Re: Proper breakthroughs/inventions.

From: Stefan Heinzmann (stefan_heinzmann_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2004 22:20:52 +0100

ChrisGibboGibson wrote:

> I was thinking about electronic inventions. Ones that *really* made a
> difference or represented a *huge* leap in either technology or thinking.
>
> Obviously the transistor and IC, but when you look into those they weren't
> really flash inventions, more a development. History shows similar properties
> in the case of the transistor had been demonstrated for years beforehand. The
> IC was really just bunging more than one of them together. Not really a
> breakthrough.
>
> The two that spring to my mind initially are the HP wein oscillator using the
> bulb and the Wadley triple loop, drift cancelling superhet, which I still think
> is amazing.
>
> What would others propose for sheer inventiveness?

Strange that you single out the inventiveness of the Wien bridge
oscillator with the bulb over the development of the transistor. Both
were developments that relied on previous work. That's not to belittle
their achievement, but Hewlett's thesis for example contains a reference
to a paper by Meacham that described the usage of a lamp in a crystal
oscillator. (I got this from Jim William's book).

But if you are content with innovations of that scale, you could cite
some of Widlar's work, for example the bandgap reference.

Things I also find outstanding is the planar process, the DRAM, and on a
higher scale the invention of virtual memory. 

-- 
Cheers
Stefan