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As amazing as the strides the broadcast industry has made in “the theater of human interaction” (aka “modern media”), we can’t just look at where we are now and congratulate ourselves on the lofty heights we have attained. As Isaac Newton would say: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” It’s always bothered me whenever someone makes some sort of list like: “The most insert subject here of the last hundred years” - whatever the subject being “listified” almost always shows the most important advances in that field of endeavor or accomplishments have been always appear to have occurred recently, usually within the last 20 or 30 years at most.
The list forger doesn’t quite seem to realize that they are only considering things during their lifespan as the most important things. People so often forget the footpath that leads to the sidewalk that eventually leads to the road that that leads to the Interstate Highway. The giant steps and leaps we are making now would be impossible without the earlier accomplishments, discovers, and technologies that created the platform on which we base our current endeavors.
The Digital Age did not just swing out of the media jungle on a broadband cable fully evolved. Analog is not gone; you can’t simply replace all the engineers with IT guys. Where would the broadcast world of today be without the efforts of Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, and Alexander Stepanovich Popov (not the Olympic swimmer; that’s Alexander Vladimirovich Popov)? None of them were IT guys (not even the swimmer). (Continued on next page).
History
Analog Engineers
BY Ryan SalazaR
A Salute:
To All The Analog Engineers!
Tales of the analog engineers of times past provide an interesting insight into the trials and tribulations they endured.
Broadcast Beat Magazine / Sep-Dec, 2014