The Electronics Revolution

1 Introduction.- 2 Missed opportunities: The beginnings of electronics.- 3 From Wireless to Radio.- 4 Seeing by electricity - Development of Television.- 5 Seeing a hundred miles - Radar.- 6 The Box - Television takes over.- 7 Spinning discs - Recorded music.- 8 The crystal triode - The transistor.- 9 Pop Music - Youth culture in 1950s and 60s.- 10 From People to Machines - The Rise of Computers.- 11 Chips into everything - Integrated Circuits.- 12 From signboards to screens - Displays.- 13 Distributing time - Clocks and watches.- 14 From Desktop to Pocket - Calculators.- 15 Shrinking computers - microprocessors.- 16 Instant cooking - Microwave ovens.- 17 Essentials or toys - Home computers.- 18 Computers take over the Workplace.- 19 From Clerks to Xerography - Copiers.- 20 Shrinking the World - Communication satellites.- 21 Personal communicators - Mobile phones.- 22 Going online- The Internet.- 23 Glass to the rescue - Fibre optics.- 24 Towards virtual money - Cards, Atms and PoS.- 25 Saving TV programs - Video Recording.- 26 Electronics invades photography - Digital Cameras.- 27 Seeing inside the body - electronics aids medicine.- 28 Knowing where you are - GPS.- 29 The Electronics Revolution.- Acknowledgements.- Notes.- Bibliography.- Index.

John Williams took an electrical engineering degree at Imperial College, which led him into the design of electronic control and instrumentation equipment, and he became a Chartered Engineer. After working for a number of companies, including AVO/Megger and gaining seniority, he went into engineering management and later co-founded Ingenion Design Ltd to produce electronic instrumentation, exposing him to many different industries varying from washing machines to nuclear power stations.

"This is an excellent book with interesting information about just how electronics has shaped the world in the last century or so. It covers an impressive range of topics from timekeeping to the Internet and does so in a nicely digestible way, sufficiently nontechnical in detail, to make things accessible to those who are not primarily interested in the science." (Jeffrey Putnam, Computing Reviews, January, 17, 2018)