FACTOID # 56: Malaysia has the lowest rate of cinema attendance in the world.
 
 Home   Encyclopedia   Statistics   Countries A-Z   Flags   Maps   Education   Forum   FAQ   About 
 
WHAT'S NEW
RELATED ARTICLES
People who viewed "Toaster" also viewed:
RECENT ARTICLES
More Recent Articles »
 

SEARCH ALL

FACTS & STATISTICS    Advanced view

Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:

 

 

(* = Graphable)

 

 


Encyclopedia > Toaster
A classically styled chrome two-slot automatic toaster
A classically styled chrome two-slot automatic toaster

A toaster is a small electric kitchen appliance designed to toast slices of bread, an act also known as 'making toast'. A typical modern 2-slice toaster draws anywhere between 600 and 1200 W and makes toast in 1 to 3 minutes. , Towcester (pronounced ) is a small town in Northamptonshire, England with a population of 8,856 (2001 census). ... A Toaster is a device to toast bread. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1938x1644, 585 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Toast ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1938x1644, 585 KB) File links The following pages link to this file: Toast ... Home appliances are electrical/mechanical appliances which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. ... This article is about the food. ... For other uses, see Watt (disambiguation). ...

Contents

Types of toaster

Toaster with light-fitting plug, ca. 1909
Toaster with light-fitting plug, ca. 1909
A toaster oven
A toaster oven

Modern toasters are typically one of three varieties: pop-up toasters, toaster ovens and conveyor toasters. Copyright info See Talk:Mains power plug for copyright information. ... Copyright info See Talk:Mains power plug for copyright information. ... Oven depicted in a painting by Millet An oven is an enclosed compartment for heating, baking or drying. ...


In pop-up or automatic toasters, bread slices are inserted vertically into slots (generally only large enough to admit a single slice of bread) on the top of the toaster. A lever on the side of the toaster is depressed, activating the toaster. When an internal device determines that the toasting cycle is complete, the toaster turns off and the toast pops up out of the slots. The heating elements of a pop-up toaster are usually oriented vertically, parallel to the bread slice - although there are some variations.


In earlier days, the completion of the toasting operation was determined by a mechanical clockwork timer; the user could adjust the running time of the timer to determine the degree of "doneness" of the toast, but the first cycle produced less toasted toast than subsequent cycles because the toaster was not yet warmed up. Toasters made since the 1930s frequently use a thermal sensor, such as a bimetallic strip, located in close proximity to the toast. This allows the first cycle to run longer than subsequent cycles. The thermal device is also slightly responsive to the actual temperature of the toast itself. Like the timer, it can be adjusted by the user to determine the doneness of the toast. Not to be confused with censure, censer, or censor. ...


By comparison, toaster ovens are small electric ovens with a door on one side and a tray within. To toast bread with a toaster oven, one lays down slices of bread horizontally on the tray, closes the door, and activates the toaster, usually by means of a lever. When the toast is done, the toaster turns off, but the door must be opened manually. Most toaster ovens are significantly larger than toasters, but are capable of performing most of the functions of electric ovens, albeit on a much smaller scale. They can be used to cook toast with toppings, like garlic bread or cheese, though they tend to produce drier toast and require longer operating times, since their heating elements are located further from the toast (to allow larger items to be cooked). They may also heat less evenly than either toasters or larger electric ovens, and some glass cookware cannot be used in them.


Conveyor toasters are designed to make many slices of toast and are generally used in the catering industry, being suitable for large-scale use. Bread is toasted 350-900 slices an hour, making conveyor toasters ideal for a large restaurant that is constantly busy with growing demand. However, such devices have occasionally been produced for home use as far back as 1938, when the Toast-A-Lator went into limited production.


As with so many home appliances, more elaborate toasters and toaster ovens now utilize computer-controlled mechanisms in place of electromechanical controls. Toasters are usually freestanding, counter-top appliances, although some toaster ovens may be hung beneath cabinets. In engineering, electromechanics combines the sciences of electromagnetism of electrical engineering and mechanics. ...


Sometimes toast gets stuck in a toaster, particularly pop-up toasters, and must be freed manually. As most toasters are in the kitchen, metal knives and forks are typically an easily available tool but can cause risk of electric shock, unless the appliance is disconnected from the mains. Sign warning of possible electric shock hazard An electric shock can occur upon contact of a humans body with any source of voltage high enough to cause sufficient current flow through the muscles or hair. ...


Some toasters also have a small round griddle on them for making eggs with toast. cast-iron iron enamel stainless steel The cooking pan is a type of food preparation utensil commonly found in the kitchen which includes many more specific cooking vessels such as saucepans and frying pans (or fry pans). ...


