Transcript History of EE

ECE 101
Exploring Electrical Engineering
Chapter 1
History of Electrical & Computer
Engineering
Herbert G. Mayer, PSU
Status 1/25/2016
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Syllabus
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Impact of Technology
Electricity Throughout History
History of Computing
History of Communications
History of Programming Languages
History of Information Storage
Heat is Bad
References
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Impact of Technology
Technology impacts society, in unforeseen ways:
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Candle light  allowed work during darkness
Invention of automobile solved transportation problems
But created new ones, e.g. emissions problems, traffic
deaths; yet reduced the number of horse-back accidents 
Digital photography eliminated chemical photography
Bankrupted a whole industry; e.g. Kodak Corp.
E-mail reduced US Mail volume; postal service now loves
junk mail
Laptop computers allow travel with your computer; yet
increased neck- and back pain
Cell phones; made users feel connected, safer
Refrigerators allowed foods to last longer
Freon impacted the ozone layer
Internet vastly enhanced communication
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Electricity Throughout History
 Laws, dictatorships, restrictions etc. cannot really
control inventions, but can influence the speed of
deployment, and their general acceptance:
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Nuclear power energy faces nuke enemies, yet other energy
sources will run out
 Case of Amish:
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Adopting new technologies affects how people relate; hence
Bishops meet twice a year to determine which ones to allow:
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Cars? Nyet! Create more hectic life, cause danger, pollute
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Gas barbeque? Yes, brings people closer together
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Telephone? No, reduces face to face communication
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Electricity Throughout History [2]
Greek Thinker Thales of Miletus 620 - 546 B.C.
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Electricity Throughout History [2]
 About 600 BC Thales of Miletus observed and
documented static electricity
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Rubbing fur and amber against one another creates sparks
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And causes attraction of certain materials toward one
another
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Yes, the same Thales of the Thales Circle in geometry!
 About 450 BC Democritus developed atomic theory
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Atoms were thought to be indivisible, smallest units of
matter; at the time thought to be non-uniform
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With their lack of experimental knowledge and observation
this was amazingly accurate up to a first, simple level
 So called Baghdad Battery, found 1938, dating back
to around 250 BC, was ancient galvanic cell
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Used for metal plating, over 2000 years ago!
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Electricity Throughout History
 Around 1600, English scientist William Gilbert
studied electrical and magnetic phenomena:
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Distinguished lodestone effect from static electricity
produced by rubbing amber
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Coined the New Latin word electricus ("like amber", from
ήλεκτρον [elektron], Greek word for "amber") to describe he
property of attracting small objects after being rubbed
 Further work was conducted by Otto von Guericke
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Demonstrated electric repulsion
 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society same year
Prussian inventor Otto von Guericke, 1602 – 1686
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Electricity Throughout History
 By 1705, Hauksbee (18th century English scientist)
discovered: When small amount of mercury is placed
in the glass of a modified von Guericke’s generator,
with all air evacuated, then a rubbed ball generates
charge, creating a strong visible glow!
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Similar to St. Elmo’s Fire, visible in North Polar regions
 Became basic idea for gas discharge lamps, leading
to neon lights of modern days
 In 1706 he produced so called influence machine, to
automate this generation effect
 Stephen Grey published ideas of insulators and
conductors in 18th century
 Mid 18th century Benjamin Franklin showed via a kite
string that lighting was indeed electricity
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Electricity Throughout History
 In 1791, Italian Luigi Galvani published
discovery of bioelectricity, showing
electricity to be medium by which
nerve cells pass signals to muscles
 Alessandro Volta's battery, AKA the
voltaic pile of 1800, made from
alternating layers of zinc and copper,
provided scientists with reliable
source of electrical energy
A. Volta 1745 - 1827
 Until then, electrostatic machines were used instead
 SI unit of Volt is named in honor of Volta
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Electricity Throughout History
Englishman Michael Faraday 1781 - 1867
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Electricity Throughout History
 In 1827 Georg Ohm quantified relation of electric
current to potential difference in a conductor
 In the 1830s, Ohm constructed early electrostatic
machine
 In 1831, Michael Faraday, discovered and researched
electromagnetic induction
 Faraday also invented homopolar generator 1831
 Was beginning of modern dynamos, i.e. electrical
generators using a magnetic field
 Invention of industrial generator, without external
magnetic power in 1866, by Werner von Siemens
 This enabled a large series of further inventions
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Electricity Throughout History
 In 1873 James Clerk Maxwell
published a unified treatment
of electricity and magnetism
in: A Treatise on Electricity
and Magnetism
 This motivated other theorists
to think of fields described by
Maxwell's equations
 Opus Magnum was theory of
electromagnetic radiation,
unifying electricity,
magnetism, and light as
manifestations of the same
