Era Electronics

* See also Era_Computers (advances)
* See also Bio-Electronics
* See also The_Thinker
* See also Rapture_Computers
* See also Radio_In_Rapture (advances)
* See also TVs_in_Rapture
* See also Historic_Tech_Timeline
* See also Technology_In_Columbias_Era
Electronics : the branch of physics and technology concerned with the design of circuits using vacuum tubes, transistors and microchips, and with the behavior and movement of electrons in a semiconductor, conductor, vacuum, or gas.
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When Rapture started, around 1946, Electronics was mostly based on Vacuum Tubes and clumsy semi-conductors.
Within a few years, Transistors had been invented Up in the Surface World.
It took quite a while for Transistors to be developed and become cheap enough for consumer item uses. So Vacuum Tubes continued to be used.
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For TVs You Need TV Stations :
Art Deco Los Angeles TV station being built in 1939 ( Television largely had to wait til after the war to become widespread ). Only the largest TV/Radio Stations in Rapture would have facilities this large. There would be more Small Stations using technical innovations ( and less infrastructure because Rapture uses a Cable System for Broadcast ).
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The "Selectron" -- A Selective Electrostatic Memory Storage Tube :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectron_tube
http://rcaselectron.com/
A method of using a Cathode Tube's Phosphorescence effect in a computer 'memory' device back when only big companies/governments could afford their own computers ( which were still using Vacuum Tubes ).
Middle 40s technology ( Late 1940s when actually used )
Of course the Selectron tubes were just a small part of the memory mechanism ( there was all the electronics needed to drive all the address lines and to control/amplify the data signals coming/going from the tubes ).
The brilliance of Rapture's engineers utilizing these may have been more successful than the companies on The Surface - and improved memory Tubes may have been what makes up those computer racks we see up on the walls ( the ones that are a grid of tubes in so many places in Minervas Den ). These would have been superseded by the Bio-Electronics in the middle 50s in Rapture ( an improvement step needed to make The Thinker possible ).
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First Prototyped in 1963 for the US Space Program.
Interesting - How small can 'wire fibers' be made to be woven ?? Hair sized insulated wires, drive the circuitry. Pressed ring ? For assembly ...
How big is the drive circuitry ? Transistors amplification & Read address select ( minimum number )
Woven following the ROM data pattern -- Real ones like those used for the Apollo Moon-landing Project were hand-made, but better would be using a programmed machine to do weaving ( for a cost-effective semi-automated assembly line process ) of the memory data pattern (the data it contains). One guy's invention.
USE : Firmware - like used for 'much duplicated' phone/data routing computers - for their bootstrap load program ... ( So : Early use in Rapture - Pre-ADAM Bio_Electronics )
A Standard Memory module for 'Bootstrap' programs ( Program Runs and fetches bigger program into 'volatile' (RAM) memory to download the main program ).
Later McClendon would figure out an even more compact way to do similar with nerve based Bio-Electronics 'grown synapse' ROM .
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Method of circuit construction ( done before the etched copper circuit boards could be multi-layered ). Wire wrapping - connecting between pins attached to components on the other side of the board. Components got smaller and required more wires in a small space. They even had automated machines to build circuit assemblies this way. The Method was in use into the 1980s.
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Early Memrister Technology ? :
A Substance that by application of electricity is physically changed (Written), and that state can be detected independently in a 'READ' operation ( it acts as a resistor or as a conductor ), and on applying (WRITE) a higher voltage (forward/reversed current) changes its properties - to be one or the other conducting behavior to set its 'bit' to '1' or '0'. The state remains/persists even when the power is turned off.
Potentially a simpler circuit than core memories, and potentially smaller as it can employ a material plating at the intersection of two signal wires ( You would have a '2D' array of such wires to form a non-volatile computer memory component ). Such substances are thought to have been first found in 1808. "Write" speed ( of altering the substance ), and the stability and repeatability of the operation typically would be its limitations. Those would have to be improved in Rapture - since this isn't "wave-the-hand" Infinite BS fantasy. Having some of these technologies prove to be too-difficult/too-expensive/impractical would be part of the game's story -- They really only get mentioned as part of the background story. 
In Rapture there was potential to use this component for artificial 'Neurons', but fabrication issues would not produce sufficient miniaturization (data densities) for useful NN (neural net) applications ( and was superseded by ADAM-based organic circuits, which used natural self-organization to build the required logic function ).
This might be potentially-useful as Electrically Alterable ROM memory when the Bio-Electronic memory first worked better as statically written ROM (unchangeable data).
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Relative Memory Speeds : 
Vacuum Tubes were relatively fast, but their data density was very low and generally were used for Data Registers and to contain very short Programs (Instructions) - with larger programs based in magnetic disks until better methods were available.
Typical Magnetic Core data access time (Real World) is 9 microseconds, which is at least 72 times slower than your PC's main memory today ( versus vacuum tube access time being approximately 25 microseconds ).
If every instruction was a Data-fetch, then that is about 110000 fetches per second ( calculation instruction execution takes even longer ).
