by Blaine McCormick and Paul Israel

Thomas Edison is remembered more as an inventive genius than as a businessman. Some may know he was granted more patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office than any other person, 1,093 patents to be exact. Fewer know that he also started over 100 businesses and partnerships, some of which survive to this day. Edison is known around the world for inventing a practical and commercially successful incandescent electric light bulb. However, Edison also invented (or helped invent) entire industries, including the electric, music, motion picture, and battery industries. We will look at how Edison succeeded as an inventor primarily because he was better than his competitors at marshaling the forces and institutions of business. (more…)

Sixty years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper on the theory of radio frequency transformers by Harry Diamond and E.Z. Stowell. Diamond, for whom the Harry Diamond Memorial Award of the IEEE is named, was employed at the National Bureau of Standards in 1928. Stowell recently had joined the Federal Telegraph Company in Palo Alto, CA, after working at the Bureau of Standards. from 1924 to 1927. (more…)

By Frederik Nebeker

As 2004 draws toward a close, we celebrate the birthdays of two pioneers of electromechanical calculating: John Henry Patterson, who made the cash register a ubiquitous device, and William Burroughs, who invented the recording adding machine. (more…)