Re: Proper breakthroughs/inventions.

From: ChrisGibboGibson (chrisgibbogibson_at_aol.com)
Date: 11/08/04 

Date: 08 Nov 2004 21:48:56 GMT

Stefan Heinzmann wrote:

[snip]

>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.
>

DRAM yes, I hadn't thought of that one. Pure genius.

Virtual memory? An invention that would have no use whatsoever if PC
programmers learnt how to write software properly.

Gibbo

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Proper breakthroughs/inventions.
    ... >> oscillator with the bulb over the development of the transistor. ... >> on a higher scale the invention of virtual memory. ... An invention that would have no use whatsoever if PC ... The real world is always going to have more data than RAM available to ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Proper breakthroughs/inventions.
    ... >> on a higher scale the invention of virtual memory. ... > DRAM yes, I hadn't thought of that one. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)