New technologies and the science
behind them have become very important in people’s lives while at the same time
being entirely incomprehensible to all but a few. And, the personal portable technologies are among
the most incomprehensible. Smart phones,
GPS, and digital cameras are just a few personal portables that most people
have no idea how they work, yet they rely on them to work when they want them
to. If they don’t they discard them and
replace them with the latest model.
Now a flashlight is a relatively
simple electrical device. Despite its
simplicity its invention didn’t occur until around 1900. Conrad Hubert received a US patent for
the flashlight in 1903. The invention
depended upon earlier inventions of the compact battery and miniature electric
light. Since it was designed for one
person and was portable it might be acknowledged as the first personal portable
electrical device. It was unquestionably
a useful invention and was the precursor of more complex portable electrical
devices.
It took another twenty years before
a second battery operated portable device was marketed to the public. The device was radio. David Sarnoff, the head of the Radio
Corporation of America (RCA), was a staunch propagator of the personal portable
radio. As early as 1922, he was credited
with proposing a portable radio. As
head of RCA he was instrumental in marketing a series of portable radios in the
mid1920s. Unfortunately, they were expensive,
heavy, and ahead of their time. And,
like today’s smart phones and handheld GPS devices, how the radio worked was a
mystery to most people at the time. Like
the simple flashlight the truly personal portable radio had to wait for the
invention of miniature components and efficient batteries.
Those inventions finally came along
in 1938. That year RCA introduced a line
of new compact vacuum tubes and an improved battery to power them. The first RCA product using the new tubes was
the BP-10 Personal Portable Radio. In
1939 the smallest full featured portable radio was the Majestic model 130. It was a three tube radio using conventional,
tubes for that time. In 1939 RCA was
also selling portable radios, but their radios were much larger.
Then in 1940 the new RCA tubes were
used by a number of radio companies to produce radios almost small enough to
fit it a very large pocket. Emerson,
Admiral, Westinghouse, and several others recognized the public’s desire for a
radio they could carry while in use. The
1940 offerings were a start, but still not enough of a good thing. The war intervened and after the war the
prewar radio designs were updated and again offered to the public with limited
success.
The 1940 RCA Personal
Radio on the left and a 1956 RCA Transistor Radio with a flashlight battery
shown for scale
Again, new inventions were needed
to bring the next big personal portable device.
It was again radio, a transistor radio.
The invention of the transistor in 1947 sparked the most significant
improvement in battery operated portable devices. Transistor radios, walkie talkies, and tape
recorders were all made truly portable and in some cases, pocket sized by
1960. Then things got interesting when
the portable devices became digital.
That started around 1970 with the introduction of pocket calculators and
digital watches. The digitization of
portable devices made some portable devices programmable. That quickly started with programmable hand
held calculators in 1971. From there the
number and types of personal portable devices exploded. Programmable Digital Assistants (PDAs), MP3
players, cellular phones, and hand held computers were gobbled up by the using
public. Still, only a few understood how
they worked and the science behind them.
Then a funny thing happened. The users were learning to “customize” these
portable devices. Since most
incorporated a digital processor they could be programmed not only by the manufacturer,
but by the user as well. The personal
portable electronics were becoming truly personal. Even the most casual user of the new portable
devices began to add, delete, and change the way their personal device
operated. It could be as simple as
changing the ring tone of a cellular phone or as complex as reprogramming a hand
held computer. At a minimum the users
were now truly interactive with their personal portable devices. And, they were now learning how to change the
functionality of their devices by changing the software. The users understood the software or at least
the programming aspect. There was no
need to understand how the digital device worked. The hardware and the science behind it were still
a mystery, but the users were truly interactive with their devices and many
learned how to make their devices do what they wanted by programming. User generated software became as complex as
the hardware. The public was no longer
ignorant of what mattered with their personal portable devices. The programming mattered and that’s what the
users understood and all that the users needed to understand.
Strangely, a flashlight is
interactive in that the user points the flashlight where wanted, while more
complex portable devices like radios, televisions, and MP3 players are
essentially passive, that is non interactive. It’s only the digital personal portable
devices along with the simple flashlight that are truly interactive.
