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A 'toaster' is a small electric kitchen appliance designed to toast slices of bread, an act also known as 'making toast'. Most toasters can also be used to toast other foods such as teacakes, Pop Tarts, and crumpets.
A typical modern 2-slice toaster draws anywhere between 600 and 1200 W and makes toast in 1 to 3 minutes.

Contents

Toaster types

History of toasters

High-tech toasters

Other uses of the word 'toaster'

Other uses for toasters

Toasters in popular culture

See also

References

External links

Toaster types

Modern toasters are typically one of three varieties: pop-up toasters, toaster ovens and conveyor toasters.
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 1940s 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.
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.
Conveyer 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 350-800 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.
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 are inadvisable to use, due to the risk of electric shock, unless the appliance is disconnected from the mains.

History of toasters

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.
Utensils for toasting bread over open flames go back at least 200 years. Toasters for bread using electricity were invented by Crompton and Company, Leeds, England in 1893.^[1]
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.^[2]
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. http://www.lloydcopeman.com/biography/bio3.html 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.
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.
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.
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.
Toasters and toast bread have recently drawn attention of modders whom modify toasters 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]
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]

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.

★ The Commodore 1541 floppy disk drive was also known among users as the "toaster", due to its internal power source which generated some heat.

★ ''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 due to the fact that they are currently the only electric locomotives in revenue service, and they have a very boxy shape.

Other uses for toasters

★ Comedian Heywood Banks uses a metal toaster as a percussion instrument in his song entitled "Toast".

★ Phil Conners, Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, uses an electric toaster to commit suicide.

Toasters in popular culture

★ A toaster is one of the main characters in the children's novella ''The Brave Little Toaster'', which was made into a 1987 film.

★ A toaster appears infrequently as a character in the British sci-fi comedy series ''Red Dwarf''. Named Talkie Toaster, it is obsessed with making toast for the crewmembers much to their annoyance. He is eventually smashed to pieces with 14 lb hammer.

★ In "The Puppy Episode" of the 1990s sitcom ''Ellen'', a toaster oven is sardonically identified as the imaginary prize a lesbian receives for "converting" a sufficient number of heterosexual women. The reference has since become a common joke in the gay community.

★ One of the world's most famous screensavers shows Flying Toasters.

★ In the 2003 version of ''Battlestar Galactica'', the term "Toasters" is a derogatory reference to Cylons.

★ In the ''Tiny Toon Adventures'' episode "Prom-ise Her Anything," Montana Max angrily declares that, on the evolutionary chart, Elmyra Duff ranks somewhere "between head cheese and toaster ovens."

★ In the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror V, Homer uses a modified toaster to travel back in time.

★ In Philips Interactive Media's game Hotel Mario for the CD-i, there is a cut scene where Mario says "You know what they say, All toasters, toast toast.".

See also

★ Sandwich toaster

References

1. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2005/2/2005_2_6.shtml
2. http://www.toaster.org/1900.html
3. http://www.absolutemichigan.com/dig/michigan/lloyd-groff-copeman-the-patent-man/
4. http://www.toaster.org/tmaster_when.html
5. http://www.toaster.org/museum.html
6. livinginternet.com
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1264205.stm
8. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/06/04/bread_as_a_display_device/
9. http://www.embeddedarm.com/news/netbsd_toaster.htm
10. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/foundation/toastersamp.mspx

External links

★ The Toaster Museum: A detailed site devoted entirely to toasters and their history

★ The International Central Services Toaster Museum

★ History of the electric toaster

★ How Toasters Work (Howstuffworks.com)