You'll need a wagon too.

As I wrap up my unofficial history of electricity, I thought it would be nice to come up with a list of firsts, a greatest hits of the ground breaking devices that, when they came out they were weird, but now, we love 'em.

So, here they are starting with the first portable computer in 1981:

It was called the Osborne 1, weighed in at about 25 pounds and had a processor with the speed of an ant in molasses. It featured a cataract inducing 5 inch CRT monitor and two complete 5 1/4 floppy drives (not cut down or smaller versions just for the Osborne 1, but full size desktop drives just stuffed in the case. It came with an optional modem for surfing all 200 bulletin boards avaible in 1981.

The first mobile phone had a few starts with a couple of true mobile phones coming out in the 50's and 60's, though these could only communicate with a home base, and really, some of them weighed almost a 100 pounds. Not much mobility in that mobile. The first real cell phone is of course the classic Motorola "brick" phone, first used by Martin Cooper in 1973.

Lucky us because in 1956 the first protable television, the British Ekcovision came out. Not much on the device except it was made by that stalwart British lectronics company, EK Cole. It's actually a real spiffy looking little rig. See above.

Help I've fallen etc . .. .

Never one to let a fad pass unnoticed, I thought I'd take a peek at those nifty little devices that keep us feeling so warm and cozy. No not electrical fires, but the burglar alarm.

The first electrical alarm was invented by Augustus Pope, an American inventor.The year was 1853. Edwin Holmes bought the patent from him and in 1857 he opened the The Holmes Electric Protective Company. Stories have it that he made skirt hoops in his shop before he got into the protection industry.

With the help of Charles Williams, who knew a few things about telegraphs, and a machinist named Thomas Watson (of Watson, come here I need you fame) they set about keeping the bad guys out of Boston's parlours.

Both Williams and Watson worked on telephone equipment for Alexander Graham Bell and found the work of making alarm systems to be well tied into what they did anyway. In fact Holmes would take advantage of the telephone cabling and switching stations to wire his burglar alarm systems into central dispatch stations. A tripped wire would close a solenoid and ring a bell at a monitoring station where an operator would dispatch the navy to thump the burglar.

Eggs over easy.

I'm going to go off about Nikola Tesla for only a little bit more. And rather than dwell on the obvious stuff he did I'd rather look at the fringes of his accomplishments. Lucky for us, he had a wide fringe.

Lets see, there's his Columbus Egg, a gizmo that suspended a copper "egg" in a rotating magnetic field. This was 1893.

Then we have a little bit later in 1898 the Tesla Oscillator. This was a mechanical device that once placed against a significant component of a building, say a support column, and left run would produce high frequency vibrations. The frequency could be tuned and allegedly he was able to discover the resonant frequency of buildings or any other thing for that matter. Designed to run on steam or air pressure, the thing could supposedly bring down a city block. How could he know that?

Leap ahead to 1934 and we find him working on a particle beam weapon, oh so much more sophisticated than an oscillator. In his "The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media" he claims to have all the necessary things to make the damn thing. I like how he refers to doing this as an "art". In actual fact, given his abilities and access to the major components he claims he needs to build one, I'm glad we didn't ever really piss him off.

Where's those garden lights.

Since the beginning of time mankind has wanted lights in the garden. There's something enchanting about walking in a garden at night. And it helps when you take the compost out to the bin.

With the current craze about things that don't belch smoke, and to celebrate the fact that I no longer light my deck with torches, I thought I would take a quick minute to look at the invention of the solar panel.

Charles Fritts was an American inventor, who, in 1883 created the world's first working solar cell. Amazing considering this is in an era when there are only a few electrical generating stations in the USA and most people rode horses to work.

The idea was simple: coat a chunk of selenium with gold and expose to the sun. They were very inefficient and cost a pile of money to make. It was easier to farm electric eels.

Jump ahead about 4o odd years and meet Russell Shoemaker Ohl. Another very clever American engineer whose tinkering with the solar cell led to the modern day version. In short, he got it right. He was a pioneer in semiconductor research and was at the very leading edge of transistor development.

