John Larkin wrote:
On Mon, 06 Sep 2010 03:00:38 +0100, Eeyore wrote:
John Larkin wrote:

Americans invented electronics, invented modern electronics, invented
the vacuum triode, the opamp, the transistor, the IC, semiconductor
RAM, uPs, LEDs, lasers, programmable logic, all sorts of stuff. We
picked the reference designators, because we needed them first.
Just checking, you're wrong about the LED too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-e..._early_devices

Electroluminescence was discovered in 1907 by the British experimenter
H. J. Round of Marconi Labs, using a crystal of silicon carbide and a
cat's-whisker detector.[4][5] Russian Oleg Vladimirovich Losev
independently reported on the creation of an LED in 1927.

Neither want anywhere.

I assume you meant 'went' rather than 'want' ? At the time there was no
practical use. Doesn't change the date of discovery though. SiC too !
That took a while to enter general LED usage.


Just for good measure the first commercial computer was British too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti_Mark_1

The Ferranti Mark 1, also known as the Manchester Electronic Computer in
its sales literature,[1] and thus sometimes called the Manchester
Ferranti, was the world's first commercially available general-purpose
electronic computer.

What sort of computers does Ferranti make nowadays?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti#Collapse

Courtesy of a corrupt US Company.

BTW In the 50s or maybe 60s IIRC Ferranti invented 'virtual memory'.
They sold the idea/patent to IBM. They were simply 40 or so years ahead
of their time for mass usage.


And who broke the 'unbreakable' German Enigma code ?
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/

With a lot of help from the Poles.

Care to elaborate in detail ? I'm intruiged.

Graham