The milestones switch from journal articles to corporate press releases at some point.
They miss the vibrant and interesting marketplace technology transitions.
I can think of several marketplace transitions that were never journal articles nor corporate press releases:
The conversion of home/personal sized computers from linear power supplies to switchers.
The widespread eventual total conversion of home appliance-type wall warts from transformer based linear supplies to switchers.
The conversion of radar from multi-KW pulsed magnetron to multi-watt solid state doppler.
"Successful" deployment of multiple trunking-style public safety radio networks.
Generally speaking the widespread conversion of personal electronic appliances from vacuum tube to transistor
The personal appliance transition from barrier-strip and point-to-point wiring technologies to PCB
The two marketplace transitions from memory limited sprite based video displays in the 6502 era to early VGA era simple large memory backed bitmaps back to very complicated parallelized 3d accelerated video cards.
The gradual marketplace conversion from simple voice phone in-band signaling to computerized out of band signaling from the 70s thru 90s. And I suppose the later marketplace conversion to voip.
The marketplace conversion from computer full control front panels pre 1980 to various post 1980 mass storage bootstrap systems still used today.
The marketplace era of closed source compilers, IDEs, languages, etc. There was a day back when you'd have to pay $5000 to compile Fortran and you liked it. Now the idea of paying anything for a compiler looks weird to most devs.
The marketplace conversion from 4:3 squarish video to widescreen and the GUI designs that still haven't caught on to wide-screen-ness in the 2020s...
Is it correct to interpret this as the IEEE not recognizing any milestones since 1994? They have a list of items being considered, but such a large gap makes me think the milestones program is one of IEEEs low priority, nearly forgotten activities.
I was surprised to see Ben Franklin as the first milestone. As an American I knew of the famous kite flying story, but I assumed he was merely a wealthy hobbyist. I didn’t realize his experiments were important enough to be considered a milestone much less the first milestone.
The experiments of Franklin are an important milestone, but they should have not been the first.
The first milestone should have been the invention of the electrostatic generator (first in 1663 by Otto von Guericke, then several improved types during the next century).
The availability of the electrostatic generators was the event that started the rapid evolution of the science and technology of electricity and magnetism.
Until the electrostatic generators, during 2 millennia, the knowledge about electricity and magnetism consisted just in being aware of the same 5 phenomena that were well known to the Ancient Greeks, i.e. the attractive properties of magnetite, amber and tourmaline (which is pyroelectric), and the stunning effects of electric fishes (2 were known in antiquity: torpedo and electric catfish) and of the lightnings.
After the appearance of the electrostatic generators, doing electric experiments became a fashionable activity for many educated people and there was an avalanche of discoveries that advanced very quickly the science of electricity.
After the invention of the electrostatic generators the most important milestone was one present in the IEEE list, the invention of the electric battery by Volta.
The experiments with electrostatic generators were limited by the impossibility of providing continuous electrical currents.
That became possible with the Volta battery, which started the second avalanche of discoveries, including such important things like the connections between electricity and magnetism.
While the experiments of Franklin were indeed a milestone, especially because of his definitions of the positive and negative electricities, without electrostatic generators he would have never done any experiments.
Franklin was first to propose a way of proving that lightning was an electrical phenomenon. It was actually Thomas-François Dalibard who was first to run the experiment (a month before the famous kite experiment by Franklin), but Dalibard based his version of the experiment on a proposal by Franklin, so Franklin is properly credited.
I thought this was common knowledge, but now I'm thinking it is because I grew up near Philadelphia and have been to the Franklin institute many times.
Also recommended: A visit to the Benjamin Franklin Museum in Philadelphia where they have reproductions of equipment Benjamin used to experiment (end to entertain guests) with electricity, such as a Leyden jar and voltaic cells.
Readit News
They miss the vibrant and interesting marketplace technology transitions.
I can think of several marketplace transitions that were never journal articles nor corporate press releases:
The conversion of home/personal sized computers from linear power supplies to switchers.
The widespread eventual total conversion of home appliance-type wall warts from transformer based linear supplies to switchers.
The conversion of radar from multi-KW pulsed magnetron to multi-watt solid state doppler.
"Successful" deployment of multiple trunking-style public safety radio networks.
Generally speaking the widespread conversion of personal electronic appliances from vacuum tube to transistor
The personal appliance transition from barrier-strip and point-to-point wiring technologies to PCB
The two marketplace transitions from memory limited sprite based video displays in the 6502 era to early VGA era simple large memory backed bitmaps back to very complicated parallelized 3d accelerated video cards.
The gradual marketplace conversion from simple voice phone in-band signaling to computerized out of band signaling from the 70s thru 90s. And I suppose the later marketplace conversion to voip.
The marketplace conversion from computer full control front panels pre 1980 to various post 1980 mass storage bootstrap systems still used today.
The marketplace era of closed source compilers, IDEs, languages, etc. There was a day back when you'd have to pay $5000 to compile Fortran and you liked it. Now the idea of paying anything for a compiler looks weird to most devs.
The marketplace conversion from 4:3 squarish video to widescreen and the GUI designs that still haven't caught on to wide-screen-ness in the 2020s...
From the guidelines on milestones, linked near the top of the page. Given that, it’s at most behind by 2 years now.
The first milestone should have been the invention of the electrostatic generator (first in 1663 by Otto von Guericke, then several improved types during the next century).
The availability of the electrostatic generators was the event that started the rapid evolution of the science and technology of electricity and magnetism.
Until the electrostatic generators, during 2 millennia, the knowledge about electricity and magnetism consisted just in being aware of the same 5 phenomena that were well known to the Ancient Greeks, i.e. the attractive properties of magnetite, amber and tourmaline (which is pyroelectric), and the stunning effects of electric fishes (2 were known in antiquity: torpedo and electric catfish) and of the lightnings.
After the appearance of the electrostatic generators, doing electric experiments became a fashionable activity for many educated people and there was an avalanche of discoveries that advanced very quickly the science of electricity.
After the invention of the electrostatic generators the most important milestone was one present in the IEEE list, the invention of the electric battery by Volta.
The experiments with electrostatic generators were limited by the impossibility of providing continuous electrical currents.
That became possible with the Volta battery, which started the second avalanche of discoveries, including such important things like the connections between electricity and magnetism.
While the experiments of Franklin were indeed a milestone, especially because of his definitions of the positive and negative electricities, without electrostatic generators he would have never done any experiments.
https://www.nps.gov/inde/planyourvisit/benjaminfranklinmuseu...
http://ethw.org/Milestones:Milestones_selfies
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