While Ohl had the theoretical and scientific side down it would take until the 50"s before Bell Labs and their experiments with semiconductors led to the discovery of various coatings that caused the semiconductors to go wild with electricity. Well "wild" is a relative term. They succeeded in boosting efficiency to a whopping 6%.

It didn't take them long to connect the dots and use solar cell to charge batteries which could run interesting things like satellites. In fact Vanguard 1, launched in 1958 had solar panels powering its meagre electronics. Look closely at the picture above and you can see the panels. To give some perspective, the body is about 6.5 inches in diameter, and it is still up there.

Welcome to Wardenclyffe Tower

I have kept a respectful distance from this man's history simply because there is so much to work with, that anything I try and add to the wealth of analysis already out there, well, maybe I'll just look a fool.

He is so damned interesting I just have to have quick stab at the subject.

I am talking about Nikola Tesla: engineer, inventor, philosopher. And he must have been fun to go to a restaurant with.

Born in 1856 in Serbia, his early years were fraught with many ups and downs, including several stabs at university and ongoing health issues. He was also beginning a pattern of frequent wild changes in direction. He disappeared for a while so convincingly friends thought him dead. After surfacing it was off to another university, only to quit in the first year when his father died.

He was now suffering from episodes of mental "flashes" where he claims he became overcome with the minute details of an engineering problem. These episodes would permit him to actually see the device in his mind and he could manipulate and "work" on assembling and modifying it.

Regardless, his engineering prowess was tangible and before leaving for the USA, was the head engineer for the country's telephone system.

After a stint in France he arrived at the door of Thomas Edison on June 6, 1884. And now begins the fun stuff. See you tomorrow. Gotta interact with my family.

Rope em pardner.

I admit I've been reading the Regulators. They don't write hay burners like that anymore.

I have just time for a short post tonight (I'm heading home tomorrow yay!) so I think it's important we meet William Thompson. He's better known to the rest of us a Lord Kelvin. The British physicist and engineer. That wiley genius who invented the Kelvin scale of temperature.

A quick backgrounder on those of you who missed that class. Kelvin temperature measurement is based on an absolute scale, that is, zero K is as cold as it gets. The complete absense of heat. After that, it only goes up. By the way, temperatures in Kelvin are simply Kelvin, not degrees Kelvin.

And the name Kelvin comes from. Having been named to the peerage, a baron is the lowest, the name he was given comes from the River Kelvin, which runs past Glasgow University.

Since this is a short piece on the man, we'll jump ahead to his work on the telegraph. It was in the mid 1850's and Thompson had been distracted by his wife's lifelong frailness, being constantly sick. Inspired by work begun on a possible transatlantic telegraph cable, he went to work figuring out how to get the signal to go thousands of miles. Remember that this is in a time when the most reliable sources of electricity still came from the sky.

He tackled the hypothetical problems of this project in an exhaustive paper that covered not only the mechanics of transmitting data over long distances (bandwidth, yeah it's like 1855) but the economics of transmitting the information. In other words, how big and of what materials would best get the volts to its destination.

He also invented a device called a siphon recorder, an electromagnetic device attached to a telegraph wire that sprayed ink on paper according to the dots and dashes. A very early ink jet printer.

Oh, still trying to figure out the title of the post? He was second wrangler at Cambridge.

Nice day for Paris

The Barn has been resting for a bit as I have been travelling again and spending time with my brother. So to catch up I usually do a good old what happened on this day, and wow, this time we have quite a crop.

On this day in 951, Paris was founded. Just how do you know when a city starts anyway?

In 1777, Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery. That's gotta feel good.

In 1885 the Liberty bell cracks, for the second time. They should have bought the extended warranty.

I an event heard around the world, Odore R Timby invents the rotating gun turret. The year in 1862. Hmmm, took that long?

On this day in 1932 the Dow Jones hits 41.22. That's gotta hurt.

In 1960, Havana's Sugar Kings are kicked out of Cuba and find a home in New Jersey.

And, born on this day in 1838 is Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. Again, lets see the warranty.

Fritz Perls was born this day in 1893. Everyone remembers him as the developer of Gestalt therapy. Be aware.

And finally, on this day in 1908, Louis Jordan was born.

Tomorrow, back to the zaps.