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75th Anniversary of Television
SpiceWare writes "In the summer of '21, Philo T. Farnsworth was struck by an inspiration after plowing a field. He transmitted the first television image six years later on September 7, 1927."
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it was "one channel, and nothing good on."
Things haven't really changed since then.
Someone you trust is one of us.
So... let me get this straight. If your TV ran Linux would you spend more time watching TV? ;)
Spending so much time in front of the computer is baaad. Watch some TV, get some culture, it'll be good for ya.
Well, TV has given us some nice moments. But in between all those nice moments has been a high-volume sewer hose of cultural sludge. So my personal goal today is to convince everyone to not watch TV at all, at least for this day. Let's remind the Content Cartel that there are other options...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Baird came up with a mechanical scanning system that bore little resemblance to what we now think of as television. Farnsworth's invention was fully electronic television, built atop Braun's work. Vladimir Zworykin invented an electronic television system at about the same time, but it only became practical after Farnsworth's ideas were incorporated.
On January 26, 1926 Baird demonstrated a fully working prototype of mechanical television to members of the Royal Institution at 22 Frith Street, Baird's residence and laboratory. This was the world's first demonstration of true television because it showed moving human faces with tonal gradients and detail. Far from perfect, the images flickered quite a bit, but the individuals on screen were fully recognizable.
Despite CRT's downsides, there are significant reasons that an individual might prefer or even be required to use a CRT rather than an LCD display.
1. Accurate Color Matching. Sorry, you just can't do this on an LCD. I understand that Plasma is a little better, but you can't beat CRT for color matching.
2. Multi-resolution Display. LCD's have a 'Native' display resolution for which their displays are best suited. Other display resolutions, if you can get them to work, just don't look right.
3. Brightness. LCD will *never* be as bright, nor have the brightness control of CRT. CRTS are also not prone to angle-washout-syndrome like LCD monitors are. CRTS have the same brightness regardless of which direction you're looking at them from.
In many cases... most probably... an LCD display is preferrable to a CRT. In my line of work, as a graphic artist, I'd sooner lop off a pinky than part with my big, beautiful, heavy, radiation-emitting CRT.
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... at the University of Leeds in the UK demonstrating his video recorder and his stereoscopic television (3D TV to you and me).
Baird's recorder used an alumin(i)um disc rather like an LP running at ~80rpm to record the images. The machine, like his television, was an electro-mechanical affair build from bits including old hat boxes and bicycle parts. His machinery is exhibited at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television a short way away from Leeds, in Bradford.
Whilst researching the links I found the NMPFT's TV heaven page and top ten list of requested television programs from the archives. The August list is below:
This says something about the visitors although you have to account for it being the school vacation.
The best way to look at this is not "who was first" - but to look at the parallel lines of thought and development in various countries.
Baird gave his first public demo in Jan 1926. Campbell-Swinton had come up with the concept of television scanned, synchronised and displayed by electronic means in 1908. Baird's implementiation was very low cost in engineering terms - when the BBC used it for broadcasts they were able to use their audio transmitters. The BBC actually broadcast using Baird's system from 1932 to 1935. Mechanical scanning was based on Nipkow's ideas (a German - around 1884)
Baird was also the first to record television (on a wax disk). I think he also had a colour system. Mechanical scanning was not ideal, but it was all that could be done at the time and worked well enough for the BBC to broadcast using it. He can't just be written out of history.
The Farnsworth article makes much of the claim that the idea ocurred to him when he was 14 (no evidence is offered - and what was needed was not the ideas - they were in place but the electronics to practically apply them) as it concedes that practical application postdated Baird's demo.
Nick
This strikes me as being much like celebrating on the anniversary of Hiroshima, considering that tv was pretty much a cultural nuke. Ugh.
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
As an American you are no doubt some fat, ugly overweight child with a penchant for running a machine gun up and down your local school.
.45.
You, sir, are obviously an idiot. The weapon of choice for rampaging through public high schools is the semi-automatic handgun. Its small size makes it easy to conceal under clothing or in a bag or backpack. Weapons that fire 9mm rounds present a good compromise between power and magazine capacity, but for real effectiveness against targets at close range, go for the
What a moron.
hey, in France and the UK we still have quality television.
Dude, France has about 600 broadcast TV stations. The UK has about 250.
The United States of America has more than 2,000, and that's just over-the-air stations. We also have over 9,000 local cable TV systems.
Do the arithmetic. The United States of America broadcasts over 96 million hours of television programming every year. There's enough room in America's cultural output for greatness and crap and everything in between, in volumes that would blow your narrow little mind.
A friend of mine just moved to the US from Australia. Not a small country, Australia. Twice the size of Europe. He and his family are bewildered by the sheer amount of everything we have in this country. Took him to a grocery store the other day. Our city is nowhere near a coastline, but we get seafood by the ton flown in every morning. The produce available in our markets comes from every corner of the world, and it's all fresh and unbelievably cheap.
I think you foreign types often fail to grasp just how big and how affluent this country is. Our culture dominates the world not because it's better or worse, but because there's just so much of it.
