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Signetics 2637
Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits. Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 timer IC, 555 timer chip. The company was bought by Philips in 1975 and incorporated in NXP Semiconductors, Philips Semiconductors (now NXP). History Signetics was started in 1961, by a group of engineers (David Allison, David James, Lionel Kattner, and Mark Weissenstern) who had left Fairchild Semiconductor. At the time, Fairchild was concentrating on its discrete component business (mostly transistors), and its management felt that by making integrated circuits (ICs) it would lose its customers. Signetics founders believed that ICs were the future of electronics (much like another contemporary Fairchild spinoff, Amelco) and wished to commercialize them. The name of the new company was coined from Signal Network Electronics. The venture was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is still in Eindhoven. Philips was formerly one of the largest electronics companies in the world, but is currently focused on the area of health technology, having divested its other divisions. The company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik, with their first products being light bulbs. It currently employs around 80,000 people across 100 countries. The company gained its royal honorary title (hence the ''Koninklijke'') in 1998 and dropped the "Electronics" in its name in 2013, due to its refocusing from consumer electronics to healthcare technology. Philips is organized into three main divisions: Personal Health (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care), Connecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analog Electronics
Analogue electronics ( en-US, analog electronics) are electronic systems with a continuously variable signal, in contrast to digital electronics where signals usually take only two levels. The term "analogue" describes the proportional relationship between a signal and a voltage or current that represents the signal. The word analogue is derived from the el, word ανάλογος (analogos) meaning "proportional". Analogue signals An analogue signal uses some attribute of the medium to convey the signal's information. For example, an aneroid barometer uses the angular position of a needle as the signal to convey the information of changes in atmospheric pressure. Electrical signals may represent information by changing their voltage, current, frequency, or total charge. Information is converted from some other physical form (such as sound, light, temperature, pressure, position) to an electrical signal by a transducer which converts one type of energy into another (e.g. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TV Typewriter
The TV Typewriter is a video terminal that could display two pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The design, by Don Lancaster, appeared on the cover of ''Radio-Electronics'' magazine in September 1973. The magazine included a 6-page description of the design but readers could send off for a 16-page package of construction details. ''Radio-Electronics'' sold thousands of copies for $2.00 each. The TV Typewriter is considered a milestone in the home computer revolution along with the Mark-8 and Altair 8800 computers. "A giant step toward the realization of the personal-computer dream happened in 1973, when Radio Electronics published an article by Don Lancaster that described a 'TV Typewriter'.""One influential project was the TV-Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster and published in ''Radio-Electronics'' in September 1973." Sometimes the term was used generically for any interactive computer display on a screen; until CRT displays were devel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Character Generator
A character generator, often abbreviated as CG, is a device or software that produces static or animated text (such as news crawls and credits rolls) for keying into a video stream. Modern character generators are computer-based, and they can generate graphics as well as text. History Monoscopes were used as character generators for text mode video rendering in computer displays for a short time in the 1960s. The CBS Laboratories Vidiac, and the A. B. Dick 990 System, were among the earliest character generators for broadcast television. CBS Laboratories later developed the more advanced Vidifont system in preparation for the 1968 US presidential elections, where a rapid method of all-electronic character generation was required so that news outlets could identify unexpected interviewees on the spot. A similar generator using analogue electronics, Anchor, was developed by the BBC in 1970 and used in the general election later that year. Usage In the television business in N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Micro Systems
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bipolar Junction Transistor
A bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is a type of transistor that uses both electrons and electron holes as charge carriers. In contrast, a unipolar transistor, such as a field-effect transistor, uses only one kind of charge carrier. A bipolar transistor allows a small current injected at one of its terminals to control a much larger current flowing between the terminals, making the device capable of amplification or switching. BJTs use two p–n junctions between two semiconductor types, n-type and p-type, which are regions in a single crystal of material. The junctions can be made in several different ways, such as changing the doping of the semiconductor material as it is grown, by depositing metal pellets to form alloy junctions, or by such methods as diffusion of n-type and p-type doping substances into the crystal. The superior predictability and performance of junction transistors quickly displaced the original point-contact transistor. Diffused transistors, along wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signetics 8X300
