• Question: What was the first ever electronic devic?

    Asked by Emma The Penguin Lover to Ciarán on 19 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ciarán O'Brien

      Ciarán O'Brien answered on 19 Nov 2014:


      That’d be the telegraph, the first device to allow long distance communication by sending current through a wire.

      When it was invented depends on who you ask. The idea for a telegraph was around as early as 1753, but the original designs were very impractical. There were many different variations since then, most of which technically worked, but were useless over more than a few hundred meters because the current got weaker the further through the wire it travelled.

      The idea only became useful around 1835 when George Henry and Edward Davy invented the relay (it seems both came up with the same idea without knowing what the other was doing!), which allowed the signal from an electric current to travel much larger distances by boosting it at regular intervals. From there the telegraph quickly became popular. So These guys made the first reliable electronic device!

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