James Clerk Maxwell 1831 - 1879
observable phenomenon
 His electromagnetism equations constitute second
grand unification in physics, after Newton’s laws
about gravity
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Electricity Throughout History
 In 1882 Thomas Edison switched on the world's first
large-scale electrical supply network that provided
110 volts direct current to fifty-nine customers in
lower Manhattan
 Late 1880s saw the spread of a competing form of
power distribution known as alternating current
backed by George Westinghouse
 Rivalry between the Westinghouse and Edison
systems was known as the "War of Currents”
 AC eventually replaced DC for generation and power
distribution, enormously extending the range and
improving the safety and efficiency of power
distribution
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Electricity Throughout History
 In classic UHF experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz
demonstrated existence of electromagnetic waves
 Leading other inventors and scientists to adapt them
to commercial applications
 1895 Guglielmo Marconi signal transmission
 1896 Alexander Popov key contributor to wireless
communication
 John Fleming’s invention of radio tube
 In 1906, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest
independently developed the triode amplifier tube
 Edwin Howard Armstrong enabling technology for
electronic television, in 1931
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History of Computing
Manual Calculators
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10 fingers: limited numeric range, fails to work in cold weather
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Abacus, base 5 and 10: works well with small numbers
Mechanical Calculators
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Pascal (~1643) adder, invented at age 20!
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Leibnitz (~1660) four function calculator
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Burroughs (1890s), thought a few units saturate total market
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Charles Babbage (1810) Difference Engine, aborted for AE
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Babbage’s Analytical Engine (AE) 1835, also never completed
Other Calculating Devices
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Bouchon, Falcon, Jacques (~1710-1750) punched cards to program
repeated weaving patterns
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John Atanasoff (~1939) Iowa state prof. builds first digital computer
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Konrad Zuse (~1940) builds first relais-based digital computer with
real programming language (Plankalkül)
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History of Computing
Computing Innovations
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Guthrie (~1873), Fleming, and Edison (~1883) invent vacuum
tubes that can be used as switching device
Cash register - Ritty (early 1900s)
 Prevent embezzlement via itemized receipts and printed logs
 Track tax collected
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Hollerith (~1900) punch card tabulation for census
Presper Eckert and John Mauchly (~1944) build Electronic
computer ENIAC
 based on Atanasoff’s ideas
 Final US patent granted to Atanasoff in 1980s
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History of Computing: UNIVAC
ENIAC was basis for UNIVAC product, commercially not successful
Acquired ~1950 by Remington Rand, thus was born the first commercially
successful computer corporation
Used to count votes, predict outcome of 1952 presidential election
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Predicted Adlai Stevenson lead over Dwight Eisenhower in polls before
election close
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UNIVAC accurately predicted (with 7% of the vote counted) that
Eisenhower would win in a landslide
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Computer programmers of UNIVAC mistrusted their program, modified it to
tilt the results more in favor of Stevenson
 CBS reported the erroneous result instead of the genuine, original computation
 Original prediction was accurate!
Other companies successful at building general-purpose computers: IBM,
CDC, NCR, Honeywell, GE, Ferranti, HP, Digital, Amdahl, Wang, …
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History of Computing
Programming languages
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Details belong to CS
Transistors and integrated circuits
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Bell Labs (1948)
Enabled smaller, more powerful computers
With higher reliability, critical due to large number of parts
Integral in development of Minuteman II ballistic missile
Microprocessors
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Intel 4004 (1969)
Eventually allowed computers in everyday devices (cell
phones, mp3 players, digital cameras)
Today microprocessors have > 1 Billion transistors
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History of Communications
Telegraph
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Samuel Morse (1830s)
Telegraph machine based on electricity to communicate
First line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore (1844)
200k miles of wire by 1877
Put Pony Express out of business
Cities developed fire alarm telegraphs
Telephone
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Alexander Graham Bell (1876)
Transmission of human voice electronically
Eroded? Improved? Surely changed social hierarchies
 Ordinary citizens calling the governor
 Telemarketers call you, while you are eating dinner at home
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Loss of privacy
 Operators could eavesdrop on conversations
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History of Communications
Typewriter (1873) and teletype (1908)
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Electronic transmission of typed text
Radio
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Marconi (1895); see also under “Electricity Throughout History”
Used in 1912 by Titanic to signal distress
Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” (Halloween 1938)
 Radio play demonstrated the power of radio, blurred lines of reality
Television
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Nipkow (1884), Farnsworth (1927)
Used to broadcast Armstrong landing on the moon (1969)
 Note the deliberate, built-in delay! Just in case!
