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TV Turns 90 (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A live webcast today will celebrate the transmission of the first electronic TV signal on Sept. 7, 1927, and the man behind it, Philo T. Farnsworth, per AP: The webcast is set for 6 p.m. ET from the original location of Farnsworth's San Francisco lab. It'll be repeated at 9 p.m. and midnight. Veteran producer Phil Savenick created the site to detail the medium's history and the contributions of Farnsworth and other TV pioneers.
There is still nothing worth watching on...
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John Logie Baird in 1926 sent television images by radio.
If sending by wire instead of free space is acceptable as criteria, television was invented in the mid 19th century.
Shiva Ayyadurai invented this as well
I thought John Logie Baird invented TV
imo, well worth a read. I bought the book when it first came out, and have reread it a couple of times.
The summary said "first electronic television signal". Which is accurate if you interpret it as meaning the first signal generated by electronic scanning (Baird used mechanical scanning).
I feel that the much earlier fax transmissions can be ignored; most people would consider "television" as implying a frame rate fast enough to provide an "animated" image rather than a slide show.
Now would be a good time to remind everyone that George Orwell's 1984 wasn't about governments it was about TV.
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TV got old and senile, is boring everyone with old stories, and sometimes rehashing them thinking we won't recognise the repeat.
We haven't been using anything resembling the original technology for at least 40 years in my neck of the woods. First, there was color TV. Cable TV followed. Then we had Plasma and LCD sets. Then there was DTV. The mode of transmission and display bears no resemblance to the original. But then again, we could say the same about telephony. The work of the pioneers was still interesting.
I'm pretty sure Philo T. Farnsworth wasn't the guy who invented TV, though.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
oddly enough, all the court cases brought against Philo T. Farnsworth failed to prove primacy, so he wins.
Either you have proof or you go back under the rock you seem to live under.
n/t
Yes, but Baird was not American, so the Americans picked someone else. Many Americans think the car was invented by Henry Ford...
The article said "electronic" television, which definitely was invented by Farnsworth. Baird was mechanically-scanned and effectively a dead-end. It's a bigger difference than between spark-gap radio and continuous-wave radio.
Pretty sure Shiva Ayyadurai invented Television.
COTY!!!
bullshit, the information was transmitted by electronic means. scanners and fax machines have electomechanical parts too, they aren't electronic devices?
but it's only got a 20 year back catalogue of original creative works.
A fax machine isn't email or even the ancestor of email.
Reuven Frank, who was President of NBC News in the 1960s, and is credited with bring TV news out of the shadow of then-dominant radio news, once said,
"All truly serious criticism of television can ultimately be reduced to the proposition that it never should have been invented in the first place, and I agree."
1984 is about a lot more than just TV. It's about a government attempting to control reality by adjusting perceptions. Examples that aren't just TV: thoughtcrime, the ministries, newspeak, Winston's job altering records and photographs to fit the narrative. The fact that we have politically correct names for these (terrorism, TLAs, memes, and "alternative facts") means some people took 1984 as a guidebook rather than a warning.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
As the professor would say...
The real question here is: if Philo T. Farnsworth were alive today to see what's become of television, would he be happy or sad?
Any relation to Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth?
I think you are wrong. Amongst the Americans who do think, I expect many of them think that Henry Ford applied mass production to cars.
I think you are wrong. Amongst the Americans who do think, I expect many of them think that Henry Ford applied mass production to cars.
That's what we were taught in school. I remember writing a paper about it in fourth grade. I think it was Daimler who had the first commercially available motorized car.
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COE
Of course Baird invented TV. That's why everyone used giant spinning discs to transmit TV pictures until CCDs came along.
Or did they use Farnsworth's video tubes?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
"Electronic", as applied to the television, is not just a simple statement that it uses control circuitry. It's a statement that it uses a magnetically-guided electron beam on a phosphor screen. The competitors at the time were mechanically-guided. Farnsworth's contribution was the part that feeds an oscillating signal into a ring-shaped electromagnet near the beam emitter, causing the beam to "bend" as it paints the screen. This ensures hblank and vblank timings don't break down when mechanical parts start to wear out.
Next we will get someone claiming that the worlds first TV service broadcasts were made in the USA when they wern't.
Not everything was invented in the USA even though many of you like to claim that.
{the Soviet era Russians did the same btw.}
The article said "electronic" television, which definitely was invented by Farnsworth. Baird was mechanically-scanned and effectively a dead-end. It's a bigger difference than between spark-gap radio and continuous-wave radio.
Even the electronic television predates Farnsworth. Several people had invented electronic televisons before Farnsworth. The significance behind Farnsworth is that he gave the first demonstration to the American press of a electronic television. Farnsworth wasn't the inventor of the TV or even the electronic TV.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Philo Farnsworth
Wernstrom!
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Nearly every single invention ever invented had some history of gradual evolution. Even the transistor came from a better understanding of whisker amplifiers, but we don't credit the invention of the transistor to the first person who developed the whisker amplifier. The development history of many inventions is decidedly messy, but generally historians credit the term "inventor" to the person who develops the system that most closely resembles the known economically viable version of the invention. In this case, yes, it is Philo. Baird should certainly be acknowledged, as should some Russian scientists. This is the same argument about the light bulb - long history but Edison was the first to get it out of the lab in an economically viable fashion.
