Electronics' Future
July 1964 Radio-Electronics

July 1964 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

The Great Things in Electronics Are Still to Come

By Hugo Gernsback

Late last March, Prof. Seymour Melman of Columbia University made public certain important facts about the economic consequences of the contemplated long-term reduction in US armament.

His findings were so important that he presented them to Congress on March 24. They were part of a survey by the Seminar on Industrial Conversion of Columbia's Department of Industrial Engineering.

The gist of the report is that at the time of the announcement 67,000 professional engineers, technical and production workers as well as clerical personnel of 19 major defense and electronic concerns in 6 states had been laid off due to cut-backs and cost-cutting programs.

This is not surprising if we consider how much of today's military equipment is electronic and that more than 50% of the electronics industry's output is for defense.

Normally - if history had repeated itself - with the coming of peace at the end of World War II, the arms race should have terminated. But then came the Cold War, followed by the Korean war in 1950 to 1953. The Cold War - while it has abated - is still with us.

Washington, to be sure, long ago foresaw what was going to happen in the age of electronic decompression, in which we find ourselves now. When part of the second largest industry in the country, with annual sales of $16 billion a year, is slowed down, the consequences at best must be disastrous to many of its workers as well as employers.

As long ago as Dec. 21, 1963, Gardner Ackley of the Council of Economic Advisers was named by President Johnson to head a 10-man Committee on the Economic Impact of Defense and Disarmament.

The path of electronics for the past 60 years has by no means been smooth. It has been marked by periodic ups and downs, soaring booms and depressions. This is true for most industries, whether they be motor cars, oil or electronics.

The young radio industry received its first setback in 1917. This was before the US entered World War 1. Then, by Presidential decree, it became unlawful to operate any radio station. Nor could radio supplies be sold during the duration of the war, from April 6, 1917 to Nov. 11, 1918.

This was followed by the electronic construction boom of 1919 to about 1925, the so-called "set builder's" parts boom, the heyday of the radio components expansion, when the whole country was building every imaginable type of radio set - the first broadcasting boom.

Then the builder's boom collapsed, bringing in its wake the factory-made receiver. Where heretofore components brought fancy prices and vacuum tubes sold for as high as $12 apiece, many electronics manufacturers began to make parts themselves and the ensuing harsh competition lowered all component prices drastically.

Nevertheless, by 1929 the electronics industry had become much bigger than ever, in output as well as dollar value. Electronics had started to expand in all directions - communication, hundreds of different tubes, every imaginable type of radio receiver - industrial electronics.

In the meanwhile, in the late 1920's experimental television became a fact. It was first demonstrated by the present writer in August 1928 over his station WRNY in New York on a regulation broadcast wavelength of 362 meters (and shortwave of 30.91 meters). This was not television as we know it today - the resulting picture was postage-stamp size, and at first there was no sound. But the picture was clear and sharp.

Not until the late 1930's did the modern cathode-ray tube TV make its appearance. Before it could expand normally, World War II started for the US on Dec. 7, 1941. Few home TV (or radio) sets were made from then until the end of the war in 1945. After that, electronics grew at an unprecedented rate without letup until the early 1960's.

We felt it necessary to present this thumbnail sketch of electronic history to give the reader a better idea of the electronics economy and of its future.

In our opinion, the latter part of 1964 should see the end of the current devolution. This probably will be followed by the greatest electronic boom of all times.

What of the future?

End of Japanese Invasion

For a number of years, the Japanese have been inundating the US with low-priced, yet excellent electronic parts and sets with which we have been unable to compete. The value of Japanese imports amounts to $176 million per year.

Within the next year or two much of this traffic should stop, for one simple reason: microminiaturization. The art and our know-how, plus certain patents, now make the most electronic components obsolete. In the long run we probably can do better than the Japanese, particularly if our manufacturers go all out in automated microminiaturization.

Supermagnification

We will not conquer virus diseases until we really have electronic magnification at an atomic level. The cancer virus, if cancer is a virus disease, is invisible unless enlarged to where atoms become visible. We believe electronic super-magnification is now on the horizon. Vastly more powerful electromagnets such as used in electron microscopes, if energized by superconductors, could effect much higher magnification.

Miniature Television

Thanks to the Japanese, we now have small-scale portable TV sets. The smallest current Japanese model has a screen 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches. This, however, is comparatively large.

For the Christmas 1945 issue of the writer's booklet entitled Tame, the inside cover showed the picture of a proposed television wristwatch, the Teleview. In the center was a watch, to the left the TV screen, to the right the loud-speaker. The miniature screen showed a "magnilens" for enlarged viewing of the picture.

This is about as small as TV's are likely to get, except for even smaller medical ones that surgeons or doctors will soon insert into patients' bodies for diagnostic purposes.

Such miniature TV's will probably be manufactured not later than 1970. There will be a good demand for them by that time. The key, of course, is microminiaturization. These sets will not have bulky cathode-ray tubes. They will be replaced by a special vacuum-fluorescent screen.

Space Exploration

It is in future space exploration that electronics will earn its laurels. Up to now we really have not explored the vacuum of space seriously. We merely have been theorizing and preparing ourselves for the coming electronic onslaught on space.

The great wonders of space will come after 1970. Entirely new means of space propulsion, not even seriously considered today, are yet to come. And they will be electronic in part. They will be better and faster than the slow ionic means.

The Administration is now committed irrevocably to the serious exploration of space - the neighboring moon and the more distant planets. Our future destiny depends on it, just as the Old World's destiny depended on Columbus and others for the exploration of the New World in the 16th century.

More important, immense treasures - dozens of billions - will be poured into the coming space research, far more than electronics has ever before received from the Government. It will probably make electronics the greatest industry in the US.