1.
Home computer
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Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, however, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporaneous business computers. Their most common uses were playing games, but they were also regularly used for word processing, doing homework. Home computers were usually not electronic kits, home computers were already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. There were, however, commercial kits like the Sinclair ZX80 which were home and home-built computers since the purchaser could assemble the unit from a kit. For example, using a typical 1980s home computer as a home automation appliance would require the computer to be powered on at all times. Personal finance and database use required tedious data entry, by contrast, advertisements in the specialty computer press often simply listed specifications. Since most systems shipped with the BASIC programming language included on the system ROM, many users found programming to be a fun and rewarding experience, and an excellent introduction to the world of digital technology. Often the only difference may be the outlet through which they are purchased. Another change from the computer era is that the once-common endeavour of writing ones own software programs has almost vanished from home computer use. As early as 1965, some projects such as Jim Sutherlands ECHO IV explored the possible utility of a computer in the home. In 1969, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was marketed as a gift item, and would have inaugurated the era of home computing. Computers became affordable for the public in the 1970s due to the mass production of the microprocessor starting in 1971. Early microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 had front-mounted switches and diagnostic lights to control and indicate internal system status, while two early home computers could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. The keyboard - a feature lacking on the Altair - was usually built into the case as the motherboard. Ports for plug-in peripheral devices such as a display, cassette tape recorders, joysticks. Usually the manufacturer would sell peripheral devices designed to be compatible with their computers as extra cost accessories, peripherals were not often interchangeable between different brands of home computer, or even between successive models of the same brand. To save the cost of a monitor, the home computer would often connect through an RF modulator to the family TV set
2.
Intel 8080
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The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, a slightly faster variant 8080A-1 became available later with clock frequency limit up to 3.125 MHz. The 8080 was successful enough that compatibility at the language level became a design requirement for the 8086 when design for it was started in 1976. This also means that the 8080 indirectly influenced the ubiquitous 32-bit and 64-bit x86 architectures of today, the Intel 8080 was the successor to the 8008. It used the basic instruction set and register model as the 8008. Every instruction in the 8008 has an equivalent instruction in the 8080, the 8080 also added a few 16-bit operations to its instruction set as well. Whereas the 8008 required the use of the HL register pair to indirectly access its 14-bit memory space, in addition, the internal 7-level push-down call stack of the 8008 was replaced by a dedicated 16-bit stack pointer register. The 8080s large 40-pin DIP packaging permitted it to provide a 16-bit address bus and it also has a 16-bit stack pointer to memory, and a 16-bit program counter. The processor maintains internal flag bits which indicates the results of arithmetic, conditional branch instructions test the various flag status bits. The flags can be copied as a group to the accumulator, the A accumulator and the flags together are called the PSW register or program status word. As with many other 8-bit processors, all instructions are encoded in a single byte, some of them are followed by one or two bytes of data, which can be an immediate operand, a memory address, or a port number. Like larger processors, it has automatic CALL and RET instructions for multi-level procedure calls and returns, there are also eight one-byte call instructions for subroutines located at the fixed addresses 00h, 08h, 10h. and 38h. These were intended to be supplied by external hardware in order to invoke a corresponding interrupt-service routine, the most sophisticated command is XTHL, which is used for exchanging the register pair HL with the value stored at the address indicated by the stack pointer. Most 8-bit operations can only be performed on the 8-bit accumulator, for 8-bit operations with two operands, the other operand can be either an immediate value, another 8-bit register, or a memory byte addressed by the 16-bit register pair HL. Direct copying is supported between any two 8-bit registers and between any 8-bit register and an HL-addressed memory byte, due to the regular encoding of the MOV instruction, there are redundant codes to copy a register into itself, which were of little use, except for delays. However, what would have been a copy from the HL-addressed cell into itself is used to encode the halt instruction. The XCHG instruction exchanges the values of the HL and DE register pairs, by adding HL to itself, it is possible to achieve the same result as a 16-bit arithmetical left shift with one instruction. The 8080 supported up to 256 input/output ports, accessed via dedicated I/O instructions—taking port addresses as operands and this I/O mapping scheme was regarded as an advantage, as it freed up the processors limited address space
3.
