Star Trek and Captain Kirk Inspired Mobile Phone Inventor

By | March 6, 2018

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Star Trek...LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 29: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk. Original Air Date: 29 December 1967. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

Star Trek and Captain Kirk Inspired the mobile/cellular phone inventor

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Martin Cooper invented the mobile/cellular phone in 1973.

Techy geek, Martin Cooper, invented the original mobile/cellular phone in 1973. He drew on inspiration from his technological breakthrough resulting from the iconic television series, “Star Trek.”

On March 10,1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the historic first telephone call that gave birth to the cultural breakthrough that changed the world. Communication had taken on an entirely new medium. In addition to personal, face to face, conversation and the written word, “remote” communication had been born!

A mere 97 years later, in 1973, the Motorola company installed a base station to handle the first public demonstration of a phone call over a cellular network. April the 3, 1973, the cellular phone’s inventor, Martin Cooper, took his cellular phone technology to the big city, of New York, to demonstrate it to news reporters and the public where a call was made while standing on Sixth Avenue.

An entire worldwide telecommunication industry has, since, sprung up. Along with a wide variety of technologies, developments in basic and advanced mobile phones have materialized. In addition to that, mobile phone technology, has come a long way amid the years of development. Newer and younger inventors have come onboard to share their knowledge. to what we know as the smartphone today.

In 1973, there wasn’t an Internet, digital camera, or personal computer. Surprisingly, though, there was the cellular phone. The prototype version that would soon become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, weighed 2.5 lbs., and had a single-line, text-only LED screen (GASP!). It was at least 10 years before Motorola’s, Dyna TAC finally reached consumer’s hands.