108-492: CompuServe Information Manager ( CIM ) was CompuServe Information Service 's client software, used with the company's Host Micro Interface ( HMI ). The program provided a GUI front end to the text-based CompuServe service that was at the time accessed using a standard terminal program with alphanumerical shortcuts. Issued at the same time as the GUI-only America Online began to grow in popularity, CIM
216-427: A Japanese-language version of CompuServe named NIFTY-Serve in 1989. In 1993, CompuServe Hong Kong was initiated as a joint venture with Hutchison Telecom and was able to acquire 50,000 customers before the dial-up ISP frenzy. Between 1994 and 1995 Fujitsu and CompuServe co-developed WorldsAway , an interactive virtual environment . As of 2014 the original virtual environment that began on CompuServe in 1995, known as
324-470: A mass-production basis, they opened the door for more compact devices. The first integrated circuits were the hybrid integrated circuit invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments in 1958 and the monolithic integrated circuit chip invented by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959. The MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at BTL in 1959. It
432-807: A professional body or an international standards organization. These include the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET, formerly the IEE). Electrical engineers work in a very wide range of industries and the skills required are likewise variable. These range from circuit theory to
540-489: A WH Smith book from the CompuServe facility. Approximately 1,000,000 UK customers had access to the shops at that time and it was British retailers' first major exposure to the medium. Other retailers joined the service soon after and included Sainsbury's Wine and Jaguar Cars (branded lifestyle goods). CompuServe UK commissioned writer Sue Schofield to produce a 'retail' pack including a new UK CompuServe Book and
648-566: A book from the WH Smith shop. This was a repeat of the first formal test of the service on February 9, 1995, which included secure payment and subsequent fulfilment of the order by Royal Mail postal delivery. Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), the UK's industry association for e-retailing, believes that the UK's first national shopping service secure online transaction was the purchase of
756-412: A clear distinction between magnetism and static electricity . He is credited with establishing the term "electricity". He also designed the versorium : a device that detects the presence of statically charged objects. In 1762 Swedish professor Johan Wilcke invented a device later named electrophorus that produced a static electric charge. By 1800 Alessandro Volta had developed the voltaic pile ,
864-526: A degree is usually four or five years and the completed degree may be designated as a Bachelor of Science in Electrical/Electronics Engineering Technology, Bachelor of Engineering , Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Technology , or Bachelor of Applied Science , depending on the university. The bachelor's degree generally includes units covering physics , mathematics, computer science , project management , and
972-525: A desktop application to connect online and check emails. In April 1995, CompuServe had more than three million members, still the largest online service provider, and began its NetLauncher service, providing WWW access capability via Spry , a Mosaic browser. AOL, however, introduced a much cheaper flat-rate, unlimited-time, advertisement-funded price plan in the US to compete with CompuServe's hourly charges. In conjunction with AOL's marketing campaigns, this caused
1080-415: A forerunner of the electric battery. In the 19th century, research into the subject started to intensify. Notable developments in this century include the work of Hans Christian Ørsted , who discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle; of William Sturgeon , who in 1825 invented the electromagnet ; of Joseph Henry and Edward Davy , who invented
1188-450: A free CD-ROM containing the CIS software to access the service. CompuServe, with its closed private network system, was slow to react to the rapid development of the open World Wide Web and it was not long before major UK retailers started to develop their own websites independently of CompuServe. The original CompuServe user identifiers consisted of seven octal digits in the form 7xxxx,xx –
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#17327805706801296-643: A general electronic component. The most common microelectronic components are semiconductor transistors , although all main electronic components ( resistors , capacitors etc.) can be created at a microscopic level. Nanoelectronics is the further scaling of devices down to nanometer levels. Modern devices are already in the nanometer regime, with below 100 nm processing having been standard since around 2002. Microelectronic components are created by chemically fabricating wafers of semiconductors such as silicon (at higher frequencies, compound semiconductors like gallium arsenide and indium phosphide) to obtain
1404-459: A huge number of specializations including hardware engineering, power electronics , electromagnetics and waves, microwave engineering , nanotechnology , electrochemistry , renewable energies, mechatronics/control, and electrical materials science. Electrical engineers typically hold a degree in electrical engineering, electronic or electrical and electronic engineering. Practicing engineers may have professional certification and be members of
1512-407: A large number—often millions—of tiny electrical components, mainly transistors , into a small chip around the size of a coin . This allowed for the powerful computers and other electronic devices we see today. Microelectronics engineering deals with the design and microfabrication of very small electronic circuit components for use in an integrated circuit or sometimes for use on their own as
1620-405: A legacy of PDP-10 architecture – (later eight and nine octal digits in the form 7xxxx,xxx and 7xxxx,xxxx and finally ten octal digits in the form 1xxxxx,xxxx) that were generated in advance and issued on printed "Snap Paks". From 1989, CompuServe users had email access to the internet, using their user ID in the form xxxxx.xxxx@compuserve.com – where the comma in the original ID was replaced with