Zilog Z80
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The Z80 CPU is an 8-bit based microprocessor. It was introduced by Zilog in 1976 as the companys first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his employees at Zilog from early 1975 until March 1976. With the revenue from the Z80, the company built its own chip factories, the Zilog Z80 was a software compatible extension and enhancement of the Intel 8080 and, like it, was mainly aimed at embedded systems. In the early 1980s, the Z80 was the most commonly used CPU of all time, Zilog licensed the Z80 to the US-based Synertek and Mostek, that had helped them with initial production, as well as to a European second source manufacturer, SGS. The design was copied also by several Japanese, East European and Russian manufacturers and this enabled the Z80 to gain acceptance in the world market since large companies like NEC, Toshiba, Sharp, and Hitachi, started to manufacture the device. The Z80 came about when physicist Federico Faggin left Intel at the end of 1974 to found Zilog with Ralph Ungermann, at Fairchild Semiconductor, and later at Intel, Faggin had been working on fundamental transistor and semiconductor manufacturing technology. He also developed the design methodology used for memories and microprocessors at Intel and led the work on the Intel 4004. Masatoshi Shima, the logic and transistor level-designer of the 4004. By March 1976, Zilog had developed the Z80 as well as an accompanying assembler based development system for its customers, and by July 1976, early Z80s were manufactured by Synertek and Mostek, before Zilog had its own manufacturing factory ready, in late 1976. Masatoshi Shima designed most of the microarchitecture as well as the gate and transistor levels of the Z80 CPU, assisted by a number of engineers. CEO Federico Faggin was actually involved in the chip layout work. Faggin worked 80 hours a week in order to meet the tight schedule given by the financial investors, a non maskable interrupt which can be used to respond to power down situations and/or other high priority events. Two separate register files, which could be switched, to speed up response to interrupts such as fast asynchronous event handlers or a multitasking dispatcher. Although they were not intended as extra registers for general code, less hardware required for power supply, clock generation and interface to memory and I/O Single 5-volt power supply. A built-in DRAM refresh mechanism that would otherwise have to be provided by external circuitry, a special reset function which clears only the program counter so that a single Z80 CPU could be used in a development system such as an in-circuit emulator. The Z80 took over from the 8080 and its offspring, the 8085, in the processor market, perhaps a key to the initial success of the Z80 was the built-in DRAM refresh, and other features which allowed systems to be built with fewer support chips. For the original NMOS design, the specified upper frequency limit increased successively from the introductory 2.5 MHz, via the well known 4 MHz
4.
Central processing unit
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The computer industry has used the term central processing unit at least since the early 1960s. The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed over the course of their history, most modern CPUs are microprocessors, meaning they are contained on a single integrated circuit chip. An IC that contains a CPU may also contain memory, peripheral interfaces, some computers employ a multi-core processor, which is a single chip containing two or more CPUs called cores, in that context, one can speak of such single chips as sockets. Array processors or vector processors have multiple processors that operate in parallel, there also exists the concept of virtual CPUs which are an abstraction of dynamical aggregated computational resources. Early computers such as the ENIAC had to be rewired to perform different tasks. Since the term CPU is generally defined as a device for software execution, the idea of a stored-program computer was already present in the design of J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchlys ENIAC, but was initially omitted so that it could be finished sooner. On June 30,1945, before ENIAC was made, mathematician John von Neumann distributed the paper entitled First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC and it was the outline of a stored-program computer that would eventually be completed in August 1949. EDVAC was designed to perform a number of instructions of various types. Significantly, the programs written for EDVAC were to be stored in high-speed computer memory rather than specified by the wiring of the computer. This overcame a severe limitation of ENIAC, which was the considerable time, with von Neumanns design, the program that EDVAC ran could be changed simply by changing the contents of the memory. Early CPUs were custom designs used as part of a larger, however, this method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of multi-purpose processors produced in large quantities. This standardization began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit. The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers, both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in electronic devices ranging from automobiles to cellphones, the so-called Harvard architecture of the Harvard Mark I, which was completed before EDVAC, also utilized a stored-program design using punched paper tape rather than electronic memory. Relays and vacuum tubes were used as switching elements, a useful computer requires thousands or tens of thousands of switching devices. The overall speed of a system is dependent on the speed of the switches, tube computers like EDVAC tended to average eight hours between failures, whereas relay computers like the Harvard Mark I failed very rarely. In the end, tube-based CPUs became dominant because the significant speed advantages afforded generally outweighed the reliability problems, most of these early synchronous CPUs ran at low clock rates compared to modern microelectronic designs. Clock signal frequencies ranging from 100 kHz to 4 MHz were very common at this time, the design complexity of CPUs increased as various technologies facilitated building smaller and more reliable electronic devices
5.
