Names and Milestones
 

Electronic Design Magazine recently introduced their Hall of Fame. How many of these names are you familiar with:
Edwin Armstrong : John Backus : Paul Brokaw
Hans Camenzind : Vinton Cerf : Seymour Cray
Bob Dobkins : William Dublier : Thomas Edison
John M Fluke Jr : David Fullagar : Bernard Gordon
Andrew S Grove : Marcian (Ted) Hoff : Grace Hopper
Charles House : Walt Jung : Charles Kao
Jack Kilby : Gary Kidall : Hedy Lamarr
Bob Mammano : Buglielmo Marconi : Robert M Metcalfe
Gordon E Moore : Robert N Noyce : Donald O Pederson
George A Philbrick : Dennis M Richie : Claude E Shannon
Alan F Shugart : Phillip H Smith : Nikola Tesla
Linus Torvalds : Alan M. Turing : Patrizio Vinciarelli
Charles H Vollum : John L von Neumann : Jim Williams
John Birkner : Hua-Thye Chua : James H Clark
Marc Andreesen : Bobert Widlar : H Presper Eckert
John W Mauchly : James Truchard : Jeff Kodosky
Carver A Mead : Lynn Conway : William B Shockley
John Bardeen : Walter H Brattain : William R Hewlett
David Packard : Steven Wozniak : Steven P Jobs

Most of these people are really unknowns, but their accomplishments are legenary names in the world of computers and electronics.

Also listed are industry milestones:
1950 1st oscillscope : 1952 Photocircuit
1954 Analog to Digital converter : 1954 Piezoresistivity
1958 Integrated circuit : 1958 first IC on substrate
1958 Explorer I : 1959 commerical FM radio
1959 Silicon Controlled Rectifier : 1960 first transistor TV
1962 Project Mercury : 1962 Semiconductor Laser
1962 Sampling oscillscope : 1963 TTL IC (digital logic)
1964 Linear IC : 1964 Basic language
1965 Op-Amp IC : 1966 the famous 741 Op-Amp
1966 hard disk drive : 1968 CMOS digital logic
1969 Unix : 1970 Dynamic Ram
1971 C language : 1971 4004 Microprocessor
1971 high speed Op-amp : 1972 SPICE 1
1973 Ethernet : 1973 Logic Analyer
1974 Brokaw cell (bandgap ref) : 1974 bi-FET Op-amp
1975 first PC : 1975 Progammable Array Logic
1976 Apple I : 1976 IC voltage regulator
1978 Analog to Digital converter : 1978 8086/8088 microprocessor
1979 68000 microprocessor : 1979 HexFET transistor
1979 "Introduction to VLSI Design" :1981 IBM PC, DOS, and CP/M-86
1982 switching regulator IC : 1983 C++
1984 Digital oscilloscope : 1984 Verilog HDL
1984 GNU project began : 1984 EDA tools
1985 FPGA logic : 1986 LabView
1989 HTTP/HTML : 1991 Linux
1991 GSM - digital phone standard : 1996 USB standard

Good trivia time Q.

Vinton Cerf: Internet pioneer
Seymour Cray: Cray founder, building fastest supercomputers in late 70s-early 80s
Thomas Edison: Inventor, advocate for AC current standard
Andrew Grove: Intel founder
Grace Hopper: Admiral, early programmer, described early concepts of computing
Gary Kildall: author of Control Program for Microcomputers, founder of Digital Research
Hedy Lamarr: Movie actress also involved in... I forget... code breaking research?
Robert M Metcalfe: Inventor of Ethernet, 3com founder
Gordon E Moore: Intel guy, noted for Moore's Law
Dennis M Richie: C/Unix developer
Nikola Tesla: Inventor, coil builder, advocate for DC current standard
Linus Torvalds: Author/maintainer of Linux kernel, crisp open-source advocate
Alan M. Turing: Brit inventor, code breaker, described early A.I., tortured to suicide by own government
John L von Neumann: computing pioneer, described computing architectures still in use
Marc Andreesen: Netscape principal author, first to advocate use of images in HTTP
H Presper Eckert: co-developer of Eniac, possibly the first completely electronic computer
John W Mauchly: co-developer of Eniac
William B Shockley: Bell Labs inventor of the transistor, later widely denounced for views on social issues
William R Hewlett: Garage engineer and H/P co-founder
David Packard: Garage engineer and H/P co-founder
Steven Wozniak: Garage engineer and Apple co-founder
Steven P Jobs: Hanger-on with garage engineer, visionary in bringing computing to the masses

Co-inventor of spread-spectrum radio, along with lunatic/genius composer George Anteil. George was a local talent, born in Trenton and attended the Curtis School here in town.

Good coverage at
http://www.inventions.org/culture/female/lamarr.html

Some additional information and corrections:
Vinton Cerf - considered 'father of the Internet' having developed TCP/IP with Robert Kahn. Metcalfe developed Ethernet.

Cray - co-founded Control Data Corp (CDC) in 1957 and designer of three major CDC products. Founded Cray Research in 1972 where he developed Cray 1 (1976) and Cray 2 (1985).

Edison - 1093 patents included improved Alexander Bell telephone, electric light and city wide lighting system, phonograph, and authorized development of motion film. He did not advocate AC electric. Instead he fought AC electric by promoting his DC electric concepts.

Grace Hopper - first high level language compiler in 1959 - COBOL.

Gary Kildall - CP/M operating system and PL/M programming language originally developed for Intel in 1973. His company was originally called Intergalactic Digital Research.

Robert Metcalfe - another of the long list of pioneering inventors at Xerox Palo Alto Research who left to found a company when their great ideas sat stifled in Xerox.

Gordon Moore - also co founded Fairchild Semiconductor. Moores law was only for up to 65,000 components per IC - IOW was only suppose to hold until 1975.

Telsa - visualized and pioneered concepts that would become the electric motors, ac dynamos, and transformers that were the product line in Westinghouse. Later invented the Telsa coil. He believed that was the way to transmit electricity over long distances.

Marc Andreesen - Mosaic from which Netscape would later be based upon. James Clark of Silicon Graphics was his early mentor.

Hedy Lamarr - MaggieL provides one of he best descriptions I have ever read of her invention.

John Bardeen is specially noted not only for transistor development but also for the B in BCS - how superconductivity works. He received back to back Nobel prizes, if I remember correctly.

Wow! Thats a really interesting synopsis Mags. I had only the vaguest idea of Lamarr's contribution. I think its very interesting how coming from entertainment they still had the intellect to see the potential for their technology. I just don't see this kind of work coming from modern Hollywood. "Hello, my name is Cameron Diaz and I've developed a new encrytion technology." ;) Considering the Iowa Test math scores my little girl brought home from school last night, I think I'll look around for a Hedy Lamarr biography.

btw Great thread tw

Girlkids with a technical/math bent should see "Contact", too.