1728-453: A number of online games . Around 1981, CompuServe introduced its CompuServe B protocol , a file-transfer protocol , allowing users to send files to each other. This was later expanded to the better-performance B+ version, intended for downloads from CIS itself. Although the B+ protocol was not widely supported by other software, it was used by default for some time by CIS itself. The B+ protocol
1836-464: A period. In 1996, users were allowed to create an alias for their internet e-mail address, which could also be used for a personal webpage; the longest-term members were allowed first choice of the new addresses. In 1998, users were offered the option of switching their mailbox to a newer system that provided POP3 access via the internet, so that any internet email program could be used. Current CompuServe email addresses look like XXXXXX@cs.com for users of
1944-409: A profession in the later 19th century. Practitioners had created a global electric telegraph network, and the first professional electrical engineering institutions were founded in the UK and the US to support the new discipline. Francis Ronalds created an electric telegraph system in 1816 and documented his vision of how the world could be transformed by electricity. Over 50 years later, he joined
2052-467: A search request". ) In 1992, CompuServe hosted the first known WYSIWYG e-mail content and forum posts. Fonts, colors and emoticons were encoded into 7-bit text-based messages via the third party product NavCIS (by Dvorak Development) operating with the operating systems DOS and Windows 3.1 , and later, Windows 95 . NavCIS included features for offline work, similar to offline readers used with bulletin board systems , allowing users to connect to
2160-411: A self-discovery mode. When a new switch was added to the network by connecting it to a neighbor via a leased telephone circuit, the new switch was discovered and absorbed into the network without explicit configuration. To change the network configuration, all that was needed was to add or remove connections, and the network would automatically reconfigure. The second feature implemented by Adaptive Routing
2268-467: A service providing application programs. The first of these new executives was Robert Tillson, who quit Service Bureau Corporation (then a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation , but originally formed as a division of IBM ) to become CompuServe's Executive Vice President of Marketing. He then recruited Charles McCall (who succeeded Jeff Wilkins as CEO, and later became CEO of the medical information company HBO & Co. ), Maury Cox (who became CEO after
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#17327805706802376-484: A significant loss of customers until CompuServe responded with a similar plan of its own at $ 24.95 per month in late 1997. As the World Wide Web grew in popularity with the general public, company after company terminated their once-busy CompuServe customer assistance forums to offer customer assistance to a larger audience directly through their own company websites , an activity which the CompuServe forums of
2484-492: A sub-brand of AOL. Oath was then divested as the new Yahoo! company in 2021. CompuServe was initiated during 1969 as Compu-Serv Network, Inc. in Columbus, Ohio , as a subsidiary of Golden United Life Insurance. Though Golden United founder Harry Gard Sr.'s son-in-law Jeffrey Wilkins is widely miscredited as the first president of CompuServe, its first president was actually John R. Goltz. Wilkins replaced Goltz as CEO within
2592-443: A subset of the system's functionality. In response, CIS decreased its hourly rates on several occasions. Subsequently, AOL switched to a monthly subscription instead of hourly rates, so for active users AOL was much less expensive. By late 1994, CompuServe was offering "unlimited use of the standard services (including news, sports, weather) ... and limited electronic mail" for $ 8.95 per month – what The New York Times called "probably
2700-499: A system for exchanging GIF files. In 1994, it was described as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the others are Prodigy and America Online )". They remained a major influence through the mid-1990s, but the rise of the internet and more modern systems like AOL led to it losing marketshare. In 1997, 17 years after H&R Block had acquired it, the parent company announced its desire to sell CIS. A complex deal
2808-426: A variety of industries. Electronic engineering involves the design and testing of electronic circuits that use the properties of components such as resistors , capacitors , inductors , diodes , and transistors to achieve a particular functionality. The tuned circuit , which allows the user of a radio to filter out all but a single station, is just one example of such a circuit. Another example to research
2916-506: A version of the Mosaic web browser . Later, CompuServe switched parts of its service over to its new binary protocol, Host Micro Interface. Unlike its predecessor, this new protocol was not usable directly via a telnet client thus requiring the use of specialised client software like CIM. Version 3.0 (CompuServe for Windows 3.0), in 1997, was intended to compete head-on with AOL, and was released amid an advertising campaign in which CompuServe
3024-470: Is a pneumatic signal conditioner. Prior to the Second World War, the subject was commonly known as radio engineering and basically was restricted to aspects of communications and radar , commercial radio , and early television . Later, in post-war years, as consumer devices began to be developed, the field grew to include modern television, audio systems, computers, and microprocessors . In
3132-444: Is an engineering discipline that deals with the convergence of electrical and mechanical systems. Such combined systems are known as electromechanical systems and have widespread adoption. Examples include automated manufacturing systems , heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems , and various subsystems of aircraft and automobiles . Electronic systems design is the subject within electrical engineering that deals with