The 8X300 is a microprocessor produced and marketed by Signetics starting 1976 as a second source for the SMS 300 by Scientific Micro Systems, Inc. Although SMS developed the SMS 300, Signetics was the sole manufacturer of this product line. In 1978 Signetics purchased the rights to the SMS 300 series and renamed it 8X300. It was designed to be a fast microcontroller and signal processor, and because of this differs considerably from conventional NMOS logic microprocessors of the time. Perhaps the major difference was that it was implemented with bipolar Schottky transistor technology, and could fetch, decode and execute an instruction in only 250 ns. Data could be input from one device, modified, and output to another device during one instruction cycle. In 1982, Signetics released an improved and faster version, the 8X305. This processor went on to become very popular in military applications and was second-sourced by Advanced Micro Devices as the AM29X305. Eventually, produ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arcadia 2001
The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit home video game console released by Emerson Radio in May 1982 for a price of US$ 99, several months before the release of ColecoVision. It was discontinued only 18 months later, with a total of 35 games having been released. Emerson licensed the Arcadia 2001 to Bandai, which released it in Japan. Over 30 Arcadia 2001 clones exist. The unrelated Arcadia Corporation, manufacturer of the Atari 2600 Supercharger add-on, was sued by Emerson for trademark infringement. Arcadia Corporation then changed its name to Starpath. Description The Arcadia is much smaller than its contemporary competitors and is powered by a standard 12 volt power supply so it can be used in a boat or a vehicle. It has two headphone jacks on the far left and right sides of the back. The system came with two Intellivision-style controllers with a 12-button keypad and "fire" buttons on the sides. The direction pads have a removable joystick attachment. Most games ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit. The integrated circuit is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock-driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results (also in binary form) as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system. The integration of a whole CPU onto a single or a few integrated circuits using Very-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) greatly reduced the cost of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
8-bit
In computer architecture, 8-bit Integer (computer science), integers or other Data (computing), data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet (computing), octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on processor register, registers or Bus (computing), data buses of that size. Memory addresses (and thus address buses) for 8-bit CPUs are generally larger than 8-bit, usually 16-bit. 8-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 8-bit microprocessors. The term '8-bit' is also applied to the character sets that could be used on computers with 8-bit bytes, the best known being various forms of extended ASCII, including the ISO/IEC 8859 series of national character sets especially ISO/IEC 8859-1, Latin 1 for English and Western European languages. The IBM System/360 introduced byte-addressable memory with 8-bit bytes, as opposed to bit-addressable or decimal digit-addressable or word-addressable memory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signetics 2650
The Signetics 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in July 1975. According to Adam Osborne's book ''An Introduction to Microprocessors Vol 2: Some Real Products'', it was "the most minicomputer-like" of the microprocessors available at the time. A combination of missing features and odd memory access limited its appeal, and the system saw little use in the market. Development In 1972, Signetics' Jack Curtis hired John Kessler of IBM to lead the design of a new single-chip CPU intended to compete with minicomputer systems. Kessler selected the IBM 1130 as the model for the new design. The 1130, released in 1965, was a 16-bit minicomputer that shared many design features with other minis of the era. While Kessler designed the architecture, Kent Andreas laid out the CPU using a recently developed ion implantation NMOS process. In contrast to the far more common PMOS process of the era, NMOS used less power and dissipated less heat. This allowed the chip to be run at hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voltage-controlled Oscillator
A microwave (12–18GHz) voltage-controlled oscillator A voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) is an electronic oscillator whose oscillation frequency is controlled by a voltage input. The applied input voltage determines the instantaneous oscillation frequency. Consequently, a VCO can be used for frequency modulation (FM) or phase modulation (PM) by applying a modulating signal to the control input. A VCO is also an integral part of a phase-locked loop. VCOs are used in synthesizers to generate a waveform whose pitch can be adjusted by a voltage determined by a musical keyboard or other input. A voltage-to-frequency converter (VFC) is a special type of VCO designed to be very linear in frequency control over a wide range of input control voltages. Types VCOs can be generally categorized into two groups based on the type of waveform produced. * ''Linear'' or '' harmonic oscillators'' generate a sinusoidal waveform. Harmonic oscillators in electronics usually consist of a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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