2.3 Majors developments in technology

Early 19th century

• Electrical batteries and circuits

• Basic ligting, motors, switches, etc.

Early 20th century

• Vacuum tube (thermionic valve)

• Early amplifiers, radios, TVs and computers

1940s

• Transistor (semi-conductors)

• Portable radios and a reduction in the size of other electronic products

1960s

• ‘Microelectronic’ ICs (approx. 500 transistors)

• More powerful computers and highly portable devices such as music players

1980s

• Ultra large-scale ICs (ULSI) (1,000,000,000+ transistors)

• Laptops and mobile phones

2017

• 10,000,000,000+ transistor ICs

• Supercomputers and the prospect of even more powerful mobile devices

Compact cassette

Portability and convenience of enclosed magnetic recording tape

CD

Reliable, wear-free storage of digital files

Ni-Mh batteries

Rechargable, portable power

LCD display

Facilitates user display interface

MP3 (compressed digital audio)

Increased capacity of devices to store more songs

Miniature hard drive

High-capacity storage capability

Lithium batteries

Rechargable power and longer battery life

Flash (IC) storage

No moving parts, improving reliability

Capacitive touch screen

Improvements to user control and display interface

Music streaming

Removal of the requirement to store files on devices