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Influences elections
 East Coast results influence voting on the west coast
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History of Communications
ARPANET
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Precursor to Internet
Decentralized, packet-switching data network
Led to current Internet and its applications (E-mail, WWW)
Cell phones
Other gadgets: Skype, twitter, WeChat, Facebook …
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History of Programming Languages
Some languages:
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Binary coding; then asm language; then relocateable (.sp?) asm
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High-level programming languages, and machine independent
programming languages
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FORTRAN (~1956) John Backus, IBM
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Lisp late 1950s
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BASIC (Beginner’s All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) 1963
Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny at Darthmouth
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Algol-60, committee, report 1960, Backus + Naur
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Cobol (COmmon Business Oriented Language) with decimal type,
created by Capt. Grace Mary Hopper US Navy
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APL (A Programming Language) 1950s Kenneth Iverson IBM
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Algol-W, Jovial, Algol-68, various Jovial dialects
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PL/I, IBM committee language, 1960, everything except kitchen sink
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C, Ada, Modula-2, Prolog, C++, Java, C#
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History of Information Storage
Codex
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From scrolls (BC) to durable, bound volumes (~200 AD)
Printing press
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Gutenberg (1436)
Vehicle for mass communication and dissemination of information
Martin Luther and the Reformation
 Instrumental in the publication and dissemination of his theses
 Unified German languages into one common language
Hypertext systems
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Mennex: Information retrieval where associated documents can
easily be linked to others
Led to current WWW hypertext system – Berners-Lee (1990)
Search engines
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Yahoo, Google, etc.
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
Storing Data
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Bone carvings [20,000 BC]
 auxiliary storage
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Wax Tablets [2000BC]
 auxiliary storage
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Codex [200s]
 from scrolls to books
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The Printing Press [1436+]
 write once, produce many
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Paper Tape [1870s]
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Punched Cards [1890s]
 Herman Hollerith
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Magnetic Storage [1920s]
 For audio
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Magnetic Data Tape [1951]
 ~10M on a 2400’ reel
 Sequential access
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Hard Disk [1956]
 Sequential access!
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SSD drives[~2005]
 Random access!
 No movable parts in mass storage
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Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data
Acquiring Data
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Keyboarding [1920s]
 IBM card punch
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Optical Character
Recognition [1950s]
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Speech Recognition [1961]
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Barcodes [1974]
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Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Radio-frequency identification
(RFID) [1980s]
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Video Recognition [1990s]
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EE Knows: Heat is Bad
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Clocking a processor fast (e.g. > 3-5 GHz) can increase
performance and thus generally “is good”
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Other performance parameters, such as memory access
speed, peripheral access, etc. do not scale with the clock
speed. Still, increasing the clock to a higher rate is desirable
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Comes at the cost of higher current, thus more heat
generated in the identical physical geometry (the so called
real-estate) of the silicon processor or also the chipset
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But the silicon part acts like a heat-conductor, conducting
better, as it gets warmer (negative temperature coefficient
resistor, or NTC)
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Since the power-supply is a constant-current source, a lower
resistance causes lower voltage, shown as VDroop in the
figure below
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EE Knows: Heat is Bad
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EE Knows: Heat is Bad
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This in turn means, voltage must be increased artificially, to
sustain the clock rate, creating more heat, ultimately leading to
self-destruction of the part
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Great efforts are being made to increase the clock speed,
requiring more voltage, while at the same time reducing heat
generation
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Current technologies include sleep-states of the Silicon part
(processor as well as chip-set), and Turbo Boost mode, to
contain heat generation while boosting clock speed just at the
right time
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Good that to date Silicon manufacturing technologies allow the
shrinking of transistors and thus of whole dies. Else CPUs
would become larger, more expensive, and above all: hotter
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References
1. Electric Circuits, James W. Nielsson and Susan A.
Riedel, Pearson Education Inc., publishing as as
Prentice Hall, © 2015, ISBN-13: 978-0-13-376003-3
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_electrical_e
ngineering
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