Tech History
1954 : Silicon Makes A Splash
On 10th May 1954, Gordon Kidd Teal created a sensation at an Institute of Radio Engineers conference when he presented silicon transistors for the first time by announcing they were ready for production and available for sale. Why The Big Deal? Originally, germanium was mainly used to develop transistors. It was easier to work with but…
Read MoreComputers, Margaret Thatcher & Ice Cream
On 6th May 1949, the Electronic Delay Storage Calculator (EDSAC) ran its first set of programs. This historic British computer calculated a table of square numbers and a list of prime numbers. It was developed by Maurice Wilkes with his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory. The computer was built on the top floor…
Read MoreThe Birth of The IC
Around this time 62 years ago (April 25th, 1961), Robert Noyce (co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor) patented his invention – a monolithic integrated circuit (IC). Jack Kilby patented a similar invention, but his version was difficult to mass produce due to external gold wire connections. Thus, Noyce’s version of the IC became widely adopted due to…
Read MoreA Trip to the Zoo and $1.6 Billion Later …
On April 23, 2005, at exactly 8:31:52 pm local time, the first ever YouTube video was uploaded. It was titled ‘Me at the Zoo’ and is a 19 second recording of the co-founder of YouTube (Jawed Karim) standing in front of an elephant enclosure. It’s grainy and with poor audio – yet it made history.…
Read MoreMicrosoft Is Founded
Bill Gates originally wanted to become a lawyer, like his father, when he was a young child. However, as he grew up he discovered computers and on this week in history (4th April back in 1975) he, along with his school-friend Paul Allen founded “Micro-Soft” as it was called back then. Whilst they coding in…
Read MoreThe Eighth Wonder of Moore’s Law
Further to the news that Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, died last week, it’s a reminder that also last-week-in-history (22 March 1993), Intel announced it would be shipping its Pentium microprocessor. This was the successor to the Intel 486, and it was a massive undertaking that involved thousands of engineers and scientists, and it took…
Read MoreIntel Founder and Moore’s Law Creator Dies
Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel Corp, predictor of home computing, and the creator of ‘Moore’s Law’ has died at the age of 94. Intel Corporation In July 1968, Gordon Moore famously co-founded Intel Corporation with Robert Noyce, who had previously co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor. Moore saw an opportunity to create a new company focused on…
Read MoreThe Symbolics of Transistors
On 14th March 1950, the first prototype of the silicon transistor was demonstrated by researchers at Bell Labs, the company spawned from its eponymous founder Alexander Graham Bell (i.e. the person widely accredited with inventing the telephone). This incredible breakthrough device then paved the way for modern digital electronics. Some people may even remember the…
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