Paul Eisler

Paul Eisler
Paul Eisler with the first radio set using a printed circuit chassis and aerial coil. (Photo: Maurice Hubert, Multitech UK)
Born	1907 Vienna, Austria
Died	26 October 1992 (85 years)
Nationality	Austrian
Fields	Electrical engineering
Institutions	Technograph
Alma mater	Vienna University of Technology (German: Technische Universität Wien)

Paul Eisler (1907 – 26 October 1992, London) was an Austrian inventor born in Vienna. Among his innovations were the printed circuit board. In 2012, Printed Circuit Design & Fab magazine named its Hall of Fame after Eisler.

He graduated in engineering from Vienna University of Technology in 1930. Being Jewish, antisemitic German-Nationalist organizations prevented him from getting an engineering job in Vienna, so he obtained employment with the English recording technology firm (Gramaphone Company, EMI from March 1931) operating under its His Master's Voice brand in Belgrade. His task there was to eliminate radio interference on the music broadcast system on trains running from Belgrade to Niś. The project was a technical success but a financial failure because the Serbian railroad could only pay HMV by barter in grain, not pounds sterling, due a foreign exchange crisis. As a result, he had to return to Vienna. He was still prevented from working as an engineer, but he found work as a journalist and printer, first at Randfunk (which developed a low-cost method of tabulating a radio program guide at the printer) and eventually landing at a social-democratic publisher, Vorwärts. The experience in printing proved crucial later. However, after the 1934 putsch by Austrian fascists and due to social-democratic nature of Vorwärts it was shut down. Working independently, he patented some ideas from his doctorate at the university (on graphical sound recording and stereoscopic television) and leveraged them to obtain a visa to visit England to offer the patents to companies there in 1936. His first cousin, Philipp Fehl, contacted Eisler upon arrival as a refugee in England and Eisler helped to make sure that Fehl's father left Vienna alive after his release from the Dachau concentration camp.

Living in a Hampstead boarding house, without work or a work permit, he began to fabricate a radio using a printed circuit board while trying to sell some of his ideas. Around this time, the Odeon hired him to work on their cinema technology. One of the common problems there was coping with theatre goers who spilled foods such as ice cream on the seats. Eisler devised a yellow fabric to cover affected furniture for the benefit of the next theater goer as well as flag it for removal and cleaning at the next opportunity.