3240-798: Is still important in the design of many control systems . DSP processor ICs are found in many types of modern electronic devices, such as digital television sets , radios, hi-fi audio equipment, mobile phones, multimedia players , camcorders and digital cameras, automobile control systems, noise cancelling headphones, digital spectrum analyzers , missile guidance systems, radar systems, and telematics systems. In such products, DSP may be responsible for noise reduction , speech recognition or synthesis , encoding or decoding digital media, wirelessly transmitting or receiving data, triangulating positions using GPS , and other kinds of image processing , video processing , audio processing , and speech processing . Instrumentation engineering deals with
3348-461: Is their power consumption as this is closely related to their signal strength . Typically, if the power of the transmitted signal is insufficient once the signal arrives at the receiver's antenna(s), the information contained in the signal will be corrupted by noise , specifically static. Control engineering focuses on the modeling of a diverse range of dynamic systems and the design of controllers that will cause these systems to behave in
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3456-567: Is very useful for energy transmission as well as for information transmission. These were also the first areas in which electrical engineering was developed. Today, electrical engineering has many subdisciplines, the most common of which are listed below. Although there are electrical engineers who focus exclusively on one of these subdisciplines, many deal with a combination of them. Sometimes, certain fields, such as electronic engineering and computer engineering , are considered disciplines in their own right. Power & Energy engineering deals with
3564-581: The Dreamscape , was still operating. During the late 1980s, it was possible to log on to CompuServe via worldwide X.25 packet switching networks, which bridged onto CompuServe's existing US-based network. It gradually introduced its own direct dial-up access network in many countries, a more economical solution. With its network expansion, CompuServe also extended the marketing of its commercial services, opening branches in London and Munich. CompuServe
3672-606: The Internet and World Wide Web , the United Kingdom's first national major-brands online shopping service was developed by the UK subsidiary of CompuServe/CIS as part of its proprietary closed-system collection of consumer services. Andrew Gray initiated CompuServe UK's operations as the European subsidiary of the US company during the late 1980s and later became the company's European general manager, while David Gilroy
3780-716: The World Wide Web . (Like the Web, many forums were managed by independent producers who then administered the forum and recruited moderators, termed sysops .) Among these were many in which computer hardware and software companies offered customer assistance . This broadened the audience from primarily business users to the technical " geek " crowd, some of whom had earlier used Byte Magazine ' s Bix online service . There were special forums, special groups, but many had "relatively large premiums" (as did "some premium data bases" with charges of "$ 7.50 each time you enter
3888-792: The Z3 , the world's first fully functional and programmable computer using electromechanical parts. In 1943, Tommy Flowers designed and built the Colossus , the world's first fully functional, electronic, digital and programmable computer. In 1946, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) of John Presper Eckert and John Mauchly followed, beginning the computing era. The arithmetic performance of these machines allowed engineers to develop completely new technologies and achieve new objectives. In 1948, Claude Shannon published "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" which mathematically describes
3996-548: The compression , error detection and error correction of digitally sampled signals. Signal processing is a very mathematically oriented and intensive area forming the core of digital signal processing and it is rapidly expanding with new applications in every field of electrical engineering such as communications, control, radar, audio engineering , broadcast engineering , power electronics, and biomedical engineering as many already existing analog systems are replaced with their digital counterparts. Analog signal processing
4104-658: The doubling of transistors on an IC chip every two years, predicted by Gordon Moore in 1965. Silicon-gate MOS technology was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968. Since then, the MOSFET has been the basic building block of modern electronics. The mass-production of silicon MOSFETs and MOS integrated circuit chips, along with continuous MOSFET scaling miniaturization at an exponential pace (as predicted by Moore's law ), has since led to revolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and thinking. The Apollo program which culminated in landing astronauts on
4212-520: The electrical relay in 1835; of Georg Ohm , who in 1827 quantified the relationship between the electric current and potential difference in a conductor ; of Michael Faraday , the discoverer of electromagnetic induction in 1831; and of James Clerk Maxwell , who in 1873 published a unified theory of electricity and magnetism in his treatise Electricity and Magnetism . In 1782, Georges-Louis Le Sage developed and presented in Berlin probably
4320-452: The generation , transmission , and distribution of electricity as well as the design of a range of related devices. These include transformers , electric generators , electric motors , high voltage engineering, and power electronics . In many regions of the world, governments maintain an electrical network called a power grid that connects a variety of generators together with users of their energy. Users purchase electrical energy from
4428-448: The transmission of information across a communication channel such as a coax cable , optical fiber or free space . Transmissions across free space require information to be encoded in a carrier signal to shift the information to a carrier frequency suitable for transmission; this is known as modulation . Popular analog modulation techniques include amplitude modulation and frequency modulation . The choice of modulation affects
