In 1959, Otis Boykin patented a precision resistor designed for greater reliability; his resistor designs later drew interest from IBM and the US military

Modern electronics have many components, and most of us may never encounter or even think about them. One of the most basic is the resistor, a device designed to limit the flow of current. According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, resistors reduce the flow of electricity to allow electronic devices to operate safely, and variations of Otis Boykin's resistor technologies are used in products as diverse as TVs and radios, computers and smartphones.

Despite this range, Otis Boykin is not nearly as well-remembered as the magnates who founded tech giants. His career shows how technology develops and spreads: incrementally, year upon year, and often through people the wider public has never heard of. Even the formal recognition came late; he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014, more than three decades after his death in 1982. From his suspended studies to his five-year-long patent wait, and from his precise creations to the life-saving device that made his name known, let's explore the life and works of Otis Boykin.

From Dallas valedictorian to grad school dropout


Otis Boykin was born in Dallas in 1920 and graduated as the valedictorian of Booker T. Washington High School in 1938. With the help of a scholarship, he went to Fisk University in Nashville and graduated with a degree in physics and chemistry. He enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1946. However, he had to withdraw in 1947 because he could not afford the tuition. That setback pushed him toward developing inventions of his own, and resistors were among the first.

The timeline of his best-known resistor is worth getting right. According to Google Patents, Boykin filed the application for his wire-type precision resistor on July 6, 1954, and the patent (US 2,891,227) was granted on June 16, 1959, with Chicago Telephone Supply Corporation (CTS) as assignee. In other words, the invention dates to 1954, and 1959 marks the end of a roughly five-year wait for the patent to issue.

The patent describes a resistor made of wire formed into flattened, looped sections. Adjacent sections carry current in opposite directions, so their magnetic fields largely cancel, which keeps unwanted inductance low. Because the wire can be wound to a precise length, makers could also set the resistance to a specific value for a given application. In 1961, Boykin received a second patent, this time for a resistor built to withstand large swings in temperature and pressure. Cheaper and more reliable than the existing options, his resistors quickly drew interest from the US military, IBM, and other high-tech companies.

The pacemaker chapter

In 1964, Boykin developed a control unit for pacemakers, the devices that deliver a steady electrical pulse to the hearts of patients with irregular heartbeats. The Hall of Fame credits the design with allowing more precise regulation, longer life, and lower manufacturing cost. According to the Texas State Historical Association, CTS, where Boykin was senior project engineer, worked with Wilson Greatbatch on an adjustable resistor that let doctors change a pacemaker's pulse rate without surgery.

It is important to be precise here: Boykin did not invent the pacemaker, and his 1964 control unit did not lead to the first implantable model. His work was one link in a long chain of innovations. In his 2006 review titled “A brief history of cardiac pacing,” published in the Images in Paediatric Cardiology, cardiologist Oscar Aquilina notes that the first pacing machines were developed in the late 1920s and early 1930s, with an Australian anaesthesiologist and an American physician sharing the credit for the first external pacemaker. Fully implantable pacemakers followed: Rune Elmqvist and Åke Senning implanted the first in 1958, and Wilson Greatbatch's design was implanted in 1960. Boykin came later, and his contribution was making the components inside such devices more precise, more durable, and cheaper to produce, which helped bring pacemakers to many more patients.

Why unsung engineering deserves a second look

We may be forgiven for not knowing the name of the man behind components in our gadgets, but Boykin's story is a good reminder of how much everyday technology rests on quiet, incremental engineering. Boykin belonged to a class of engineers rarely mentioned in the same breath as tech magnates, and the honor that finally named him a pioneer arrived in 2014, long after the most pivotal events of his life. Next time you feel that your gadget has survived a disaster, remember that a person like Otis Boykin helped make it possible.