Table of Contents

Electronics

Signal jamming

Satellite television is broadcast in the microwave band. Because the sun is a very strong source of microwaves, sometimes it can jam satellite signals (when it is in the same line with it). This situation happens twice a year and results in several minute interruptions in satellite TV reception. 1)

F14 CADC

The F14 CADC is a microprocessor designed for the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft. The first copies of this chip were produced as early as June 1970, more than 12 months earlier than Intel's first 4004 microprocessor, which is widely regarded as the world's first microprocessor, but due to military secrecy, the existence of the F-14 CADC was not revealed until 1998. 2)

Magnavox Odyssey

The Magnavox Odyssey was designed and developed in 1972 by Ralph Baer, making it the first game console. Interestingly, this console was for two players only and it had interchangeable game cartridges. The games were quite primitive and each game at its core was just two rectangles programmed in a different way. To get the full gaming experience, overlays were used on the TV screen to simulate the graphics and be the gameplay screen. Often some games also had physical accessories to extend the experience. 3)

Barcodes

The main application of barcode is the automatic identification of products in the broadly understood logistics. ISO is the List of Country Codes, UPC is the name of the standard barcode and GS1 is an international organization with headquarters in Brussels (Belgium) and Princeton (USA), which manages the GS1 system on a global scale. 4)

Hi-Fi

Hi-fi is an acronym for high fidelity. The term describes reproduction of sound quality very close to the original. The parameters that must be met by devices marked hi-fi are defined in the German norm DIN 45500 from 1973. It concerns, among others, the maximum noise level and non-linear distortion. 5)