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4536-833: The " CB Simulator ", a chat system that soon became one of CIS's most popular features. Instead of hiring employees to manage the forums, they contracted with systems operators (sysops), who received compensation based on the success of their own forum's boards, libraries, and chat areas. In July 1980, working with Associated Press , CompuServe began hosting text versions of the Columbus Dispatch , The New York Times , Virginian-Pilot and Ledger Star , The Washington Post , San Francisco Examiner , San Francisco Chronicle , and Los Angeles Times were added in 1981; additional newspapers followed. Although accessing articles in these newspapers comprised 5% of CompuServe's traffic, reading an entire newspaper using this method
4644-429: The 1850s had shown the relationship of different forms of electromagnetic radiation including the possibility of invisible airborne waves (later called "radio waves"). In his classic physics experiments of 1888, Heinrich Hertz proved Maxwell's theory by transmitting radio waves with a spark-gap transmitter , and detected them by using simple electrical devices. Other physicists experimented with these new waves and in
4752-405: The CompuServe 2000 service. Electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity , electronics , and electromagnetism . It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the latter half of the 19th century after the commercialization of the electric telegraph ,
4860-466: The DEC PDP-11 , and developed all the software that operated on the network. Often (and erroneously) termed an X.25 network, the CompuServe network implemented a mixture of standardized and proprietary layers throughout the network. One of the proprietary layers was termed Adaptive Routing. The Adaptive Routing system implemented two powerful features. One is that the network operated entirely in
4968-499: The MicroNET name in favor of its own, becoming CompuServe Information Service, or CIS. CIS' 1979 origin was approximately concurrent with that of The Source . By the mid-1980s, CompuServe was one of the largest information and networking services companies, and it was the largest consumer information service. It operated commercial branches in more than 30 US cities, selling primarily network services to major corporations throughout
5076-661: The Moon with Apollo 11 in 1969 was enabled by NASA 's adoption of advances in semiconductor electronic technology , including MOSFETs in the Interplanetary Monitoring Platform (IMP) and silicon integrated circuit chips in the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). The development of MOS integrated circuit technology in the 1960s led to the invention of the microprocessor in the early 1970s. The first single-chip microprocessor
5184-580: The Royal Academy of Natural Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. Salva's electrolyte telegraph system was very innovative though it was greatly influenced by and based upon two discoveries made in Europe in 1800—Alessandro Volta's electric battery for generating an electric current and William Nicholson and Anthony Carlyle's electrolysis of water. Electrical telegraphy may be considered the first example of electrical engineering. Electrical engineering became
5292-522: The United States (and later, in other countries) and interconnected. Over time, the CompuServe network evolved into a complicated multi-tiered network incorporating Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame Relay (FR), Internet Protocol (IP) and X.25 technologies. In 1981, The Times explained CompuServe's technology in one sentence: CompuServe is offering a video-text-like service permitting personal computer users to retrieve software from
5400-400: The United States. Consumer accounts could be bought in most computer stores (a box with an instruction manual and a trial account login) and this service was well known to the public. By 1987, consumer business would provide 50% of CompuServe revenues. The corporate culture was entrepreneurial, encouraging " skunkworks projects ". Alexander "Sandy" Trevor secluded himself for a weekend, writing
5508-558: The amplifier tube, called the triode . In 1920, Albert Hull developed the magnetron which would eventually lead to the development of the microwave oven in 1946 by Percy Spencer . In 1934, the British military began to make strides toward radar (which also uses the magnetron) under the direction of Dr Wimperis, culminating in the operation of the first radar station at Bawdsey in August 1936. In 1941, Konrad Zuse presented
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#17327805706805616-815: The applications of computer engineering. Photonics and optics deals with the generation, transmission, amplification, modulation, detection, and analysis of electromagnetic radiation . The application of optics deals with design of optical instruments such as lenses , microscopes , telescopes , and other equipment that uses the properties of electromagnetic radiation. Other prominent applications of optics include electro-optical sensors and measurement systems, lasers , fiber-optic communication systems, and optical disc systems (e.g. CD and DVD). Photonics builds heavily on optical technology, supplemented with modern developments such as optoelectronics (mostly involving semiconductors ), laser systems, optical amplifiers and novel materials (e.g. metamaterials ). Mechatronics
5724-623: The best deal." CIS's number of users grew, maximizing in April 1995 at 3 million worldwide. By this time AOL had more than 20 million users in the United States alone, but this was less than their maximum of 27 million, due to customers quitting for lesser-cost offerings. By 1997 the number of users quitting all online services for dial-up Internet service providers was reaching a climax. In 1997, CompuServe began converting its forums from its proprietary Host-Micro Interface (HMI) to HTML web standards. The 1997 change discontinued text based access to
5832-512: The central multiplexers in Columbus were replaced with PDP-8 minicomputers, and the PDP-8s were connected to a DEC PDP-15 minicomputer that acted as switches so a telephone number was not tied to a particular destination host. Finally, in 1977, CompuServe developed its own packet switching network, implemented by DEC PDP-11 minicomputers acting as network nodes that were installed throughout
