Timeline for the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering

• 1874 The University of Adelaide is established by an act of parliament
• 1884 Sir Horace Lamb delivers a discourse on "The history of electromagnetism"
• 1885 William H. Bragg appointed as Professor of Mathematics & Physics
• 1889 Bragg recruits Robert W. Chapman as a lecturer
• 1901 New science & engineering building opened by HRH Duke of Cornwall & York
• 1903 Courses in Electrical Engineering begin
• 1903 Electrical lectures were first given by John P.V. Masden out of the Physics Dept.
• 1904 Ernest Chapple is our first graduate with a Diploma in Electrical Engineering
• 1907 Robert W. Chapman becomes the first Professor of Engineering at this university
• 1910 Electrical Engineering Diploma recognised by IEE (UK)
• 1910 Edward "Bubbles" V. Clarke appointed lecturer in Electrical Engineering to replace Masden. (Bubbles remains the sole EE lecturer for the next 34 years!)
• 1924 First electrical Masters thesis in this University
• 1946 EE Dept. formed and Eric O. Willoughby appointed in May as Chair
• 1947 Honours degree in EE established
• c.1950 Control system ("Servo") course established - believed to be the first in Australia.
• 1954 Stephen Kaneff produces first PhD thesis in our Dept. (conferred 1956)
• 1960-1966 "Cirrus" - first mulitprogramming analog computer designed and built in Australia. Built by Gordon Rose and Murray Allen.
• c.1969 Epitaxial gallium arsenide microwave device processing facility established (Griffin)
• 1974-1977 ULOS Colour raster scan display system - believed to be the first colour CAD system for IC layout in the world. (Peter H. Cole Doug A. Pucknell, Neil H.E. Weste, Andrew L. Davis, and John S. Bell).
• 1974-1979 General Arithmetic Processor (GASP) designed and built - the first floating point Harvard signal processor in Australia. Was used for acoustical analysis of speech. (Bob Bogner & John Rogers, with David Fensom, Neil Smith et. al.)
• 1976 First microprocessor programming course in Australia (Doug A. Pucknell, Bryan D. Ackland, John A.V. Rogers, Neil H.E. Weste et. al.)
• c.1980 The Department changes its name from "Electrical" to "Electrical & Electronic"
• c.1981 Adelaide Consortium for Telecommunication Study (ACTS) formed
• 1981 First VLSI course in Australia given (Eshraghian & Pucknell)
• 1982 Email gateway to the USA - believed to be the first in South Australia.
• 1984 Spin-off companies ISD and Transponder formed
• 1987 Centre for Gallium Arsenide VLSI Technology (now called CHiPTec) established
• 1992 Cooperative Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing (CSSIP) established with this Department as a founding member
• 1999 The Dept. establishes Australia's first T-ray imaging program
• 2000 New biomedical engineering lab opened by Hon. Rob Lucas MLC on Oct. 17th
• 2001 RFID chair established with funding by Gemplus Tag Australia
• 2002 Auto-ID Lab established with funding from MIT Auto-ID Center.
• 2002 Adelaide node of the national teletest facility opened by Hon. Jane Lomax-Smith
• 2005 World's first laser-based T-ray user facility