And End-of-Year Tribute

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the transistor. Invented at New Jersey’s Bell Labs in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley, the transistor is essentially an electric on/off switch without any moving parts. It is the fundamental building block of the microprocessors now making this conversation possible. Without the transistor, we would likely never have put men on the moon, built a lightweight and affordable electronic calculator, played Pong, developed mobile telephony, or created the Internet.

The original transistors were large, balky things that gave off incredible heat and burnt out every few days. Today’s transistors are solid state, and as many as one billon of them can fit onto a single microprocessor smaller than your fingernail. In fact, each of these modern marvels has thousands of times more computing power than the computers on board the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

Most salient to the readers of this blog, the transistor has allowed virtually anyone with a computer and an idea to publish and have their thoughts and be heard as never before.

The ’Net’s Founding Fathers
It has been said that we are all dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Well, we’d like to take this opportunity for an end-of-year salute to some of the giants who have helped bring this new world to life:

Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type printing press (1455) made possible more rapid transmission of information and ideas.

Blaise Pascal’s adding machine (1642) inspired future computing devices.

J.M. Jacquard’s loom (1800) was controlled by punch cards that made it possible to weave complex patterns. An early form of data storage, these punch cards set the stage for the punch-card computing of the mid-20th century. Do not fold, spindle or mutilate!

Charles Babbage’s “difference engine” (1835) was a mechanical computer. Although it didn’t go very far, it inspired future efforts. Babbage’s assistant, Ada Lovelace, is credited with documenting the first software programs or “routines.”

Christopher Shole’s typewriter (1868) gave us the odd-ball “QWERTY” keyboard that persists to this day. Now you know who to blame.

John Fleming’s vacuum tube (1905) made possible radio, TV and computers.

Vannevar Bush’s mechanical “differential analyzer” (1930) was an analog computer. He also theorized the memex, a proto-hypertext computer system, and pushed for more technology funding.

John Eckert and John Mauchly’s ENIAC computer boasted 20,000 vacuum tubes. It was said that the lights in Philly dimmed when it was switched on. Later, the duo invented the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC, which could pick winners in political races based on raw data.

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and Wiliam Shockley’s transistor (1947) rendered the vacuum tube obsolete in one fell swoop.

Douglas Engelbart’s computer “mouse” (1964-8) and “windows” will one day make computing much easier, and made Steve Jobs and Bill Gates rich beyond their wildest dreams of avarice. Engelbart also invented an early hypertext system, among other innovations. 

Charley Kline and Leonard Kleinrock’s first data transmissions from UCLA over ARPANET (1969) laid the foundations for the Internet.

Robert Metcalf’s Ethernet (1973) made connected computing a breeze.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (1989) and changed the world forever.

Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina’s Mosaic web browser (1993) let people surf the Web with ease.

Jerry Yang and David Filo’s Yahoo! (1994) started out as two guys cataloguing websites in a trailer on Stanford campus. The rest is, as they say, history.

And, lastly, let’s not forget You, the pioneering publisher who is creating cutting-edge, multimedia content for the wide audience on the Web.

Salut!

—The Team