The Electrical Experimenter (1913)(library.si.edu)
library.si.edu
The Electrical Experimenter (1913)
http://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/electricalexperi04gern
6 comments
I think that in some sense, the old radio magazine project articles are the original open-source hardware. There was certainly a tradition of developing something useful, and then sharing it with the world.
At the least, they were very much first principle kind of thing, often a tour de force of electromagnetic and mechanical nightmares. Mainframe line printers or upright vacuum columned 9 track tape drives come to mind and cause shudders.
I might recommend to search out the early chemistry books, as well. They explain the early chemistry and processes of so many things we take for granted, in a lost art kind of way. I love reading these kind of books.
I might recommend to search out the early chemistry books, as well. They explain the early chemistry and processes of so many things we take for granted, in a lost art kind of way. I love reading these kind of books.
I love James Sheridan Muspratt's Chemistry, theoretical, practical, and analytical, as applied and relating to the arts and manufactures from 1860.
Volume 1: https://archive.org/details/chemistrytheoret01muspuoft
Volume 2: https://archive.org/details/ldpd_10922488_002
Most of the theory is nonsense by modern standards. But it's amazing to see how sophisticated the chemical process industries were already in the mid 19th century. And it's self contained: the manufacturing processes start from plant matter, things you can dig out of the earth, or other materials whose manufacture is described in the same book. The difference between this and a modern chemistry or chemical engineering textbook is, for a rough analogy, the difference between exploring how computers work on an Apple II vs. on a powerful modern laptop with all the Debian packages installed. The modern environment is broader and more powerful, but the older one has the benefit of making all the pieces visible at once and down to a low level. (Well, it's a benefit for the curious anyway. I won't claim that experience with old 8 bit computers makes for measurably better developers, or that reading dusty historical tomes makes for more capable chemists or ChemEs.)
Another thing that I enjoy about old chemistry books is the engagement of all the senses. Chemists observed and wrote about color, crystal texture, scent, the sounds procedures made, and even taste. Bad for life expectancy, great for reading. NMR spectra, though far less ambiguous and far safer for identifying substances, just aren't as much fun to read. The procedures that are described may be horrendously unsafe but they also reliably include enough details to reproduce. I hate the abbreviated style that you see in some modern articles where the authors are thrifty with detail in the experimental section. These old works were written to inform other people of useful and/or striking observations about nature, not to grind for XP on the track to tenure, and it shows.
Volume 1: https://archive.org/details/chemistrytheoret01muspuoft
Volume 2: https://archive.org/details/ldpd_10922488_002
Most of the theory is nonsense by modern standards. But it's amazing to see how sophisticated the chemical process industries were already in the mid 19th century. And it's self contained: the manufacturing processes start from plant matter, things you can dig out of the earth, or other materials whose manufacture is described in the same book. The difference between this and a modern chemistry or chemical engineering textbook is, for a rough analogy, the difference between exploring how computers work on an Apple II vs. on a powerful modern laptop with all the Debian packages installed. The modern environment is broader and more powerful, but the older one has the benefit of making all the pieces visible at once and down to a low level. (Well, it's a benefit for the curious anyway. I won't claim that experience with old 8 bit computers makes for measurably better developers, or that reading dusty historical tomes makes for more capable chemists or ChemEs.)
Another thing that I enjoy about old chemistry books is the engagement of all the senses. Chemists observed and wrote about color, crystal texture, scent, the sounds procedures made, and even taste. Bad for life expectancy, great for reading. NMR spectra, though far less ambiguous and far safer for identifying substances, just aren't as much fun to read. The procedures that are described may be horrendously unsafe but they also reliably include enough details to reproduce. I hate the abbreviated style that you see in some modern articles where the authors are thrifty with detail in the experimental section. These old works were written to inform other people of useful and/or striking observations about nature, not to grind for XP on the track to tenure, and it shows.
Yes, A NOESY would be boring compared to the aesthetics! Long live Varian, Bruker, and Oxford mags!
Not quite. Look at all those ads in the back for patents, patent attorneys, and related services. Back then, the big thing was to be an inventor with patents. Tesla, Edison, Bell, DeForest, etc. all had strong patent protection.
How many people violated Tesla's patents? It's all in the character of the person not in whats written on paper. Tesla didn't care what you did with his stuff so long as you weren't an outright dick and you were attempting to learn something.
Google the quote "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." for more back story.
Google the quote "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." for more back story.
Both coexisted. There was a community actively sharing knowledge, and a bunch of people trying to pursue patents. And a patent itself was intended to be a compromise between openness and monopoly.
Heh, it's funny to see that ads haven't changed much in 100 year: "buy this book, learn at home and earn tons of money!" etc., just change web/cloud/mobile with auto/electric/radio.
Interesting that the Smithsonian is cataloging/embedding Internet Archive material. A cursory web search doesn't turn up any history of their collaboration, is the Smithsonian just indexing the IA?
Here's a direct link to the PDF if you prefer that over the JavaScript reader [97 MB] https://archive.org/download/electricalexperi04gern/electric...
Here's a direct link to the PDF if you prefer that over the JavaScript reader [97 MB] https://archive.org/download/electricalexperi04gern/electric...
Smithsonian Libraries has been working with IA since 2006 to digitize our public domain material. We put it all on IA, but we also iframe the books on our site so we can create "collections" and have landing pages that let you browse all volumes of a given serial (among other things).
