“This book is a history of electronics that explains the technology through the lens of art.” … “art’s ability to touch the intangible and render it visible.”

Light bulb first mass-market electric, 1880s

Electronics magazine (industry standard) founded in 1930

European artists flee in 1930s and brought European ideas to United States

Electronics, the process of controlling the follow of electrons, the constituent elements of an electric charge. The technology of electronics is The application of this science toward useful purposes.

Audion “compelled electrons to move in particular ways”; used electronic energy pulled through the wire to amplify sound (vacuum tubes)

Cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) “convert an electronic signal into an image that is projected onto the front of the tube”

“first electronic screens, and also the first electronic eyes.” Made visible radio squeals and radar pings

“Television images on the front of a kinescope tube are formed by patterns of electrons flash-projected onto the front of the screen by a pulsing cathode-driven electron gun.” Made possible by eye’s “persistence of vision” ability

Theremin oscillators, invented by Leon Theremin in 1920s, that “converts an electrical impulse to an audio signal alone.” “Plays” an electron flow

CRTs first electronics to be both component (as in a television) and device (e.g. an oscilloscope)

Faraday’s theory of atomic electromagnetism in 1830s paired with new observations of latticework patterns of crystals showed that atoms form symmetrical latticework within crystals—“shook science”

Three energy fields that govern all matter: nuclear binds protons and neutrons inside nucleus; magnetism holds electrons together, and gravity “binds our feet to the ground and planets to solar systems.”

1880 Pierre and Jacques Curie discovered crystals emit voltage when pressured. Loosened free electrons within and channeled their movement through latticework of atomic structure and out into the air as charged electromagnetic emission (EM), an electric current—phenomenon called piezoelectricity

Quartz crystal sliced thicker (lower frequency) or thinner (higher) to transmit radio signals. Set standards for radio frequencies

“The discovery of lattices of atoms—microscopic networks—introduced a geometric logic to the science of electronics.”

Transistor harnessed amplification power of germanium crystals, was much smaller, stronger, and controlled than vacuum tubes. Also defied easy graphic characterization due to strange shape, and microscopic inner workings

“Emergence in 1957 of circuit symbols as graphic design elements marks a significant shift in the relationship between technology and its reputation through design: it was the moment when an abstract symbol became a more potent conveyor of meaning about a new technology than images of the thing itself.”

“The angular lines of circuit boards made them a natural fit for graphic artists working in geometric forms.” “CBs were also the first electronic component to have a visual appearance that was almost wholly abstracted from its function.”

the circuit board “became emblematic of the abstract, untouchable nature of the inner workings of electronic devices.”

Digital: expressed complicated numbers and numerical relations through a simple and irreducible symbolic system (abacus) vs. Analog: numbers and numerical relations expressed through a spatial relation that must be interpreted by person using device (slide rule)

IBM programmers in 1959 coined “bits” (binary digits) and bytes

Hollerith’s punch cards longest lasting data processing machines, 1880s through 1980s; his company eventually became IBM

telegraph code → paper tape code → ASCII → Unicode

“Artists redefined ‘the machine’ in visual terms that referenced its processes and products over its physicality.”

New computing industry’s “ur-product was no particular industrial application; rather, it was the capacity of electronic, digital machines to turn data into the new spun cloth of ‘information.’”

Voyager and Paglen’s “Last Pictures” in EchoStar satellite the nerve system of our “body”—space-based corpus has “allowed us to extend our human sensorium to a degree unimaginable without electronics.”

Terms bionics, electronics, avionics, nucleonics too different paths between public and industry use