Made By Monkeys

A reader of this blog, Russell Dawson, once more bravely steps forward to present a nomination for the Made By Masters category... Gibson Les Paul guitars (the master himself, of course, quite recently pased away - see this tribute from the BBC website). Russell writes:

"Credited with many innovations, including overdubbing, delay and phasing effects, the late Les Paul's greatest invention was the world's best selling guitar - the Gibson Les Paul. His first prototype called "The Log" built in 1939 was one of the first ever solid-body electric guitars.

Since the 30's, Gibson Les Paul's provided a curvy body shape and a glued fixed neck compared to Fender's bolt on neck design, with the first mainstream Les Paul guitar 1952 edition featuring a one-piece, 'trapeze'-style bridge and tailpiece with two P-90 single coil pickups.

Our new Made By Masters series looks at electronics classics in the making, and our thanks go to 'Alice' of the Engineer in Wonderland posts for the latest in the series. Following the Apple iPod and the Motorola RAZR is the LM10.

The extraordinarily cunning and versatile op amp and reference chip is a "symphony with all the components playing in perfect harmony" in the words of Hans Camenzind. See the full application note.

The designers' designer, writes Alice, was Bob Widlar.

Our new Made By Masters series looks at modern design classics in the making. The first was the iPod, and the second features a mobile phone... <cue drum roll> ...the Motorola RAZR.

Its astonishing sales, distinctive looks and small size, combined with reasonable(ish) functionality, earn it a place in our newly constructed and rather makeshift Pantheon. A controversial choice, maybe.

These days, it's easy to forget the impact this slimline clamshell made back in 2004. And it's also hard to figure out how things have since gone so wrong for Motorola in the mobile space, from the position of market leader. Any thoughts on that one?

Anyhoo, back to the glory days... The Star Trek factor undoubtedly played a role - set "Phasers to stun", anyone? - but that alone can't explain its massive sales and undeniable cool. Motorola shipped more than 50 million RAZRs by 2006, and more than 75 million by 2007. That's a lot of people saying "Hello Moto".

And this despite the fact that the Razor was never supposed to be anything more than a "halo product", serving to reflect some glory on Motorola rather than shift product units by the boat load.