Electrical and Aeronautical Engineering Achievements, 1960-1975
Peter E. Austin
1960
IBM engineer Forrest Parry develops the magnetic stripe card; adopted as an American standard in 1969; a worldwide standard in 1971.
Construction starts on the Arecibo Observatory on the northern coast of Puerto Rico which housed, until 2016, the world’s largest single-aperture telescope; becomes a center for pulsar research; considered a milestone in computing, as well as in electrical and mechanical engineering.
John Francis Mitchell joins elements of Motorola’s walkie-talkie with automobile radio technologies to create the first transistorized pager.
1961
1962
GE engineer Nick Holonyak invents the first light-emitting diode (LED), a semiconductor device that gives off light when an electric current runs through it.
1963
1964
1965
Bell Labs electrical engineer Robert Lucky invents the adaptive equalizer that corrects distorted signals to improve data performance and speed in devices like modems.
1966
1967
Engineer Jack Kilby designs the first IC-based electronic calculator; gains Texas Instruments valuable patents.
1968
1969
George Smith and Willard Boyle invent the charge-coupled device (CCD) at AT&T Bell Labs shortly after Philips Research Labs developed the so-called bucket-brigade device. Together they revolutionize the movements of electrical charges within a device, and have wide applications in astronomy, photography, medical imaging, and sensors.
1970
1971
American engineer and inventor, Wilson Greatlatch, introduces the first lithium-iodide cell battery for pacemakers; in 1974 manufactured by Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc (becomes Guidant Corp, which today is Boston Scientific); now the world standard.
Electrical engineer Godfrey Hounsfield develops X-ray computed tomography (CT scan) at EMI, Ltd; first used on a patient with a cerebral cyst at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London; develops eponymous “Hounsfield Scale” of radiodensity (opacity to radio waves) for reading and interpretation of results; awarded CBE, knighted, and Nobel Prize for Medicine.
1972
1973
Marty Cooper makes first cell phone call on the Motorola DynaTAC (the “brick”)
