Electronics

[Craig]

Absolutely agreed.

And UnrealDave - yes, those are absolutely electronic instruments.

Craig

[reset]

I don’t think there is one correct or definitive answer.

I could say that electronics began with wireless communication (telephony) with again even more sophisticated electronic devices.

Just for an example here are a couple of early electronic devices I picked up last Tuesday    1922 - 1923.  definitely electronic devices?

If you look at the books by Morgan it gives another slant on the subject. He published the Boy Electrician in 1914 and the Boy's first boy of radio and electronics in 1954. Both of these gave instructions for building radio.
73

[Crackle]

I am going with this from Wikipedia  

Electronics is distinct from electrical and electro-mechanical science and technology, which deal with the generation, distribution, switching, storage, and conversion of electrical energy to and from other energy forms using wires, motors, generators, batteries, switches, relays, transformers, resistors, and other passive components.

I think that is what I said, more or less, but not in so many words, well almost.
Electronics have active components.
For definition of "active" see https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textboo...e-devices/
By that definition a coherer is not an active device.


Mike

[Crackle]

 I have always considered items that only rely on wires and batteries, coils and maybe capacitors like early telegraph to be simple electrics.

So you think of the high power spark transmitters on ocean going liners like the Titanic to be only simple electrics?

Not necessarily simple but "Electrics" Yes. They were electrical, no electronics involved.

Mike

[Kalee20]

I'd say that 'Electronics' as distinct from 'Electrical engineering' arose before the thermionic valve, but not very much more. Manipulating electron flow, curving the paths etc, was being studied with cold-cathode CRT's in the late 1800's. Yes, before J J Thomson discovered the electron, and before it was so-named, although as pointed out, the little blighters were around even though we didn't know it.

Once the name was coined, the study of them naturally gave way to electronics.

Just think - if p-type semiconductors had been discovered first, we could have all been holic engineers!

[unrealdave]

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textboo...e-devices/

From the above link-


'An active device is any type of circuit component with the ability to electrically control electron flow (electricity controlling electricity). In order for a circuit to be properly called electronic, it must contain at least one active device.'

I though an electromagnet in a relay did this, although as its electromechanical I think its a half way house between electrical and electronic.

[Hartley118]

Quite right, the electromagnetic relay is the original amplifier, invented to boost weak signals in long telegraph circuits.

Martin

[Craig]

Back in the day I designed a complicated safety interlock for our high-power laser labs. There were several doors, and curtains, and solenoid shutters linking lasers in various labs. That was all done using relay logic and illuminated switches and was fail safe. Was it electronic? No - it was electromechanical. I could have done it with TTL, but where is the challenge in that ;-)

[Terry]

If you look at the books by Morgan it gives another slant on the subject. He published the Boy Electrician in 1914 and the Boy's first boy of radio and electronics in 1954. Both of these gave instructions for building radio.

I suspect that the edition of The Boy Electrician that I found in the local library while I was at school in the 50s was a slightly later edition than that!

Fortunately for my neighbours I managed to resist the temptation to build a spark transmitter!

There is something about the drawings in old books that intrigues me: the way aerials are always shown as three parallel wires with a spreader at each end - indeed, it only occurred to me recently that the symbol for an aerial that we know so well is based on that one wire to three spreader.

Was it a commonly held belief at one time that this trebling up was essential for an efficient aerial system?

[ppppenguin]

My gut feeling, right or wrong, is that "electronics" refers to devices where the moving parts are charged particles, not lumps of iron and copper. So definitely valves and transistors. Probably crystal detectors and possibly, as an early outlier, Braun's cathode ray tube. Not sure I'd place Geissler tubes in electronics, they date from 1857: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geissler_tube

We've covered the etymology and easly usage of the word in earlier posts.

So, Marconi spanning the Altlantic in 1901 - barely electronics at all. De Forest's Audion - definitely electronics.

Relays - not electronics. Fleming's diode - electronics, but only just.

The history of the relevant professional institutions in the UK reflects some of this. The present day IET (I hated the name change then and still hate it now) started as the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1871. Very much light current. Then the power engineers started to dominate and it became the IEE. The wireless and electronics folk in the IEE felt that power was too dominant and broke away to form the IERE in 1925. They didn't get back together until 1988.

[rant]The change to IET was the result of a bungled merger attempt with the IMechE. In the fall out from this the IEE merged with the electrical technicians body (IEEIE), itself a sensible unification of the profession. Alas they changed the name and disposed of any connection with electricity. [/rant]