Since you brought it up, I am sure many readers of this list have
never heard of Swan, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan
He did indeed invent the lightbulb and all of us Newcastle alumni know
only too well ;-)
Ole
Ole J. Jacobsen
Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal
Cisco Systems
Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628
E-mail: ole(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj
On Tue, 28 Oct 2008, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
There was indeed a major struggle over the standardization of the
light bulb socket. And the sad part is that due to patent
encumberances the US unfortunately ended up with the inferior
product!
Neither Swan nor Edison thought much about the mount. It was Swan's
brother who did most to refine and perfect the base. Edison's screw
thread came lose leading Swan to invent the bayonet mount. He also
invented Vitrite, the glassy substance used as an insulator.
There was something of a platform war which led to calls for a
standard base as misconfigured adaptors were causing houses to burn
down. The Edison thread won in the US because the patent had expired
and everyone could use it without royalty.
It is also a neat rebuttal to the claim that network effects do not
exist - as Margolis and co claimed in their laughable tract. If the
issue were decided on technical grounds alone the US and Europe
would have chosen the same base years ago. The US has not moved to
the superior Swan mount because the short term switching costs
outweigh the long term advantages. Change is only possible when a
technology disruption occurs that negates the advantage of the
legacy base. In the case of lightbulbs it is compact flourescents
and LED bulbs, in the case of keyboards it would probably take
really good handwriting recognition.
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