The Rapture-Tech Bio-Electronic memory would not be much faster than this. So The Thinker, doing huge amounts of processing in parallel would be needed to do its 'intelligence' mimicry ( difficult in OUR current micro-electronics times ).
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Computer Tubes By the Thousands ( Why Rapture Wouldn't Have Many Early Computers ) :
They fail and need to be replaced. The type of tubes used aren't a simple product, and they need to be mass-produced for the numbers required. Expensive to make locally ( and the 1952 cutoff of the Surface eliminates outside sources ). Large computers bigger than accounting/billing systems have limited utility, so it is hard for them TO PAY FOR their existence in Rapture.
McClendon was looking at Transistors (invented 1949) to find better alternatives and eventually turned to Bio-Electronics.
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Those Old Tube Testing Machines (MMORPG Prop) :
Tube Test Machine Pix
All those TVs and Radios, Record Players, etc ... Many devices in Rapture would use tubes. Cacuum Tubes burnout/fail, and you have to test and replace them. Self-serve mechanisms allowed people to "do it themselves" ( standard tubes made it fairly simple ). There should be many of these somewhere in Rapture AND manufacture/re-manufacture of replacements ( for all the many thousands of tube based appliances used in Rapture ).
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Micro Vacuum Tubes in 1947 :
Made wrist 2-way radios work ( except the batteries ran out too fast ) with very small 1/2 inch long tubes ( with plated anode/cathode/grid instead of wires ). In Rapture, with local repeaters ( Access Points/Hotspots in the parlance of our times ) everywhere, the radios didn't need to be overly powerful.
Compared to the huge vacuum tubes we saw in Minervas Den ( 200+ times the volume ) there might have been some miniaturization possible for early Rapture logic circuits using those -- again for NEW systems, when additional uses for computers were created ( like more scientific/engineering number crunching ).
For a while, in the Real World, the new transistors were so expensive that vacuum tubes were still a viable option ( the same would be true in Rapture ).
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Transistor Invented in 1947. It took several years to further design ones that worked reliably ( and THAT'S with Large Military Expenditures paying very high prices to offset the R & D ). Such Transistors would have to be bought and brought in from outside Rapture. These components were still quite large. 
Tubes would still be in use for most consumer goods ( they were still cheaper than their Transistor equivalents ). The First Consumer Transistor radio in the Surface word was made 1954 ( Germanium type detector transistors ) costing $50 which is about $450 today.
Conventional Transistors would be used (in Raptureland) to amplify data/control signals to traverse wiring across a computer rack, and the lesser amplification for inter-module connections. 
Bio-Electronic amplifiers are used at pinout points on the Bio-electronic substrates to initially boost the internal working (micro) currents, and to simplify the external circuitry.
An issue for Transistor Electronics use in Rapture is : Its not so much Recreating current technologies from the 'Surface' world ( which could be expensively done in a conventional development laboratory ), but creating a Process which could produce the components *cheap* enough for consumer use ( and preferably cheaper and smaller than those contemporary Transistors ). The first commercially produced transistors cost $100-$50 each ( in early 1950s dollars ), and were mostly bought for Military and Space project use ( where compactness justified their expense ). Later advancements allowed mass production and use in consumer goods like the 'Transistor Radios'. Computer use was more specialized, and required hundreds/thousands of transistors ( even when not used for Main Memory, which takes magnitudes larger quantities of transistors ).
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Tinkertoy1.jpg
Tinkertoy2.jpg
Tinkertoy3.jpg
Modularelectronic.jpg
RCA micro module hybrid micromodule system : Project Tinkertoy
Project Tinkertoy mechanism 1953. Sonar Buoy using 'integrated' component modules.
Technology was used for some consumer electronics after that time.
Stacked components printed onto small PC board interconnected on their edges.
The top thingee is where a tube plugged in ( transistors were very expensive in the early days, costing around $50 each ). So Vacuum Tubes were still used for quite a long time.
Some consumer projects (radios, etc..) used modules like these for fairly standard circuit configurations ( like amplifiers or voltage regulators ).
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Modular electronics used in late 50s/very early 60s before Integrated Circuits were created/produced. Largely for military usage, where environmental stability requirements were much higher and conventional components had alot of trouble. It offered more dense packing than discrete components ( The picture shows a stack of about 10 components into that small volume - all already interconnected within the package ).
This method had miniature PC boards wired together on their edges, and each board had at most only one or two components ( resistors/capacitors/transistors/inductors ) to build up commonly repeated circuitry. These were then put into a hermetically sealed case. The component boards could be mass produced and tested, versus most electronics which were still largely hand-assembled at that time.
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Patent for a particular construction way to build Point Contact Transistors (the early type). Transistors were invented in 1947. The world's first commercial transistor production line was in 1951.
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Cathode Ray Tube Display ( sweep signal indicator )
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Those old mainframes had LOTS of Tubes
Every "BIT" of memory typically required at least one Tube ( and then the ones to run all those tubes ... )
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Infrared Goggles existed before the end of WW2
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GERMAN TV camera used at 1936 Olympics in Germany (one of 4). Used closed circuit - wires for its transmission to several viewing venues set up around Berlin.
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Technology Done in WW2.
