It was electricity in the beginning. The people were happy because they did not recognize that it was all around them and could be consumed. That was good. Then Faraday came and established a “missile” Launchpad.
The initial machines using a new sort of energy came into the picture. An extensive time has passed since then and just when the people lastly got habituated to them and stopped giving response to what a novel generation of experts were doing, someone got a spark of an idea that electrons could be a very appropriate “puppet” if we close it in a glass pipe. It was amazing idea initially, but there wasn’t any yield. Electronics was born and the “missile” kept on reaching the sky faster and faster.
A new knowledge – a new learning - new experts. People were getting to know what electronics is. While the rest of humankind were inertly watching in distrust what was going on, the strategists split in two groups - “hardware-oriented” and “software-oriented”. Somewhat younger than their teachers, very excited and full of ideas, both of them kept on working but separate ways. While the first group was developing constantly and gradually, the hardware-oriented folks, driven by achievement, threw caution to the wind and invented transistors. Up till that time, the things were more or less kept under control, but a broad marketing was not aware of what was going on, which soon led to a fatal error! Being innocent in belief that discounted tricks could ramp down technology development and growth of the world and regain the good all days, mass market welcomed the products of Electronics Industry, thus closing a magic loop. A rapid fall in prices made these components accessible for a great variety of people. Now, the “missile” was flying freely.
The first integrated circuits and processors were discovered, which caused computers and other electronics products to drop down in price even further. They could be purchased anywhere. Another loop was closed! Common people got hold of computers and computing era was originated. While this spectacle was going on, professionals and hobbyists, also split in two groups and protected by anonymity, were working hard on their projects. Then, they though to make a universal component that is cheap, easily programmable, and can be used in any field of electronics wherever needed. They thought, technology has been developed enough as well as the market. Why not? So it happened, body and spirit were united and the first integrated circuit was designed and called the microcontroller.
The separation between hardware and software oriented people was now being reduced and the invention of Microcontroller was not enough, they started to build the rapid prototyping boards including the powerful microprocessors with the invention of rapid prototyping boards such as Arduino. The hobbyist world and hacker world got a new tool to play. Along with this hardware world, the Linux had got evolved a lot and people thought to make a rapid prototyping board powered by Linux. The new era in the computing begun. Now, people were talking about the single board embedded computers and then comes the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone with powerful processor and enough memory to compute and store the data. Software oriented people got an easy access to the hardware built-in libraries, rapidly growing wireless technology and developed the multiple projects so rapidly that we are seeing the Internet of Things era today to connect everything around us. Numerous types of single board embedded computers were designed and they quickly became man's invisible companion. A simple software able to control it all and which everyone can easily learn about has been developed. Their incredible simplicity and flexibility conquered us a long time ago and if you try to invent something about them, you should be knowing that you are perhaps late, someone before you has either done it or at least has tried to do it.
It’s sometimes hard to believe that only 60 years ago, computers were rare and were not available for the wider public. It wasn't until the '80s that computers arrived our homes and - thanks to the microprocessor - really made an impact on the average person's life. Nowadays, modern microprocessors can perform extremely sophisticated operations in areas such as aviation, engineering, meteorology, nuclear physics and, take up small space as well as providing greater performance.
Still, end of the universe (sky? really?) is the limit. Lets see where we reach. Till then, lets keep developing the technology and serve the world for a better cause.
Stats Courtesy: www.microe.com
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Raspberry Pi Sensors
Integrate sensors into your Raspberry Pi projects and let your powerful microcomputer interact with the physical world
