retroelectro
The late 1800s saw the golden age of invention. Frank Sprague’s invention of the Electric Traction Motor, set the Second Industrial Revolution off. No longer did you have to rely on burning coal or power driven by beasts and livestock. Suddenly a person could get more power from an electric motor than could be had from dozens of horses. Everything in every industry was exponentially enhanced by electrification. Retro Electro: Learn more about Frank Sprague’s journey to the
first EV in the article ‘Frank Sprague and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway’ (https://emedia.digikey.com/ view/251481832/17/). It would be another century before another invention would revolutionize industry, once again. The reader may think of the transistor, or the computer and they would be incorrect. The thing about those inventions and others was that they had no practical utility in manufacturing. The marker for the beginning of the Third Industrial Revolution
is Bedford Associates’ Modicon 084 Programmable Controller (Today known as Programmable Logic Controller or PLC).
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