5940-458: The computer time-sharing industry, by renting time on its PDP-10 midrange computers during business hours , mainly to other businesses. It was divested as a separate company during 1975, trading on the NASDAQ using the symbol CMPU. Concurrently, the company recruited executives who changed the emphasis from offering time-sharing services, for which customers wrote their own applications, to
6048-413: The cost and performance of a system and these two factors must be balanced carefully by the engineer. Once the transmission characteristics of a system are determined, telecommunication engineers design the transmitters and receivers needed for such systems. These two are sometimes combined to form a two-way communication device known as a transceiver . A key consideration in the design of transmitters
6156-519: The curvature of the Earth. Marconi later transmitted the wireless signals across the Atlantic between Poldhu, Cornwall , and St. John's, Newfoundland , a distance of 2,100 miles (3,400 km). Millimetre wave communication was first investigated by Jagadish Chandra Bose during 1894–1896, when he reached an extremely high frequency of up to 60 GHz in his experiments. He also introduced
6264-506: The departure of McCall), and Robert Massey (who succeeded Cox as CEO). In 1977, CompuServe's board changed the company's name to CompuServe Incorporated. In 1979, it began "offering a dial-up online information service to consumers". In May 1980, at which time Compuserve had fewer than 1,000 subscribers to its consumer information service, H&R Block acquired the company for $ 25 million and within four years had grown its subscriber base to about 110,000. The original 1969 dial-up technology
6372-500: The design of devices to measure physical quantities such as pressure , flow , and temperature. The design of such instruments requires a good understanding of physics that often extends beyond electromagnetic theory . For example, flight instruments measure variables such as wind speed and altitude to enable pilots the control of aircraft analytically. Similarly, thermocouples use the Peltier-Seebeck effect to measure
6480-561: The design of new hardware . Computer engineers may also work on a system's software. However, the design of complex software systems is often the domain of software engineering, which is usually considered a separate discipline. Desktop computers represent a tiny fraction of the devices a computer engineer might work on, as computer-like architectures are now found in a range of embedded devices including video game consoles and DVD players . Computer engineers are involved in many hardware and software aspects of computing. Robots are one of
6588-577: The desired manner. To implement such controllers, electronics control engineers may use electronic circuits , digital signal processors , microcontrollers , and programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of commercial airliners to the cruise control present in many modern automobiles . It also plays an important role in industrial automation . Control engineers often use feedback when designing control systems . For example, in an automobile with cruise control
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#17327805706806696-420: The desired transport of electronic charge and control of current. The field of microelectronics involves a significant amount of chemistry and material science and requires the electronic engineer working in the field to have a very good working knowledge of the effects of quantum mechanics . Signal processing deals with the analysis and manipulation of signals . Signals can be either analog , in which case
6804-507: The first Department of Electrical Engineering in the United States. In the same year, University College London founded the first chair of electrical engineering in Great Britain. Professor Mendell P. Weinbach at University of Missouri established the electrical engineering department in 1886. Afterwards, universities and institutes of technology gradually started to offer electrical engineering programs to their students all over
6912-587: The first year of operation. Goltz and Wilkins were both graduate students of electrical engineering at the University of Arizona . Other early recruits from the same University included Sandy Trevor (inventor of the CompuServe CB Simulator chat system), Doug Chinnock, and Larry Shelley. The company's objectives were twofold: to provide in-house computer processing for Golden United Life Insurance; and to develop as an independent business in
7020-415: The forums, but the forums were accessible both through the web as well as through CompuServe's proprietary HMI protocol. In 2004 CompuServe discontinued HMI and converted the forums to web access only. The forums remained active on CompuServe.com until the end of 2017. CompuServe made a number of acquisitions in its history, both before and after being acquired by H&R Block: Before the widespread use of
7128-583: The future it is hoped the devices will help build tiny implantable medical devices and improve optical communication . In aerospace engineering and robotics , an example is the most recent electric propulsion and ion propulsion. Electrical engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in electrical engineering, electronics engineering , electrical engineering technology , or electrical and electronic engineering. The same fundamental principles are taught in all programs, though emphasis may vary according to title. The length of study for such
7236-533: The grid, avoiding the costly exercise of having to generate their own. Power engineers may work on the design and maintenance of the power grid as well as the power systems that connect to it. Such systems are called on-grid power systems and may supply the grid with additional power, draw power from the grid, or do both. Power engineers may also work on systems that do not connect to the grid, called off-grid power systems, which in some cases are preferable to on-grid systems. Telecommunications engineering focuses on