History of toasters

Edison Edicraft toaster, ca. 1929
Edison Edicraft toaster, ca. 1929

Prior to the development of the electric toaster, sliced bread was toasted by placing it in a metal frame and holding it over a fire or by holding it near to a fire using a long handled fork. Edison is the last name of a famous United States inventor: Thomas Edison Other people known by the name Edison: Charles Edison – son of Thomas Edison and Governor of New Jersey Edison Chen – popular Hong Kong teen idol Edison Carter, character in the television show Max Headroom A number of... For other uses, see Fire (disambiguation). ...


Utensils for toasting bread over open flames go back at least 200 years. Toasters for bread using electricity were invented by Brock Hanson[citation needed]. The technology that makes electric toasters possible, a nichrome wire that can endure high heat, has existed for a long time. At least two other brands of toasters had been introduced commercially around the time GE submitted the first patent application for their model D-12 in 1909.[1] Nichrome is a brand name for a nickel-chromium resistance wire, a non-magnetic alloy of nickel and chromium. ... GE redirects here. ...


In 1913 Lloyd Groff Copeman and his wife Hazel Berger Copeman applied for various toaster patents and in that same year the Copeman Electric Stove Company introduced the toaster with automatic bread turner.[2] The company also produced the "toaster that turns toast." Before this, electric toasters cooked bread on one side and then it was flipped by hand to toast the other side. Copeman's toaster turned the bread around without having to touch it.[3] Copeman also invented the first electric stove and the rubber (flexible) ice cube tray.[2] Lloyd Groff Copeman (29 December 1881-5 July 1956)[1] was a prolific and successful American inventor who was responsible for devising the first electric stove, an early form of the microwave oven and the flexible rubber ice cube tray, among other products. ... A stove is a heat-producing device. ...


The next development was the semi-automatic toaster, which turned off the heating element automatically after the bread toasted, using either a clockwork mechanism or a bimetallic strip. However, the toast was still manually lowered and raised from the toaster via a lever mechanism.


The automatic pop-up toaster, which ejects the toast after toasting it, was first patented by Charles Strite in 1919. In 1925, using a redesigned version of Strite's toaster, the Waters Genter Company introduced the Model 1-A-1 Toastmaster,[4] the first automatic pop-up, household toaster that could brown bread on both sides simultaneously, set the heating element on a timer, and eject the toast when finished. By 1950, some high-end U.S. toasters featured automatic toast lowering and raising, with no levers to operate - simply dropping the slices into the machine commenced the toasting procedure. A notable example was the Sunbeam T-20, T-35 and T-50 models (identical except for details such as control positioning) made from the late 1940s through the 1960s, which used a bimetallic beam structure to lower the toast; the inserted slice of bread tripped a lever to switch on the heating elements, and their heat caused the bimetallic pull-down mechanism to lower the bread. When the toast was done, as determined by a small bimetallic sensor actuated by the heat passing through the toast, the heaters were shut off and the pull-down mechanism returned to its room-temperature position, slowly raising the finished toast. As in most such toasters, one sensing unit controls the toasting of two (or four) slices, so the slot with the sensor is marked "ONE SLICE" because operating the toaster without bread in that slot will result in almost immediate shut-off as the heat from the heating element impinges directly on the sensor. Charles P. Strite, born in Courte de Leon, France, received U.S. patent #1,394,450 on October 18, 1921 for the pop-up bread toaster. ... Sunbeam Products is an American company that has produced electric home appliances since 1910. ... For other uses, see Room temperature (disambiguation). ...


Significant ultramodern chrome designs were the Sunbeam T-9 "Half-Round" or "World's Fair" toaster, designed by George Scharfenberg and introduced in 1939, and the General Electric 139T81, produced in quantity from 1946.[5] Automatic electric toasters were very much a luxury item, with the better models costing up to $25 in 1939 (approximately $360 in 2006 dollars). Most toasters produced from the late 1930s through 1960 are generally considered to be of the highest standard in workmanship and material quality; many were built well enough to last for decades. Due to their aesthetic popularity, some of the classic toaster designs from the 1940s and 1950s are now being reintroduced into the market, though these reproductions for the most part are not constructed to the high standard of the original designs. The word Scharfenberg can refer to a number of items: Konrad III of Scharfenberg George Scharfenberg, an industrial designer Scharfenberger chocolate Scharfenberger coupler Category: ...


More recent additions to toaster technology include wider toasting slots for bagels and thick breads, the ability to toast frozen breads, and a single-side heating mode. Most toasters can also be used to toast other foods such as teacakes, Pop Tarts, and crumpets, though the addition of melted butter and/or sugar to the interior components of automatic electric toasters often contributes to eventual mechanical or electrical failure. Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts Box of Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts Pop-Tarts is the brand name for a flat rectangular toaster pastry approximately 3 inches (7. ...


Toasters can be modified to print images and logos on bread slices.


High-tech toasters

There have been a number of projects adding advanced technology to toasters.