Czechoslovakia
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From 1939 to 1945, following its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, the state did not de facto exist but its government-in-exile continued to operate. From 1948 to 1990, Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet bloc with a command economy and its economic status was formalized in membership of Comecon from 1949, and its defense status in the Warsaw Pact of May 1955. A period of liberalization in 1968, known as the Prague Spring, was forcibly ended when the Soviet Union, assisted by several other Warsaw Pact countries. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the two states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Form of state 1918–1938, A democratic republic, 1938–1939, After annexation of Sudetenland by Nazi Germany in 1938, the region gradually turned into a state with loosened connections among the Czech, Slovak, and Ruthenian parts. A large strip of southern Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine was annexed by Hungary, 1939–1945, The region was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Republic. A government-in-exile continued to exist in London, supported by the United Kingdom, United States and its Allies, after the German invasion of Russia, Czechoslovakia adhered to the Declaration by United Nations and was a founding member of the United Nations. 1946–1948, The country was governed by a government with communist ministers, including the prime minister. Carpathian Ruthenia was ceded to the Soviet Union, 1948–1989, The country became a socialist state under Soviet domination with a centrally planned economy. In 1960, the country became a socialist republic, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It was a state of the Soviet Union. 1989–1990, The federal republic consisted of the Czech Socialist Republic, 1990–1992, Following the Velvet Revolution, the state was renamed the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, consisting of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Neighbours Austria 1918–1938, 1945–1992 Germany Hungary Poland Romania 1918–1938 Soviet Union 1945–1991 Ukraine 1991–1992 Topography The country was of irregular terrain. The western area was part of the north-central European uplands, the eastern region was composed of the northern reaches of the Carpathian Mountains and lands of the Danube River basin. Climate The weather is mild winters and mild summers, influenced by the Atlantic Ocean from the west, Baltic Sea from the north, and Mediterranean Sea from the south. The area was long a part of the Austro Hungarian Empire until the Empire collapsed at the end of World War I, the new state was founded by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who served as its first president from 14 November 1918 to 14 December 1935. He was succeeded by his ally, Edvard Beneš. The roots of Czech nationalism go back to the 19th century, nationalism became a mass movement in the last half of the 19th century
6.
Random-access memory
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Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage which stores frequently used program instructions to increase the general speed of a system. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the location of data inside the memory. RAM contains multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, in todays technology, random-access memory takes the form of integrated circuits. RAM is normally associated with types of memory, where stored information is lost if power is removed. Other types of non-volatile memories exist that allow access for read operations. These include most types of ROM and a type of memory called NOR-Flash. Integrated-circuit RAM chips came into the market in the early 1970s, with the first commercially available DRAM chip, early computers used relays, mechanical counters or delay lines for main memory functions. Ultrasonic delay lines could only reproduce data in the order it was written, drum memory could be expanded at relatively low cost but efficient retrieval of memory items required knowledge of the physical layout of the drum to optimize speed. Latches built out of vacuum tube triodes, and later, out of transistors, were used for smaller and faster memories such as registers. Such registers were relatively large and too costly to use for large amounts of data, the first practical form of random-access memory was the Williams tube starting in 1947. It stored data as electrically charged spots on the face of a cathode ray tube, since the electron beam of the CRT could read and write the spots on the tube in any order, memory was random access. The capacity of the Williams tube was a few hundred to around a thousand bits, but it was smaller, faster. In fact, rather than the Williams tube memory being designed for the SSEM, magnetic-core memory was invented in 1947 and developed up until the mid-1970s. It became a form of random-access memory, relying on an array of magnetized rings. By changing the sense of each rings magnetization, data could be stored with one bit stored per ring, since every ring had a combination of address wires to select and read or write it, access to any memory location in any sequence was possible. Magnetic core memory was the form of memory system until displaced by solid-state memory in integrated circuits. Data was stored in the capacitance of each transistor, and had to be periodically refreshed every few milliseconds before the charge could leak away
7.