7344-458: The international standardization of the units volt , ampere , coulomb , ohm , farad , and henry . This was achieved at an international conference in Chicago in 1893. The publication of these standards formed the basis of future advances in standardization in various industries, and in many countries, the definitions were immediately recognized in relevant legislation. During these years,
7452-426: The largest selection of local dial-up telephone connections in the world, in an era when network usage charges were expensive, but still less than long-distance charges. Other networks permitted CompuServe access to still more locations, including international locations, usually with substantial connect-time surcharges. It was common during the early 1980s to pay a $ 30-per-hour charge to connect to CompuServe, which at
7560-516: The mainframe computer over telephone lines. The New York Times described them as "the most international of the Big Three" and noted that "it can be reached by a local phone call in more than 700 cities". CompuServe was also a vendor of other commercial services. One of these was the Financial Services group, which collected and consolidated financial data from myriad data feeds, including CompuStat , Disclosure, I/B/E/S as well as
7668-399: The management skills of a project manager . The tools and equipment that an individual engineer may need are similarly variable, ranging from a simple voltmeter to sophisticated design and manufacturing software. Electricity has been a subject of scientific interest since at least the early 17th century. William Gilbert was a prominent early electrical scientist, and was the first to draw
7776-446: The mid-to-late 1950s, the term radio engineering gradually gave way to the name electronic engineering . Before the invention of the integrated circuit in 1959, electronic circuits were constructed from discrete components that could be manipulated by humans. These discrete circuits consumed much space and power and were limited in speed, although they are still common in some applications. By contrast, integrated circuits packed
7884-511: The multi-disciplinary design issues of complex electrical and mechanical systems. The term mechatronics is typically used to refer to macroscopic systems but futurists have predicted the emergence of very small electromechanical devices. Already, such small devices, known as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), are used in automobiles to tell airbags when to deploy, in digital projectors to create sharper images, and in inkjet printers to create nozzles for high definition printing. In
7992-487: The name InfoPlex, and was also a pioneer of the real-time chat market with its CB Simulator service introduced on February 21, 1980, as the first public, commercial multi-user chat program. Introduced in 1985, EaasySABRE, a customer-accessible extension of the Sabre travel system, made it possible for individuals to find and book airline flights and hotel rooms without the help of a travel agent . CompuServe also introduced
8100-519: The new Society of Telegraph Engineers (soon to be renamed the Institution of Electrical Engineers ) where he was regarded by other members as the first of their cohort. By the end of the 19th century, the world had been forever changed by the rapid communication made possible by the engineering development of land-lines, submarine cables , and, from about 1890, wireless telegraphy . Practical applications and advances in such fields created an increasing need for standardized units of measure . They led to
8208-525: The passage of information with uncertainty ( electrical noise ). The first working transistor was a point-contact transistor invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain while working under William Shockley at the Bell Telephone Laboratories (BTL) in 1947. They then invented the bipolar junction transistor in 1948. While early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on
8316-538: The price and quote feeds from the major exchanges. CompuServe developed extensive screening and reporting programs that were used by many investment banks on Wall Street . In 1979, Radio Shack marketed the residential information service MicroNET, in which home users accessed the computers during evening hours when the CompuServe computers were otherwise idle. This was a success and CompuServe began to advertize it more widely, as "MicroNET, CompuServe's Personal Computing Division". Its success prompted CompuServe to disuse
8424-401: The process developed devices for transmitting and detecting them. In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi began work on a way to adapt the known methods of transmitting and detecting these "Hertzian waves" into a purpose-built commercial wireless telegraphic system. Early on, he sent wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles. In December 1901, he sent wireless waves that were not affected by
8532-439: The service and exchange new mail and forum content in a largely automated fashion. Once the "run" was complete, the user edited their messages locally while offline. The system also allowed interactive navigation of the system to support services like the chat system. Many of these services remained text based. CompuServe later introduced CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) to compete more directly with AOL. Unlike Navigator, CIM
8640-456: The service. CompuServe dominated the industry during the 1980s, buying their competitor The Source. At its peak during the early 1990s, CIS had an online chat system , message forums for a variety of topics, extensive software libraries for most personal computers, and a series of popular online games , including MegaWars III and Island of Kesmai . It introduced the GIF format for pictures and
8748-425: The signal varies continuously according to the information, or digital , in which case the signal varies according to a series of discrete values representing the information. For analog signals, signal processing may involve the amplification and filtering of audio signals for audio equipment or the modulation and demodulation of signals for telecommunications. For digital signals, signal processing may involve