In 1990 Simon Hackett and John Romkey created The Internet Toaster, a toaster which could be controlled from the Internet.[6]


In 2001 Robin Southgate from Brunel University in England created a toaster that could toast a graphic of the weather prediction (limited to sunny or cloudy) onto a piece of toast.[7] The toaster dials a pre-coded phone number to get the weather forecast.[8] Statue of Brunel at the University Brunel University is a university situated in West London, England. ... Modern weather predictions aid in timely evacuations and potentially save lives and property damage Human beings have attempted to predict the weather since time immemorial. ...


In 2005, Technologic Systems, a vendor of embedded systems hardware, designed a toaster running the NetBSD Unix-like operating system as a sales demonstration system.[9] What is an Embedded System? Electronic devices that incorporate a computer(usually a microprocessor) within their implementation. ... NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-like BSD computer operating system. ... Diagram of the relationships between several Unix-like systems A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. ... An operating system (OS) is a software that manages computer resources and provides programmers with an interface used to access those resources. ...


Other uses of the word 'toaster'

  • Toasters are commonly used as fictitious computer peripherals for device driver sample code; for example, the Microsoft Windows Driver Development Kit includes a Toaster sample driver.[10]
  • The original Apple Macintosh computer was sometimes referred to derogatorily as a beige toaster due to its lack of cooling fans.[citation needed]
  • The Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive was also known among users as the "toaster", due to its internal power source which generated some heat.
  • The term toaster is also used to refer to an email server via which users can retrieve their email using the POP3 or IMAP protocols.
  • Toaster is slang for a recordable optical disc drive; Roxio Toast is one program which works with such devices. The term coaster toaster is also seen, particularly in reference to a drive with a high rate of recording errors.
  • The New Zealand Railways EF Class (NZR EF class) locomotives are nicknamed toasters, probably because they are currently the only electric locomotives in revenue service, and they have a very boxy shape.

For an account of the words periphery and peripheral as they are used in biology, sociology, politics, computer hardware, and other fields, see the periphery disambiguation page. ... A device driver, or software driver is a computer program allowing higher-level computer programs to interact with a computer hardware device. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Windows redirects here. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... The Macintosh 128K was the original Apple Macintosh personal computer. ... Household Electric Fan A fan has two purposes – to move air for creature comfort or for ventilation and to move air or gas from one location to another for industrial purposes. ... Front view of the most common version of the Commodore 1541 disk drive, with open disk slot. ... Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) is an application layer Internet standard protocol used to retrieve email from a remote server to a local client over a TCP/IP connection. ... The Internet Message Access Protocol (commonly known as IMAP, and previously called Interactive Mail Access Protocol) is an application layer Internet protocol used for accessing email on a remote server from a local client. ... “Optical media” redirects here. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Coaster can refer to: A glass with a ceramic coaster under it. ... The EF Class (previously classified Class 30) are the only mainline electric locomotives in service on New Zealands national rail network. ...

See also

A photo of an opened Bifinett sandwich toaster. ...

References

  1. ^ 1900 - 1920
  2. ^ a b LloydCopeman.com - prolific U.S. inventor
  3. ^ » Lloyd Groff Copeman: The Patent Man » Absolute Michigan
  4. ^ Toastmaster Toasters: When They Were Made
  5. ^ The Cyber Toaster Museum
  6. ^ livinginternet.com. Internet Toaster, John Romkey, Simon Hackett. Retrieved on 22 November 2006.
  7. ^ BBC News | SCI/TECH | A small slice of design
  8. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/04/bread_as_a_display_device/
  9. ^ NetBSD Toaster with the TS-7200 ARM9 SBC
  10. ^ Toaster Sample Drivers in the Driver Development Kit

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

  Results from FactBites:
 
Toaster - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia (1257 words)
Toaster ovens are not as close to "true" toasters as you might think, but nonetheless share much of the same DNA.
Toaster ranches were a lucrative way to make money, and in the frontiers of America from 1800 to 1850 self-styled toasterboys tamed the ole' west.
A toaster that was being forced to jump through a hoop saw another toaster of the opposite gender (quite a looker, too, as toasters go) inside the zoo cage, and well, you know.
Toaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (1391 words)
Modern toasters are typically one of three varieties: pop-up toasters, toaster ovens and conveyor toasters.
The heating elements of a pop-up toaster are oriented vertically, parallel to the bread.
To toast bread with a toaster oven, one lays down slices of bread horizontally on the tray, closes the door, and activates the toaster, usually by means of a lever.
  More results at FactBites »


 

COMMENTARY     


Share your thoughts, questions and commentary here
Your name
Your comments
Please enter the 5-letter protection code

Want to know more?
Search encyclopedia, statistics and forums:

 


Lesson Plans | Student Area | Student FAQ | Reviews | Press Releases |  Feeds | Contact
The Wikipedia article included on this page is licensed under the GFDL.
Images may be subject to relevant owners' copyright.
All other elements are (c) copyright NationMaster.com 2003-5. All Rights Reserved.
Usage implies agreement with terms.