Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles
from Popular Electronics,
published October 1954 - April 1985. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.
Item "B" cone
heater. Note that a live voltage is present on the heater coil!
This quiz from Popular Electronics
magazine challenges
(not too much, though) your knowledge of energy conversion in common devices. A few of
them might be unfamiliar to people born after about 1990, but even so, you've probably
seem them all at some point, especially if you are a regular RF Cafe visitor (meaning
you're probably smart). It won't be giving anything away by telling you that
item B is a heater that screws into a light bulb socket, and item F is a
phonograph stylus. Robert P. Balin constructed many quizzes of this kind in
the 1960s and 70s. A complete list of all the
Popular Electronics Quizzes is lower on this page.
Energy Conversion Quiz
By Robert P. Balin
Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but only changed from one form to another.
Some electrical and electronic devices do their jobs by changing energy from one form
(heat, light, chemical, magnetic, etc.) to another useful form. See if you can match
the devices (A-J) shown here with the input and out-put forms of energy (1-10) listed
below.
1 Chemical to Electrical ___
2 Electrical to Light ___
3 Heat to Electrical ___
4 Electrical to Acoustical ___
5 Light to Electrical ___
6 Electrical to Mechanical ___
7 Acoustical to Electrical ___
8 Electrical to Heat ___
9 Mechanical to Electrical ___
10 Magnetic to Electrical ___
See answers below.
Quizzes from vintage electronics magazines such as Popular
Electronics, Electronics-World, QST, and Radio News were published
over the years - some really simple and others not so simple. Robert P. Balin
created most of the quizzes for Popular Electronics. This is a listing
of all I have posted thus far.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools" in an AOL screen name web space totaling
2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide me with ready access to commonly needed
formulas and reference material while performing my work as an RF system and circuit
design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet) was largely an unknown entity at
the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity. Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps
while typing up your telephone line, and a nice lady's voice announced "You've Got
Mail" when a new message arrived...
All trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other rights of ownership to images
and text used on the RF Cafe website are hereby acknowledged.