ZX Spectrum
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The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. It was manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, in the now closed Timex factory, the Spectrum was among the first mainstream-audience home computers in the UK, similar in significance to the Commodore 64 in the USA. Licensing deals and clones followed, and earned Clive Sinclair a knighthood for services to British industry, the Commodore 64, Dragon 32, Oric-1 and Atmos, BBC Microcomputer and later the Amstrad CPC range were rivals to the Spectrum in the UK market during the early 1980s. Over 24,000 software titles have been released since the Spectrums launch, in 2014, a Bluetooth keyboard modelled on the Spectrum was announced. The Spectrum is based on a Zilog Z80 A CPU running at 3.5 MHz, the original model has 16 KB of ROM and either 16 KB or 48 KB of RAM. Hardware design was by Richard Altwasser of Sinclair Research, and the appearance was designed by Sinclairs industrial designer Rick Dickinson. Video output is through an RF modulator and was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets, the image resolution is 256×192 with the same colour limitations. To conserve memory, colour is stored separate from the bitmap in a low resolution, 32×24 grid overlay. In practice, this means that all pixels of an 8x8 character block share one foreground colour, Altwasser received a patent for this design. An attribute consists of a foreground and a colour, a brightness level and a flashing flag which. This scheme leads to what was dubbed colour clash or attribute clash and this became a distinctive feature of the Spectrum, meaning programs, particularly games, had to be designed around this limitation. Other machines available around the time, for example the Amstrad CPC or the Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 used colour attributes in a way, but a special multicolour mode, hardware sprites. Sound output is through a beeper on the machine itself, capable of producing one channel with 10 octaves, software was later available that could play two channel sound. The machine includes an expansion bus edge connector and 3.5 mm audio in/out ports for the connection of a recorder for loading and saving programs. The ear port can drive headphones and the mic port provides line level audio out which could be amplified, the machines Sinclair BASIC interpreter is stored in ROM and was written by Steve Vickers on contract from Nine Tiles Ltd. The Spectrums chiclet keyboard is marked with BASIC keywords, for example, pressing G when in programming mode would insert the BASIC command GO TO. The ZX Spectrum character set was expanded from that of the ZX81, Spectrum BASIC included extra keywords for the more advanced display and sound, and supported multi-statement lines
8.
Computer keyboard
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In computing, a computer keyboard is a typewriter-style device which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys to act as a mechanical lever or electronic switch. Following the decline of punch cards and paper tape, interaction via teleprinter-style keyboards became the input device for computers. A keyboard typically has characters engraved or printed on the keys, however, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence. While most keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs, other keys or simultaneous key presses can produce actions or execute computer commands. In normal usage, the keyboard is used as a text entry interface to type text and numbers into a word processor, in a modern computer, the interpretation of key presses is generally left to the software. A computer keyboard distinguishes each physical key from every other and reports all key presses to the controlling software, Keyboards are also used for computer gaming, either with regular keyboards or by using keyboards with special gaming features, which can expedite frequently used keystroke combinations. A keyboard is used to give commands to the operating system of a computer, such as Windows Control-Alt-Delete combination. A command-line interface is a type of user interface operated entirely through a keyboard and it was through such devices that modern computer keyboards inherited their layouts. Earlier models were developed separately by individuals such as Royal Earl House, earlier, Herman Hollerith developed the first keypunch devices, which soon evolved to include keys for text and number entry akin to normal typewriters by the 1930s. From the 1940s until the late 1960s, typewriters were the means of data entry. The keyboard remained the primary, most integrated computer peripheral well into the era of personal computing until the introduction of the mouse as a device in 1984. By this time, text-only user interfaces with sparse graphics gave way to comparatively graphics-rich icons on screen, One factor determining the size of a keyboard is the presence of duplicate keys, such as a separate numeric keyboard, for convenience. A keyboard with few keys is called a keypad, another factor determining the size of a keyboard is the size and spacing of the keys. Reduction is limited by the consideration that the keys must be large enough to be easily pressed by fingers. Alternatively a tool is used for pressing small keys, standard alphanumeric keyboards have keys that are on three-quarter inch centers, and have a key travel of at least 0.150 inches. Desktop computer keyboards, such as the 101-key US traditional keyboards or the 104-key Windows keyboards, include characters, punctuation symbols, numbers. The internationally common 102/104 key keyboards have a left shift key. Also the enter key is usually shaped differently, computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys, such as the command or Windows keys
9.
Black market
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Parties engaging in the production or distribution of prohibited goods and services are members of the illegal economy. Examples include the trade, prostitution, illegal currency transactions. Violations of the tax code involving income tax evasion constitutes membership in the unreported economy, because tax evasion or participation in a black market activity is illegal, participants will attempt to hide their behavior from the government or regulatory authority. Cash usage is the medium of exchange in illegal transactions since cash usage does not leave a footprint. Common motives for operating in markets are to trade contraband, avoid taxes and regulations. Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and services. Black money is the proceeds of a transaction, on which income and other taxes have not been paid. Because of the nature of the black economy it is not possible to determine its size. There is no single underground economy, there are many and these underground economies are omnipresent, existing in market oriented as well as in centrally planned nations, be they developed or developing. Different types of activities are distinguished according to the particular institutional rules that they violate. Illegal economy participants engage in the production and distribution of prohibited goods and services, such as trafficking, arms trafficking. The unreported economy consists of economic activities that circumvent or evade the institutionally established fiscal rules as codified in the tax code. A summary measure of the economy is the amount of income that should be reported to the tax authority but is not so reported. A complementary measure of the economy is the tax gap. In the U. S. unreported income is estimated to be $2 trillion resulting in a tax gap of $450–$500 billion, the unrecorded economy consists of those economic activities that circumvent the institutional rules that define the reporting requirements of government statistical agencies. A summary measure of the economy is the amount of unrecorded income. Unrecorded income is a problem in transition countries that switched from a socialist accounting system to UN standard national accounting. New methods have been proposed for estimating the size of the unrecorded economy, but there is still little consensus concerning the size of the unreported economies of transition countries
10.
