Category: Inventions
ARPANET
The precursor to the Internet, ARPANET was a large wide-area network created by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Established in 1969, ARPANET served as a testbed for new networking technologies, linking many universities and research centers. The first two nodes that formed the ARPANET were UCLA and…
Stanford Arm
This robot arm was designed in 1969 by Victor Scheinman, a Mechanical Engineering student working in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL). This 6 degree of freedom (6-dof) all-electric mechanical manipulator was one of the first “robots” designed exclusively for computer control. Following experience with a couple of earlier manipulators,…
Pacemakers
An “artificial pacemaker” is a small, battery-operated device that helps the heart beat in a regular rhythm. Some are permanent (internal) and some are temporary (external). They can replace a defective natural pacemaker or blocked pathway. A pacemaker uses batteries to send electrical impulses to the heart to help it…
Moores Law
In an April, 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore stated that the complexity of integrated circuits would double in 24 months. Douglas Englebart had also made a similar observation earlier, but Moore expounded on it in the magazine article, saying that by 1975 the number of components…
Acoustically Coupled Modem
The First Mouse
The first computer mouse was developed by Doug Englebart in 1963 at Stanford Research Institute. He had been creating the oN-Line System, or NLS, a hardware and software system that incorporated many of the concepts of today’s modern computers. Using two gear wheels at perpindicular positions, it allowed movement of…
Rancho Arm
Virtual Memory
What do you do when you run out of real random access memory (RAM)? Easy. Pass it off to virtual memory. To do this you need a virtual memory manager (usually a function of the operating system) that maps chunks of data and code to storage areas that aren’t RAM….
ERMA
In 1950 the Bank of America asked SRI to assess the possibility of developing electronic computers that could take over the labor-intensive banking tasks of handling checks and balancing accounts. The creation of branch offices and the rapidly increasing number of checks being used by a growing clientele threatened to…
ARPANET
The precursor to the Internet, ARPANET was a large wide-area network created by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Established in 1969, ARPANET served as a testbed for new networking technologies, linking many universities and research centers. The first two nodes that formed the ARPANET were UCLA and…
Stanford Arm
This robot arm was designed in 1969 by Victor Scheinman, a Mechanical Engineering student working in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL). This 6 degree of freedom (6-dof) all-electric mechanical manipulator was one of the first “robots” designed exclusively for computer control. Following experience with a couple of earlier manipulators,…
Pacemakers
An “artificial pacemaker” is a small, battery-operated device that helps the heart beat in a regular rhythm. Some are permanent (internal) and some are temporary (external). They can replace a defective natural pacemaker or blocked pathway. A pacemaker uses batteries to send electrical impulses to the heart to help it…
Moores Law
In an April, 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore stated that the complexity of integrated circuits would double in 24 months. Douglas Englebart had also made a similar observation earlier, but Moore expounded on it in the magazine article, saying that by 1975 the number of components…
Acoustically Coupled Modem
The First Mouse
The first computer mouse was developed by Doug Englebart in 1963 at Stanford Research Institute. He had been creating the oN-Line System, or NLS, a hardware and software system that incorporated many of the concepts of today’s modern computers. Using two gear wheels at perpindicular positions, it allowed movement of…
Rancho Arm
Virtual Memory
What do you do when you run out of real random access memory (RAM)? Easy. Pass it off to virtual memory. To do this you need a virtual memory manager (usually a function of the operating system) that maps chunks of data and code to storage areas that aren’t RAM….
ERMA
In 1950 the Bank of America asked SRI to assess the possibility of developing electronic computers that could take over the labor-intensive banking tasks of handling checks and balancing accounts. The creation of branch offices and the rapidly increasing number of checks being used by a growing clientele threatened to…