologies. If indeed such technologies existed then the only logical assumption one can make is that there must have been a catastrophic destruction of all traces of these technologies, as certainly modern India, with the exception of the well-established and proven ancient India’s contributions of the decimal system, algebra, trigonometry, and the first structured logical statements (now termed “software”), has had to develop or acquire electronic technologies much like the rest of the world.

Yet, the modern world does have clear evidence of the existence of technology for “batteries” dating possibly as far back as 2500 BC. Dr. Wilhelm Koenig, a German archaeologist and in 1938 the director of the National Museum of Iraq, proposed in a paper that some strange pot like artifacts with copper cylinders encasing iron rods in the museum collected from the village of Khuyut Rabbou’a near Baghdad were in fact galvanic battery cells and termed the “Baghdad Battery” or “Parthian Battery.”¹² The Parthians were known to be in occupation of that part of Iraq from about 250 BC to 225 BC. In the same museum, Dr. Koenig also found some copper vases excavated from Sumerian sites dated back to at least 2500 BC, plated with silver, and concluded that this could have only come from an electroplating process possibly using vinegar or grape juice as an acidic electrolyte. Several scientists around the world have subsequently conducted experiments to recreate the working of the Baghdad Battery with some reasonable success. However, no such artifacts were ever found with conducting wires thus making it difficult to confirm whether such batteries actually predated the actual modern-day battery invention in the year AD 1800.

The ancient Indian text called the Agastya Samshita written by the sage Agastya, dating back to the first millennium BC, describes the operation of a battery cell to separate the constituents of water into its constituent gases. There are similar stories from other parts of the world. The aluminum found in the girdle inside the tomb of a Chinese General Chu (200 or so BC) could only have come from a battery-based electrolytic process converting bauxite. We also have Plato alluding in “Timaeus” to battery-operated lighthouses at Faro (Pharos). Mention may also be made of the light in the Temple of Venus/Isis as recorded by St. Augustine.

Ancient Egyptian texts, also tell us that at least as far back as 2750 BC, the Egyptians had some concept of “electricity” largely through shocks received from electric fish. Ancient writers such as Pliny the elder also testified to electric shocks from catfish. Around 600 BC, Thales of Miletos noticed static electricity and unfortunately wrongly believed that rubbing (static charge) made Amber magnetic.¹³

Thales was, however, not to know that many years later there would actually emerge a close relationship between electricity and magnetism, with a practical demonstration (the deflection of a magnetic needle placed close to a current carrying wire) by Hans Christian Oersted of Denmark and a mathematical corelationship developed by Andre Marie Ampere, in 1820. Ampere then went on to demonstrate the precise nature of the relationship between electricity and magnetism and to formulate his now famous Ampere’s Law of Electromagnetism.

Solar technology was also known possibly as early as seventh century BC when magnifying glasses were reportedly used for making fire. Ancient texts suggest that the Greeks and Romans used mirrors to light torches for religious and other purposes. Archimedes, we know, as early as 212 BC used reflecting bronze sheets to focus sunlight to set fire to marauding Roman ships at Syracuse. Chinese documents also indicate the use of mirrors to light torches. But clearly, this was just passive solar technology.

Yet the rationalists may say, rightly perhaps, that there is no real clinching evidence that sophisticated technologies really existed in ancient times. Or may we let the romantics continue with their beliefs? Perhaps it is best to have the late great Carl Sagan have the last word on this subject. He is famously quoted as having said, “The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.”¹⁴

Let us, however, concede the Greek origin of the term “elektron” and move on to more modern times where we have clear, unambiguous, documentary, and clinching evidence of technological developments. It was in AD 1600 that the English scientist William Gilbert, who closely studied electricity and magnetism, showed the difference between static electricity produced from rubbing amber (elektron) and the magnetic effects from magnetite and lodestone. He is then believed to have coined the new term “electricus” (of amber or elektron)¹⁵ leading to the present-day term “electricity.”

In November 1745, a German scientist, Ewald J. von Kleist while experimenting with electricity, most likely produced by electrostatic induction or an early version of what we now call a Van de Graaf Generator, accidentally touched the generator to a nail stuck into the top of a medicine bottle through a cork and received a massive shock when he touched the nail. What he had found was the first device capable of storing charge (electrons), today described as a capacitor.¹⁶ This discovery was subsequently independently confirmed by a Dutch scientist, Pieter von Musschenbroek in 1746. Since Musschenbroek was from the Dutch town of Leyden, such a device was called the “Leyden jar” and more practical versions of this were to be used extensively in later years by Benjamin Franklin.

Suffice it to say that consistently and safely producing electricity in those early pioneering years was far from easy. As a result, electricity required for any experimentation was not readily at hand. However, in 1800 a brilliant Italian scientist called Alessandro Volta, came up with a fantastic new device. He soaked cardboard in a good quantity of salt water (brine). He then placed alternating discs of zinc and copper electrodes separated by layers of the brine soaked cardboard as a stack. This “pile” later to be called the “voltic pile” was able to produce sufficient current especially by connecting several of these piles together. The world then had its first real battery although the term itself was first coined in 1748 by Benjamin Franklin to denote an array of charged glass plates. Some are inclined to give some credit for Volta’s discovery to another Italian scientist, Luigi Galvani. It may, however, be pointed out that Galvani’s work was more to do with human nerve impulses when subjected to electrostatic sparks. He famously demonstrated the twitching of frog muscles when a charge was applied from a Leyden jar.¹⁷

It was, however, the genius of Michael Faraday that was to give us the first practical capacitor capable of storing a charge and delivering it when required. Faraday was born in 1791 into a poor English family. He was self-taught as his family could not afford him a formal education, and started professional life as a chemical assistant at the Royal Institution. In a spectacular career in chemistry, he discovered among other items, benzene, the Bunsen burner, the modern laws of electrolysis, and the liquefying of gases. But his contributions to electricity and electronics are perhaps more spectacular. In a short period of time, he had discovered the fundamentals of electromagnetic induction, mutual inductance, the Faraday Cage, and in 1837, the first practical capacitor, and finally, the variable dielectric capacitor. No wonder then that the unit of capacitance, the “farad,” has been named after him.

In this chapter, we have already noted the vital contributions of Oersted, Ampere, and Faraday in the field of electromagnetism. But in 1825, William Sturgeon another self-taught physicist, and lecturer at the East India Company’s Military Seminary in Surrey, UK, was the first to demonstrate a practical electromagnet that in diff...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1   Introduction
• 2   The Early Years: Telegraphy and Telephony
• 3   Wireless and Radio
• 4   Television
• 5   World War II: Radar, Sonar, Cryptography, and Beyond
• 6   Computers and Computing
• 7   Media Recorders/Players, Mobile Phones, Smart Devices, and Tablets
• 8   Computer Networks and the Internet
• 9   “Chips” and Displays
• Appendix 1  Company Histories in Brief: The Pioneers of Telegraphy, Telephony, Wireless, Radio, and Television
• Appendix 2  Principal Entities Associated with Thomas Alva Edison and Their Timeline
• Appendix 3  Principal Entities Associated with Alexander Graham Bell and Their Timeline
• Appendix 4  Principal Entities Associated with Guglielmo Marconi and Their Timeline
• Appendix 5  Timeline—Offshoring of Semiconductor Assembly
• Notes
• Index