8856-411: The study of electricity was largely considered to be a subfield of physics since early electrical technology was considered electromechanical in nature. The Technische Universität Darmstadt founded the world's first department of electrical engineering in 1882 and introduced the first-degree course in electrical engineering in 1883. The first electrical engineering degree program in the United States
8964-461: The telephone, and electrical power generation, distribution, and use. Electrical engineering is divided into a wide range of different fields, including computer engineering , systems engineering , power engineering , telecommunications , radio-frequency engineering , signal processing , instrumentation , photovoltaic cells , electronics , and optics and photonics . Many of these disciplines overlap with other engineering branches, spanning
9072-444: The temperature difference between two points. Often instrumentation is not used by itself, but instead as the sensors of larger electrical systems. For example, a thermocouple might be used to help ensure a furnace's temperature remains constant. For this reason, instrumentation engineering is often viewed as the counterpart of control. Computer engineering deals with the design of computers and computer systems . This may involve
9180-478: The theoretical basis of alternating current engineering. The spread in the use of AC set off in the United States what has been called the war of the currents between a George Westinghouse backed AC system and a Thomas Edison backed DC power system, with AC being adopted as the overall standard. During the development of radio , many scientists and inventors contributed to radio technology and electronics. The mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell during
9288-602: The time cost $ 5 to $ 6 per hour before factoring in the connection-time surcharges. This resulted in the company being nicknamed CompuSpend , Compu$ erve or CI$ . CNS has been the primary supplier of dial-up communications for credit-card authorizations for more than 20 years, a competence developed as a result of its long-time relationship with Visa International . At the peak of this type of business, CompuServe transmitted millions of authorization transactions each month, representing several billion dollars of consumer purchase transactions. For many businesses an always-on connection
9396-471: The time could not address because they did not yet have universal WWW access. In 1992, CompuServe acquired Mark Cuban 's company, MicroSolutions, for $ 6 million. AOL's entry into the PC market in 1991 marked the beginning of the end for CIS. AOL charged $ 2.95 an hour versus $ 5.00 an hour for CompuServe. AOL used a freely available graphical user interface -based client; CompuServe's wasn't free, and it only had
9504-424: The use of semiconductor junctions to detect radio waves, when he patented the radio crystal detector in 1901. In 1897, Karl Ferdinand Braun introduced the cathode-ray tube as part of an oscilloscope , a crucial enabling technology for electronic television . John Fleming invented the first radio tube, the diode , in 1904. Two years later, Robert von Lieben and Lee De Forest independently developed
9612-557: The use of transformers , developed rapidly in the 1880s and 1890s with transformer designs by Károly Zipernowsky , Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri (later called ZBD transformers), Lucien Gaulard , John Dixon Gibbs and William Stanley Jr. Practical AC motor designs including induction motors were independently invented by Galileo Ferraris and Nikola Tesla and further developed into a practical three-phase form by Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky and Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown . Charles Steinmetz and Oliver Heaviside contributed to
9720-485: The vehicle's speed is continuously monitored and fed back to the system which adjusts the motor's power output accordingly. Where there is regular feedback, control theory can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback. Control engineers also work in robotics to design autonomous systems using control algorithms which interpret sensory feedback to control actuators that move robots such as autonomous vehicles , autonomous drones and others used in
9828-414: The world's first form of electric telegraphy , using 24 different wires, one for each letter of the alphabet. This telegraph connected two rooms. It was an electrostatic telegraph that moved gold leaf through electrical conduction. In 1795, Francisco Salva Campillo proposed an electrostatic telegraph system. Between 1803 and 1804, he worked on electrical telegraphy, and in 1804, he presented his report at
9936-560: The world. During these decades the use of electrical engineering increased dramatically. In 1882, Thomas Edison switched on the world's first large-scale electric power network that provided 110 volts— direct current (DC)—to 59 customers on Manhattan Island in New York City. In 1884, Sir Charles Parsons invented the steam turbine allowing for more efficient electric power generation. Alternating current , with its ability to transmit power more efficiently over long distances via
10044-956: Was CompuServe's UK director of customer services. The service continued to grow and offered technical assistance managed by Suzanne Gautier and sales managed by Colin Campbell. The service was proposed by Paul Stanfield, an independent business-to-consumer electronic commerce consultant, to Martin Turner, Product Marketing Director for CIS UK, in August 1994. Turner agreed and the project started in September with rapid market research, product development and sales of online space to major UK retail and catalogue companies. These included WH Smith , Tesco , Virgin / Our Price , Great Universal Stores/ GUS , Interflora , Dixons Retail , Past Times, PC World (retailer) and Innovations. The service began on Thursday April 27, 1995, with Paul Stanfield's purchase of
10152-589: Was a luxury of the NavCIS , AutoSIG and TapCIS applications for power users . CIS users could purchase services and software from other CompuServe members using their CompuServe account, something Internet users could not do until the NSFNET lifted the prohibition on commercial Internet use in 1989. During the early 1990s, the hourly rate decreased from more than $ 10 per hour to $ 1.95 per hour. In March 1992, it began online signups with credit card based payments and
