Search results for ""author david l. morton""

How did one of the great inventions of the nineteenth century-Thomas Edison's phonograph-eventually lead to one of the most culturally and economically significant technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? Sound Recording traces the history of the business boom and the cultural revolution that Edison's invention made possible. Recorded sound has pervaded nearly every facet of modern life-not just popular music, but also mundane office dictation machines, radio and television programs, and even telephone answering machines. Just as styles of music have evolved, so too have the formats through which sound has been captured-from 78s to LPs, LPs to cassette tapes, tapes to CDs, and on to electronic formats. The quest for better sound has certainly driven technological change, but according to David L. Morton, so have business strategies, patent battles, and a host of other factors.

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Electronics provides a welcome, comprehensive history of one of the late twentieth century's greatest technologies: electronic devices. Some of them, the laser and the microchip for example, have become household words. Yet their origins and operation are largely unknown to the general public, remaining mysterious outside the field of engineering. Their advent brought about many of the most important historical developments in recent memory-the rise of television, the Cold War, the Space Race, the growth of Asian semiconductor manufacturers, and the emergence of the surveillance society. Electronics also relates the fascinating stories of how scientists and engineers created and commercialized such devices as the transistor, the Magnetron tube used to power microwave ovens, the CRT (cathode ray tube), the laser, the first integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and memory chips.

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