Before the introduction of solid-state electronics, equipment used valves ( vacuum tubes ) which required high voltages ; power supplies used step-up transformers, rectifiers, and filters to generate one or more direct voltages of some hundreds of volts, and a low alternating voltage for filaments.

Before leaving, he met Milton Caniff, and the two became lifelong friends.

Before commercial Internet access became common, these networks of BBSes provided regional and international e-mail and message bases.

Before Broadway became one-way, the main bus routes along it were the New York City Omnibus Company's ( NYCO ) 6 ( Broadway below Times Square ), 7 ( Broadway and Columbus Avenue ), and 11 ( Ninth and Amsterdam Avenues ), and the Surface Transportation Corporation's M100 ( Kingsbridge ) and M104 ( Broadway Branch ).

Before chemistry became a science, alchemists had designed arcane symbols for both metals and common compounds.

Before the RISC philosophy became prominent, many computer architects tried to bridge the so called semantic gap, i. e. to design instruction sets that directly supported high-level programming constructs such as procedure calls, loop control, and complex addressing modes, allowing data structure and array accesses to be combined into single instructions.

Before the buildup to the war gay servicemembers were court-martialed, imprisoned, and dishonorably discharged, but in wartime commanding officers found it difficult to convene court-martial boards of commissioned officers and the administrative blue discharge became the military's standard method for handling gay and lesbian personnel.

Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published: " And death shall have no dominion ", " Before I Knocked " and " The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower ".

Before digital technology became widespread, for many decades, the scanned data was transmitted as analog.

Before rail fins became ( extremely ) popular, this tendency of " single fins " led to riders " nursing " turns-this tendency was a significant limiting factor on performance.

Before gelatin became widely available as a commercial product, the most typical gelatin dessert was " calf's foot jelly ".

Before long, a falcon representing Horus became the norm as the animal on top, with the individual Pharaoh's symbol usually appearing in the box beneath the falcon, and above the stripes representing the palace.

Before she became associated with Greek mythology, she had many similarities with Artemis ( wilderness, and watching over wedding ceremonies )

Before the 18th century the Kalevala poetry was common throughout Finland and Karelia but in the 18th century it began to disappear in Finland, first in western Finland, because European rhymed poetry became more common in Finland.

Before Digital Command Control became available, this was one way of controlling two trains separately on the same track.

Before the latter became terminally ill, Bismarck did not expect he would live to see Wilhelm ascend to the throne, and thus had no strategy to deal with him.

Before leaving school, towards the end of 1855, he became assistant to the painter and professor Louis ( Lodewijk ) Jan de Taeye, whose courses in history and historical costume he had greatly enjoyed at the Academy.

Before the start of the 1994 season, San Diego was not expected to do well because they had so many newcomers via the draft and free agency ; the Chargers ended up 22 new players on their roster and 10 of them became starters.

Before cable-ready TV sets became common in the late 1980s, an electronic tuning device called a cable converter box was needed to receive the additional analog cable TV channels and transpose or convert the selected channel to analog radio frequency ( RF ) for viewing on a regular TV set on a single channel, usually VHF channel 3 or 4.

Before Paine it had been possible to be both a Christian and a deist ; now such a religious outlook became virtually untenable.

Before his conversion, Saul ( who later became better known as Paul of Tarsus ) puts followers of Jesus in prison.

Before any of the scandalous activity became widely known, Harding's popularity began to ebb, but he responded with determination to run for re-election, despite strong support emerging for the very popular Henry Ford for the Democrats.

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail listsThe term " e-log " has been used to describe journal entries sent out via e-mail since as early as March 1996.

Before he became a monk, Simon handed his county of the Vexin over to King Philip.

Before he became widely known as an astronaut, the film Air Cadet ( 1951 ) starring Richard Long and Rock Hudson briefly featured Grissom early in the movie as a U. S. Air Force candidate for flight school at Randolph Field, San Antonio, Texas.

Before motorized transport became widespread, drummers played a key role in military conflicts.

Before merging them into a common profile it is well to remember that their separate careers were extraordinary.

Before the 19th century, tattoos and piercings were very common among the Aleut people, especially among women.

Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the season, as it is common in other West Germanic languages to this day ( cf.

Before 1938, the federal courts, like almost all other common law courts, decided the law on any issue where the relevant legislature ( either the U. S. Congress or state legislature, depending on the issue ), had not acted, by looking to courts in the same system, that is, other federal courts, even on issues of state law, and even where there was no express grant of authority from Congress or the Constitution.

Before the 19th century, closed social hierarchies were common in Hungary.

Before central power stations were widely introduced it was common for industries, large hotels and commercial buildings to generate their own power and use low pressure exhaust steam for heating.

Before the 1890 Mormon Manifesto against plural marriage, Mormonism and Islam also shared in the belief in and practice of plural marriage, a practice now held in common by Islam and various branches of Mormon fundamentalism.

Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie ( 1589 ), the leading work of literary criticism of the Elizabethan period and an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote " commendably well " circulated their poetry only among their friends, " as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned " ( Book 1, Chapter 8 ).

Before the beginning of the 20th century, pearl hunting was the most common way of harvesting pearls.

Before the advertising campaign, it was common to hear tour guides in Bratislava making jokes about the Škoda, saying " How do you double the value of a Škoda?

Before it is registered, it is common practice ( with some legal standing ) to use the service mark symbol ℠ ( a superscript SM ).

Before the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was common for many smaller cities to have their own operators.

Before the advent of the touchpad, small trackballs were common on portable computers, where there may be no desk space on which to run a mouse.

Before this, other, less precise terms were common to denominate cartels, for instance: association, combination, combine or pool.

Before the 20th century, other types of betrothal gifts were common.

Before the 1970s, dancers of both sexes appeared largely in underground clubs or as part of a theatre experience, but the practice eventually became common enough on its own.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the most common pressure measurement device was a hydrostatic manometer, which is not practical for measuring high pressures.

Before the 19th century, polygamy was common among the Cherokee, especially by elite men.

Before the development of vaccination and the introduction of a vaccine, it was a common childhood disease worldwide.