Page 808: DeForest vs. The Electrical Experimenter. DeForest was trying to prevent advertisements of Audion clones.
The article on solar power on page 316 is really interesting. Especially the artist's conception of a surprisingly modern looking solar panel, especially given that this was long before semiconductors were really understood.
This is great. I wonder how many of the radio devices advertised or described in here would even be legal to operate today.
This book is almost a thousand pages long so I haven't done an exhaustive search but based on a random sampling... none. The first page I stumbled on was the "Experimental Chemistry" intro (page 110) and, after a paragraph on the virtues of buying stoppered beakers custom engraved with chemical symbols, it listed asbestos as the first piece of equipment. I'm going to (safely) assume that a book written before we knew about carcinogens or sharpies probably doesn't contain designs that would meet modern FCC electromagnetic interference standards. Hell, a significant portion of the things described in this book would be grounds for OSHA penalties and class action lawsuits if carried out in a work place.
On a side note: oh, how times have changed: (pg 942)
On a side note: oh, how times have changed: (pg 942)
Horse Sense
If you work for a man, in
heaven's name work for him.
If he pays wages that supply you your
bread and butter, work for him,
speak well of him, think well of
him, stand by him, and stand by the
institution he represents. I think
if I worked for a man, I would
work for him. I would not work
for him a part of his time, but all
of his time. I would give an un-
divided service or .none. If put to
a pinch, an ounce of loyalty is
worth a pound of cleverness. If
you vilify, condemn and eternally
disparage, why, resign your posi-
tion, and when you are outside,
damn to your heart's content. But,
I pray you. so long as you are a =
part of an institution, do not con-
demn it. Not that you will injure —
the institution — not that — but when
you disparage the concern of which
you are a part, you disparage your-
self. — Elbert Hubbard.On page 89 in the book Marconi's remote controlled boat doesn't talk about the transmitter (that I saw), but used a coherer as a receiver detector, something like a primitive diode I think. But if so, they probably used a spark gap transmitter attached to a long wire antenna, but splattered energy across a huge electro spectrum and traveled very very far, quite disruptive to any other receiver on all different wavelengths. Marconi used one of these for the first transatlantic wireless test as I recall. I remember books used to show you how to build one from a model A automobile coil IIRC, but I don't think it would be long before the FCC would knock on your door and would not be happy as they would maybe have to triangulate your location from different states?. A real Ham can verify all this, but I loved to pore over the old magazines, electronics, being old enough to search it out in the junk piles that were quite common before the 1970s.
> but used a coherer as a receiver detector, something like a primitive diode I think
From my understanding, a coherer was a radio-wave detector that used ferrite particles (in a small sealed glass tube, with wire at each end) that - when the radio signal was strong enough - would "stick together" and form a circuit; you can think of it as an RF-activated "reed switch" or relay. It was very crude, and not easily tunable.
Also - another interesting tidbit of info about early wireless: In order to generated the higher carrier-wave frequencies, they used special multi-pole alternators spun at high speed. Rather than only having a few poles, like a regular power generator, these RF alternators would use sometimes hundreds of poles. The RPM, multiplied by the number of poles, would determine the frequency of the output signal carrier wave. This was mainly used for telegraphy; I'm not sure if these machines had the bandwidth for voice. At the same time, they still produced a ton of power like a standard alternator - so it was essentially a way to generate "high power" (100s to 1000s of watts) RF (in the KHz ranges).
Another early technology of the time (used for a variety things - including motor control) was something called "magnetic amplifiers"; they are essentially weird variations on standard AC transformer technology. They can be made to act as audio amplifiers, as well as switches (like a vacuum tube or transistor).
From my understanding, a coherer was a radio-wave detector that used ferrite particles (in a small sealed glass tube, with wire at each end) that - when the radio signal was strong enough - would "stick together" and form a circuit; you can think of it as an RF-activated "reed switch" or relay. It was very crude, and not easily tunable.
Also - another interesting tidbit of info about early wireless: In order to generated the higher carrier-wave frequencies, they used special multi-pole alternators spun at high speed. Rather than only having a few poles, like a regular power generator, these RF alternators would use sometimes hundreds of poles. The RPM, multiplied by the number of poles, would determine the frequency of the output signal carrier wave. This was mainly used for telegraphy; I'm not sure if these machines had the bandwidth for voice. At the same time, they still produced a ton of power like a standard alternator - so it was essentially a way to generate "high power" (100s to 1000s of watts) RF (in the KHz ranges).
Another early technology of the time (used for a variety things - including motor control) was something called "magnetic amplifiers"; they are essentially weird variations on standard AC transformer technology. They can be made to act as audio amplifiers, as well as switches (like a vacuum tube or transistor).
Agreed on the coherer, and on the motor-generator combos, but that seemed to be later than 1916? I understand that the coherers hated the broad spectrum of the spark-gap, so who knows?
Page 314:
Killing Sharks by Electricity
Killing Sharks by Electricity
It's got some great projects for anyone who's looking to get into radio. Check out page 100 for an example of one of those crazy projects. It looks like it's a 50-foot areal hooked up to a 4-tap isolation transformer being AC coupled to headphones. It's using a basic single diode detection circut (you can check EEVBLog's latest video to see them being used in the spy bug detector). Nifty stuff and remindes me of fox hole sets