Iron Curtain
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The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, on the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie, the events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland, and continued in Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Romania became the only communist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence. The use of the iron curtain as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters, various usages of the term iron curtain pre-date Churchills use of the phrase. The term iron curtain has since been used metaphorically in two different senses - firstly to denote the end of an era and secondly to denote a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors can refer to either the safety curtain deployed in theatres or to roller shutters used to secure commercial premises. The first metaphorical usage of iron curtain, in the sense of an end of an era, perhaps should be attributed to British author Arthur Machen, who used the term in his 1895 novel The Three Impostors. The door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the passage of my life. Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians used the term Iron Curtain in the context of World War I to describe the situation between Belgium and Germany in 1914. The passage runs, With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, time to put on your fur coats and go home. We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing, chesterton used the phrase in a 1924 essay in The Illustrated London News. Chesterton, while defending Distributism, refers to that iron curtain of industrialism that has cut us off not only from our neighbours condition, how, a moment before the iron curtain was wrung down on it, did the German political stage appear. All German theatres had to install an iron curtain as a precaution to prevent the possibility of fire spreading from the stage to the rest of the theatre. Such fires were common because the decor often was very flammable. In case of fire, a wall would separate the stage from the theatre. Douglas Reed used this metaphor in his book Disgrace Abounding, The bitter strife had only hidden by the iron safety-curtain of the Kings dictatorship
11.
Compact Cassette
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The Compact Cassette or Musicassette, also commonly called cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was released by Philips in 1962, having developed in Hasselt. Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a cassette, or as a fully recordable blank cassette. Its uses ranged from portable audio to home recording to data storage for early microcomputers, the first cassette player designed for use in car dashes was introduced in 1968. Between the early 1970s and the early 2000s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the compact disc. Compact Cassettes contain two miniature spools, between which a magnetically coated, polyester-type plastic film is passed and wound and these spools and their attendant parts are held inside a protective plastic shell. This reversal is achieved either by flipping the cassette, or by having the machine itself change the direction of tape movement. In 1935, decades before the introduction of the Compact Cassette, AEG released the first reel-to-reel tape recorder and it was based on the invention of the magnetic tape by Fritz Pfleumer, which used similar technology but with open reels. These instruments were expensive and relatively difficult to use and were therefore used mostly by professionals in radio stations. In 1958, following four years of development, RCA Victor introduced the stereo, quarter-inch, reversible, however, it was a large cassette, and offered few pre-recorded tapes. Despite the multiple versions, it failed, consumer use of tape only took off in the early 1960s, after playback machines reached a comfortable, user-friendly design. This was achieved primarily by the introduction of transistors which replaced the bulky, fragile, reel-to-reel tape then became more suitable to household use, but still remained an esoteric product. The team at Philips was led by Lou Ottens in Hasselt, Philips was competing with Telefunken and Grundig in a race to establish its cassette tape as the worldwide standard, and it wanted support from Japanese electronics manufacturers. However, the Philips Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips decision to license the format free of charge, Philips also released the Norelco Carry-Corder 150 recorder/player in the US in November 1964. By 1966 over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the US alone, by 1968,85 manufacturers had sold over 2.4 million players. By the end of the 1960s, the business was worth an estimated 150 million dollars. In the early years sound quality was mediocre, but it improved dramatically by the early 1970s when it caught up with the quality of 8-track tape, the Compact Cassette went on to become a popular alternative to the 12-inch vinyl LP during the late 1970s. The mass production of blank Compact Cassettes began in 1964 in Hanover, prerecorded music cassettes were launched in Europe in late 1965
12.
Television
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Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a set, a television program. Television is a medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip. Television became available in experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, a form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses. During the 1950s, television was the medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US, for many reasons, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity, another development was the move from standard-definition television to high-definition television, which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats, 1080p, 1080i, in 2013, 79% of the worlds households owned a television set. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs, major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are gradually expected to be replaced by OLEDs, also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s, Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by cable or optical fiber, satellite systems and. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, a standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television, the word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε, meaning far, and Latin visio, meaning sight. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907 and it was. formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other. proposals for the name of a technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote. The abbreviation TV is from 1948, the use of the term to mean a television set dates from 1941