10260-516: Was adapted for online work, and used a point-and-click interface very similar to AOLs. Later versions interacted with the hosts using the HMI communications protocol. For some types of service which were not compatible with HMI, the older text-based interface could be used. WinCIM also allowed caching of forum messages, news articles and e-mail, so that reading and posting could be performed offline, without incurring hourly connection costs. Previously, this
10368-441: Was an American online service , the first major commercial one in the world. It opened in 1969 as a timesharing and remote access service marketed to corporations. After a successful 1979 venture selling otherwise under-utilized after-hours time to Radio Shack customers, the system was opened to the public, roughly the same time as The Source . H&R Block bought the company in 1980 and began to more aggressively advertise
10476-411: Was an extravagance, and a dial-up option made better sense. This service presently remains in operation, as part of Verizon (see below). There are no other competitors remaining in this market. The company was notable for introducing a number of online services to personal computer users. CompuServe began offering electronic mail capabilities and technical support to commercial customers in 1978 using
10584-419: Was available for MS-DOS ("DOSCIM"), Microsoft Windows ("WinCIM"), Macintosh ("MacCIM"), and OS/2 ("CIM for OS/2") and allowed access to CompuServe's features, such as its forums, chat, e-mail, and messaging facilities; these continued to be accessible via standard communications software using alphanumeric shortcuts. The first versions were released in around 1990. Version 2.0.1, released in 1994, included
10692-558: Was briefly re-branded as "CSi". After CompuServe was purchased by AOL in 1998, CompuServe began providing CompuServe branded versions of the AOL client software known as CompuServe 2000 and CompuServe 7 and its protocols as a way to access the service. However, it remained possible to connect to WinCIM via HMI, which became known as the "CompuServe Classic" service. CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. ( CompuServe Information Service, Inc. , also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi )
10800-404: Was devised with WorldCom acting as a broker, resulting in CIS being sold to AOL. In 2015, Verizon acquired AOL, including its CompuServe division. In 2017, after Verizon completed its acquisition of Yahoo! , CompuServe became part of Verizon's newly formed subsidiary Oath Inc. At the time, the remaining original parts of CIS were closed down, leaving it only as an internet service provider and
10908-487: Was fairly simple—the local telephone number in Cleveland, for example, was a line connected to a time-division multiplexer that connected via a leased line to a matched multiplexer in Columbus that was connected to a time-sharing host system. In the earliest buildups, each line terminated at a single machine of CompuServe's host service, so that one dialed different telephone numbers to reach different computers. Later,
11016-520: Was impractical; the text of a $ 0.20 print edition newspaper would take two to six hours to download at a cost of $ 5 per hour (after 6 p.m.). Another major unit of CompuServe, the CompuServe Network Services, was formed in 1982 to generate revenue by selling connectivity to the nationwide packet network CompuServe had built to support its time-sharing service. CompuServe designed and manufactured its own network processors, based on
11124-611: Was later extended to include the Host-Micro Interface (HMI), a mechanism for communicating commands and transaction requests to a server application operating on the mainframes. HMI could be used by "front end" client software to present a GUI -based interface to CIS, without having to use the error-prone CLI to route commands. CompuServe began to expand its business operations outside the United States. It began in Japan in 1986 with Fujitsu and Nissho Iwai , and developed
11232-635: Was often discussed by network engineers, but was implemented only by CNS – establishing connection paths on the basis of real-time performance measurements. As one circuit became busy, traffic was diverted to alternative paths to prevent overloading and poor performance for users. While the CNS network was not itself based on the X.25 protocol, the network presented a standard X.25 interface to customers, providing dial-up connectivity to corporate hosts, and allowing CompuServe to form alliances with private networks Tymnet and Telenet , among others. This gave CompuServe
11340-489: Was started at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the physics department under Professor Charles Cross, though it was Cornell University to produce the world's first electrical engineering graduates in 1885. The first course in electrical engineering was taught in 1883 in Cornell's Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanic Arts . In about 1885, Cornell President Andrew Dickson White established
11448-458: Was the Intel 4004 , released in 1971. The Intel 4004 was designed and realized by Federico Faggin at Intel with his silicon-gate MOS technology, along with Intel's Marcian Hoff and Stanley Mazor and Busicom's Masatoshi Shima. The microprocessor led to the development of microcomputers and personal computers, and the microcomputer revolution . One of the properties of electricity is that it
11556-409: Was the first online service to offer Internet connectivity, albeit with limited access, as early as 1989, when it connected its proprietary e-mail service to allow incoming and outgoing messages to be exchanged with Internet-based e-mail addresses. During the early 1990s, CompuServe had hundreds of thousands of users visiting its thousands of moderated forums, forerunners to the discussion sites of
11664-474: Was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. It revolutionized the electronics industry , becoming the most widely used electronic device in the world. The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuit chips. The earliest experimental MOS IC chip to be fabricated was built by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA Laboratories in 1962. MOS technology enabled Moore's law ,
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