Open2 radio brings you this unique radio series tracing the history of electronics. Hear from the pioneers of radio through to the wizards who invented microprocessors, it's history with a technological edge.
Find out how the first microprocessor came about in episode 6 of Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand. Meet Gordon Moore (famous for “Moore’s Law”) from Intel as he explains how calculators became computers, and hence programmable. Chips became simpler with instructions coming from programs rather than being hard-wired into logic circuits.
How has the electronics industry grown from the early beginnings in the 1960s to the modern day microchip? Go beyond the jargon to find out about the history of early crystal radios through to the end of the valve, in the first of the series of Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand.
Hear the story of the microprocessors from the developers themselves in the last of the series of Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand. New techniques made it possible to possible to produce hundreds of transistors on the same wafer. So where does the minuteman missile fit in?
Invented in Germany in the 1940s, the main recording material in magnetic recording is rust! Discover how engineers solved the problem of recording video onto magnetic tape in the fourth of the series of Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand.
Semi conductor research led to the transistor, a component that not only changed the world, but led to a new approach to physics. Find out more in the third of the radio series Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand.
In this episode of Diamonds, Rust and a Handful of Sand - Quartz. The quartz digital watch was launched in 1972 by Pulsar. Mass-market digital watches followed soon afterwards, spawning a new industry using the unique properties of quartz. Discover all you wanted to know about the quartz crystal and its use in digital technology.
Diamonds, Dust and a Handful of Sand