The history books say AC was chosen over DC because DC was too expensive or something like that, but I’ve always thought that AC was chosen because the electrical grids could serve more people, thus making it easier to socialize and/or corporatize. If DC had been chosen, then basically each household would have to have its own electric grid, thus making it impossible for the state to control it (i.e., the state couldn’t have a centralized state power grid with, because the wires could never be long enough) as well as it making it too hard for big utility companies to have a more centralized power grid.
IIRC, Al Gore pushed for TCP/IP, which makes it so that centralized servers dominate over several smaller servers.
What, if any, revisionist accounts exist about why the government chose one or both of these standards?
No, I could be mistaken that TCP/IP was chosen by the state as the standard. I really messed up when I titled the thread based upon assumption. It could be the market that unanimously chose TCP/IP over NCP/IX.
I believe NCP/IX was better because only one computer could be on one server–that way, the ISPs would largely be cut out, if I’m not mistaken. I could very well be wrong about that.
TCP/IP is just a protocol for transporting data across networks. It requires no “centralized” servers. It’s just using the shortest path through a network to get data from one place to another, and uses a few other tricks to make sure all data gets across.
Domain name lookup requires centralized servers, though. They essentially turn web addresses (like http://mises.org/) into IP addresses. Without those servers, we would have to type in IP addys for websites to get to them.
AC is better than DC, but you can’t use AC in transistors.
Whoa there.
AC is better for transmitting at long ranges than DC. DC voltage will drop over long distance runs, which naturally why AC was chosen for power distribution. At the substations it is lowered and then distributed to homes, where individual devices rectify the AC waveform to obtain a DC output.
AC can and is used with transistors in audio amplifier circuits. All transistors have both a DC and AC component. Bipolar junction transistors are commonly used in amplification circuits. For digital logic, it is typically the Metal oxide semicondctor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). In this case there is no AC component, but DC is switched on and off to produce 1’s and 0’s.
Anyways, as far as I know, government did not chose AC. It was the obvious choice because AC power is produced naturally and transmits well over long distances.
Actually, it seemed the marketplace choose AC over DC because it was better. Edison (who was behind DC) tried all kinds of underhanded tactics to kill AC (invented by Tesla, and owned by rival Westinghouse), but AC won out.
AFAIK, Algore had nothing to do with pushing TCP/IP. Further, TCP/IP has no need for centralized servers. That’s one of the strengths of the internets: its decentralized.
AC is better for transmitting at long ranges than DC. DC voltage will drop over long distance runs, which naturally why AC was chosen for power distribution.
Any power generator naturally produces some form of AC power. Never DC. DC must be further rectified and regulated from AC. It makes sense to transmit AC over power cables because:
Many appliances can work off AC directly with no need to do a conversion. Working off AC directly saves the costs of DC circuitry. Some appliances require some AC component like your old TV sets. It would be silly to do a backward conversion, DC to AC, which is much more expensive then the AC-DC required for appliances that demand DC.
AC can be transmitted more efficiently due to the ability to transmit multi-phase AC, like the tri-phase AC current that runs on the grid. This way, you can combine the phases to get more power or allocate each phase to different parts of house, etc…
Edison was hyperactive about his IP rights. He held the world record in patents held and was eager to profit from them.
On the other hand Tesla did not care a great deal about personal wealth and was somewhat lackluster in registering patents and calling on patent rights.
If you are looking for morality tales the AC inventor comes closer to a good guy I’m afraid.