Miniaturized for those "Trap Rivets" we saw in BS2 ????
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"Magic Eye" Tube - another Tube-Era Display Method :
Used as indicators for devices which gave an analog visual indicator used to show some state of an  electronic machine ( it really indicates a voltage offset, but that can be generated from just about anything via a sensor ).
http://www.magiceyetubes.com/patterns.htm
Basic graphics to make one that works in the game, and gives scripted indications for the player's use on all kinds of device Assets.
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Commercial radio 1921 ( 2 decades before Rapture, 1 AFTER Columbia ).
The Rapture Entrepreneurs would be well versed in the Technology, and for Columbia it would have to be one more Wave of the hand things that game was so full of ( Full Of it ... BS ).
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Tiny Vacuum Tube ( note the metal case ) used for Proximity Fuses during WW2 (artillery shells).
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Early experimentation with Transistors. Methods ( materials, assembly process, containment ) had to be found/developed to mass-produce Transistors and make them rugged/reliable/cheap enough to use in the Real World. Military use was the biggest customer - military electronics needed to be smaller, and smallest workable tubes where still too large and used too much power ( and WERE used until Transistors came along ).
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Most early transistors were bought and used by the military, and had prices in multiple dollars down to $1 each by 1960 ( $8 adjusted for inflation ).
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Itself Non-digital, but the electronics which had to drive them WAS 'DIGITAL'.
Based on a neon glow effect and contemporary tube technologies, with 'cold cathode' ( unlike electronic vacuum tubes ).   1955 - developed in Real World and used for decades til LEDs/LCDs took over.
They (in Rapture) could be fabricated from 'Surface' descriptions - tech info was one of the things smuggled into Rapture, if not one of the officially sanctioned/authorized 'continued imports' ( or obtained via 'authorized' purchased for 'important' projects ). A specialized manufacture in Rapture ( with Premium Prices ... )
A standard MMOORPG Nixie Tube 'template' could be provided with the game Tools to incorporate as working Numeric Display into interactive Objects, and also as a (nostalgic) 'widget' for the Tablet/Smartphone interfaces which look sufficiently 'Retro' ( intended or little difficulty to add for the person creating the 'App' ).
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Australian-built vacuum tubies ( If Australia could build them, then Rapture could build them ). Electronic in Rapture would start with these ( replacements for standard consumer appliance tubes ), and eventually move on to Transistors and beyond. Tubes do eventually fail and need replacements. So there would have to be some businesses making and repairing them for various modern equipment and consumer items in Rapture.
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Digital Display "Nixie" tubes - A early (developed 1952) electronic digital display mechanism, which here are used for a clock display ( modern use - note the two LEDs being used there ).
The electronics they were displaying for had to be 'digital' ( the numeric counters ) with some decoding logic to light the appropriate digits filament.
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Creative 'Screen' Type Displays :
Circular Ball Draw :
the fisheye effect (display lens) : an idea for some oldie-type pre-CRT interface - imagine : an Etch-a-Sketch onto a bowling ball with fluorescent magnetic/static dust as a mechanism - the ball rolling on controlled axis motors shifting the ball and drawing the letters/picture. It 'scrolling upwards from the point 'writehead' ( and an erase on the back of the 'ball' to have a continuous rolling display ). It can do sweep graphs.
Lens flattens the spherical surface some with 90 degrees viewed.
Write probably being done on the south pole position to have axis aligned easiest fashion.
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Continuous rolling paper display - using magnetic dust (ink) with a sweep line to 'draw' the characters (dot matrix).
Paper rolls vertically written at bottom scrolling up, and erase after 'paper' goes past the top.
Requires the magnetic write head to have the pattern control (On-Offs) for the letters/font being drawn ( and having memory enough for the current line of letters of text being composed/written. ) 
Early CRTs used analog electronics for controlling Vector 'sweep' patterns to create all the letters. Unfortunately such 'monitors' were large/complex/expensive.
CRT Dot matrix displays were later and took more memory for the dot patterns (ROM) and for the text being displayed ( ex- 24 lines of 80 characters with a 6x8 letter font )
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Later tech Miniature vacuum tubes. Apparently still used in manufactured products into the 1970s.
Compare that to normal consumer product vacuum tubes :
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Ignitron - a kind of Rectifier with a mercury cathode, able to carry large electric currents.
These were used for decades in the Real World after Rapture's time period. They were later largely replaced by High Power Semi-Conductors. Others continued to be used into this Millenium.
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Early Transistors : Smaller than Vacuum Tubes, used less power, less fragile. Having greater potential for further technical development. Rapture's time was right in the middle of this advancing development.
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Over 7 million produced by the USA during WW2 - A Radio Transmitter Inside would trigger an Air-Burst of the Shell when the radio detected either being close enough to the ground, Or for A-A Guns when being Close to a metal Airplane.
Used sub-miniature Vacuum Tubes for the miniaturization of the circuitry. An example of compact pre-Transistor Electronics. Miniaturized Tube use continued while they competed favorably when Transistors were still extremely expensive.
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Realism can be Tedious. So MMORPG Players wont be going to this level of detail in game Fabrication Tasks. 
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