Martin Cooper is one of the innovators who witnessed the evolutionary process of his work that we know today as a smartphone.
"There is no integrated circuits (IC) size, no computer, no closed-circuit television (CCTV), no LCD screen. I can not say everything that was not yet available in 1973. But, we've built phones for years and years (build) phones in cars, and we (Motorola) declare that this is the time for personal (mobile) communication, because basically everybody is moving. "
Martin Cooper, a technician and innovator working for Motorola shared a fragment of his life story in an interview in 2010 with CNN journalist Tas Anjarwalla. The piece of speech was part of his motivation to create a "real" phone. In the early 1970s, when Cooper had not yet issued his innovation, the world had not known the phone as it is today.
At that time people can indeed make phone calls in mobile, outside the office or home or other immovable. However, a phone call must be made with a car that has a dedicated phone system installed. AT & T is a company that offers this service.
In June 1946 a car-based phone was launched by Bell Company or AT & T. This is the result of the hard work of the team led by Alton Dickieson and D. Mitchell. Nearly two years after the first phone connection using the car-based phone was demonstrated, AT & T has 5,000 customers spread across nearly 1,000 cities.
The car-based phone AT & T offered was less successful due to limited calling. At the beginning of its appearance, only three customers are allowed to make simultaneous calls. This is due to a small spectrum allocation approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This is partly because car-based phones use signals running on VHF (very high frequency), the same signal that FM radio uses.
In addition, car-based phones were relatively expensive at the time. People who do not own a car should bite their fingers can not take advantage of this service. It was only in 1973 that Martin Cooper and his colleagues at Motorola brought change. Real phones finally greet the world, though not perfect as modern mobile phones that we know today.
Martin Cooper was born on December 26, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Son of Arthur and Mary Cooper. He holds a degree in electrical engineering in 1950 from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Later, Cooper obtained a master's degree in the same field and from the same institution in 1957.
In the period between graduating and college as a graduate student, Cooper had been a soldier in the US Navy. Cooper was assigned to the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. He worked on the army's submarine.
After spending his time as a soldier, Cooper later joined the Teletype Corporation. Works on a unit that creates remote communication. Then, Cooper moved to work on Motorola. In the early days with Motorola, Cooper worked in a division that created police communications radio.
According to Cooper since he was a kid he often imagine parts per part of a device. And creating a device is his little dream. Together with Motorola, the childhood memory then manifests itself.
Motorola DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage), a 9-inch phone weighing 2.5 pounds that can be used to call for 35 minutes in a single charge that takes 10 hours. DynaTAC is a real mobile phone that does not require a car as AT & T offers.
DynaTAC made Cooper and his team within 3 months. The time is short since Cooper takes thousands of parts to build the phone. A first attempted telephone connection on the streets of New York on April 3, 1973 became an important note for the world of communications technology. At the first connection, Cooper contacted Joel S. Engel, an employee of AT & T, who, according to Cooper on The Verge in 2012, had a position similar to him at Motorola.
"Joel, I'm calling you from a mobile phone, a real mobile phone, a handheld, a portable, a real mobile phone," Cooper said, mimicking the historic mobile phone call.
"My assumption (Joel S. Engel) is shivering. He (receives the call) well and then closes the call. When I asked (Joel S. Engel) about the event, he said that he did not remember the incident, "said Cooper who further explained the historic call to Tas Anjarwalla.
His work was later obtained a patent numbered 3906166 with the title "Radio Telephone System." In addition, Time Magazine in 2007 crowned the creation of Cooper as the best invention. In 2013, Cooper received the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering.
Although DynaTAC was born to the public in 1973, it could not be grasped by the general public until 1983. This, according to Cooper's account, came about because of the costly cost of production. It is estimated, one DynaTAC unit costs up to $ 1 million.