This is, of course, a good and righteous thing. Manifest Destiny is no myth, my friends.
Philo, the resident mad scientist of U-62, in Weird Al's movie "UHF" was named after the inventor of the electronic television.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
In my high school, (don't remember the exact class) the teacher had us read this long long article about how the brilliant David Sarnoff, created from scratch, the first cathode ray tube at the technology wonderland company RCA. I don't remember much detail, but it greatly glorified Sarnoff as "the father of television" and RCA as the company that brought moving pictures to every living room in America.
It sounded fishy to me, but I didn't bother looking further into it. As luck would have it, I ran across an article in an old Scientific American a week later that told the truth: Philo Farnsworth invented the cathode ray tube (as well as the tube that the first cameras used, can't remember the name) and RCA tried to steal the invention and patents from him.
I took a copy of the factual article to the aforementioned teacher who said he'd announce a correction to the class. Funny, though, he never did. I guess teachers don't like to be told they're wrong (even though it wasn't exactly his fault.)
It seems to me the actual invention ot television, the idea of translating an image into a sequential electrical signal by scanning and converting it back at the receiver, dates back to Nipkow in the 19th century. Baird, Farnsworth, and Zworykin's are elaborations on this basic idea, using early 20th century technology.
"What kind of inspiration did he get from plowing the field?"
Well, likely he was thinking: "This sucks, I'd rather be watching Rosie"
Get your Unix fortune now!
As a Yank, I have to say that's an embarrassing, bigoted and ill-informed post.
Your use of the phrase "foreign types" represents a racist labeling of everyone and anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen. It's evidence of your inability or unwillingness to see the world as it really is. I don't give much credence to fears of U.S.-inspired
globalization efforts (much of that seems to be an effort to ensure that the poor and underdeveloped stay poor and underdeveloped) but your thoughts serve as evidence for those who do.
Likewise your approving reference to "Manifest Destiny", a discredited and equally racist concept that, in a contemporary context, would support U.S. seizure of territory beyond it's current borders.
As I am sure others will point out, Australia is not twice the size of Europe. Australia is smaller; indeed, it is the smallest continent. And, compared to Europe. it is largely unpopulated.
The variety and quality of programming on U.S. television is determined by the number and independence of the production companies creating that programming, not by the number of individual stations broadcasting that programming. This reflects the nature of the U.S. television industry. There is good programming on U.S. TV, but there is also an increasing surfeit of cheap tabloidesque programming that exists only because it increases the profit margin of that particular corporation. I haven't lived in France, but I have lived in the UK. On average, UK programming is more varied and interesting than U.S. programming precisely because the UK TV industry is not a mirror image of the U.S. industry.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
How ironic that the anniversary of the Television coincides with World Literacy Day...
"I like to wear big boy pants."
I can't believe I missed this the first time through.
Likewise your approving reference to "Manifest Destiny", a discredited and equally racist concept that, in a contemporary context, would support U.S. seizure of territory beyond it's current borders.
You're damn right! Sovereignty is a privilege, not a right. Look at Germany after World War II. Did we just hand the keys over to the German people again and pack out? Hell, no. Five years of occupation by the US, along with the UK and France, resulted in the formation of the Federal Republic, which has become one of the strongest, most modern countries on Earth. Essentially the same thing happened between '45 and '52 in Japan.
Let's compare this to a recent sequence of events. We smashed the oppressive and illegitimate Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Where were our occupation forces? Where were the parades through Kabul? Who's the provisional governor of Afghanistan? Where's Douglas MacArthur when we need him?
Nope. Instead of occupation and support, all they got was a loya jirga. Now, less than three months later, they're back to assassination attempts and bombings. There's no political system in Afghanistan, because nobody has taken the time to build one. Countries with no tradition of democracy can't just be handed a get-out-of-oppression-free card and expected to build their own country with it. They have to be taught.
That's why I oppose the proposed invasion of Iraq. If my country would go all the way with it-- marching into Baghdad, removing Hussein from power, and setting up a provisional occupation government for a period of not less than five years-- I'd be all for it. But I'm afraid that's not what's going to happen. Crushing the Hussein government without building a strong new government in its place would just destabilize things even further.
If we did it right, occupying whole swaths of the Third World would be the best thing for everybody concerned. There are countries where corruption and lawlessness are the rule, not the exception. These kinds of societies can't possibly be expected to govern themselves in any effective manner. As I've said many times before in this forum, democracy can't work without a universal respect for and observance of the law. In countries where there is no law-- only anarchy or dictatorship-- the seeds of democracy will find no purchase.
Get in there with a hundred thousand troops armed with M-16s, MREs with the little packages of M&Ms in 'em, and copies of the Declaration of Independence. Force 'em to live under the strict rule of martial law for a few years, then gradually give them the ability to govern themselves. In fifty years, we'll all be buying expensive stereos and luxury cars imported from that economic superpower, Afghanistan.
Bet your ass I'm for the seizure of territory outside our current borders. Somebody's gotta show these people how it's done. I don't see the French rushing to do it. Do you?