Television, as it was originally invented, was over-the-air broadcasting of sound and video via radio waves. And, it's effectively dead (or, at least, in the final death throes).
I guess you could argue this is or isn't true by the way you define "television." If all "video entertainment" is considered "television," then television predates over-the-air broadcasting, and should go back to the invention of the motion picture. If all video entertainment ISN'T television, then what it? What makes something "television?" Should HBO (which was never broadcast) be considered "television"? Should Netflix and Amazon Prime series be considered? How about YouTube series? Video podcasts? Does something need to be episodic to be considered television? Sporting events like the olympics aren't. Does something need to be made available on a schedule to be considered television? Netflix series often aren't. Does something need to be broadcast to all comers to be television? Pay-per-view events aren't.
What defines "television" in a way that makes the current anniversary relevant, that also doesn't imply television is pretty much a thing of the past?
You could argue Shakespeare's 453 birthday was this year, but not that he turned 453. He died at 52.
I was going to post something like this, but I don't think over-the-air digital media is dead. Television signals, as originally created, are dead. But over-the-air digital media is very much alive. See the related Slashdot link from the box at the bottom of the page: https://entertainment.slashdot...
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Fake news != things I disagree with
Fake news != erroneous information
Fake news == spurious information intended to deceive and inflame
no we really dont. his contributions to the auto industry cannot be ignored but most americans in no way believe he invented the car
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
heh, I did a PPT (well some similar program at the time anyway) on the history of cars back in the mid 90s. you are close, same company as its known today but it was actually Karl Benz who created the first practical automobile in 1893
https://www.biography.com/peop...
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I've always thought that the name Philo T. Farnsworth sounded like a stage name for the ringmaster at the Barnum & Bailey circus.
"GoooooooOOOOOD EVENING Ladies and Gentlemen, and children of All Ages! My name is Philo T. Farnsworth, welcome to the Big Top!!"
It's worth noting that Farnsworth also invented the only device to achieve Nuclear Fusion that has ever been commercially produced.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Television, as it was originally invented, was over-the-air broadcasting of sound and video via radio waves. And, it's effectively dead (or, at least, in the final death throes).
Not quite:
http://www.fiercecable.com/broadcasting/nielsen-acknowledges-ota-proliferation-adds-15-000-tv-audience-meters-140-local
Again a completely Ameri-centric viewpoint. High definition television in Great Britain (as opposed to Baird's mechanical system) was developed by EMI in the early 30s, in parallel and independently of Farnsworth or RCA (i.e. Zworykin). The EMI developed Emitron camera (patented 1932) and 405 line-system was used to start the worlds first high definition television service by the BBC in November 1936 (to the London area).
The incandescent light bulb was developed in parallel and independently on both sides of the Atlantic. Edison in the US and Joseph Swan in the UK, with Swan patenting in the UK first.
You're confused, CRT based television is by definition electronic. Mechanical scanning referred to the use of a large spinning disk instead of a CRT.
The electron beam in the CRT in 1930s era televisions was bent (or more correctly deflected) so that it scanned the screen building up a picture, in one of two ways. Electrostatic deflection or Electromagnetic deflection.
Electromagnetic deflection uses an electro-magnet built around the outside of the electron gun. Passing a varying current through the electro-magnet varies the magnetic field produced which bends the electronic beam.
Electrostatic deflection used X-Y plates within the electron gun, a varying voltage (not current) applied to the plates attracts or deflects the electron beam.
Initially electrostatic deflection was used (in first gen TVs of 1936), these CRTs had small deflection angles meaning the tubes had to be very long (and thus mounted vertically and watched in a mirror - giving the name mirror lid televisions).
Efforts to increase the deflection angle of CRTs (and thus make shorter tubes) led to the switch to electro-magnetic deflection by 1938.
Exactly. The only thing Farnsworth was successful at was winning a lawsuit. Baird invented television but he wasn't American so that's not on.
I know of those works, but anyway prefer to think of the 1920s work as "first", even though the system you mention is superior and more like what was in use until very recently with the advent of all-digital service
I expect the yanks will next claim the jet engine and splitting the atom as america firsts.
No we don't. Henry Ford is credited with the assembly line mass production of automobiles. Everyone knows the first car was produced by Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a Frenchman. Or did you mean Robert Anderson who invented the first electric car? Oh you meant GAS powered car, after BOTH of them? Seems like as dubious distinction as Henry Ford's now, doesn't it?
When reception was bad at least I could watch the ghost images and hear the sound.
Baird didn't sue Farnsworth, so I have no idea what that has to do with anything.
Baird's demonstration in early 1926 is widely documented. Here's a BBC article, for example
No, but I believe his company was the first to use a moving assembly line to mass produce cars. Apparently Olds was the first to mass produce a car, with a stationary assembly line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
most americans in no way believe he invented the car
I hope you're right, but I am not so confident of that. These are the same people who think Europe is a country.
I knew a relative of his (also named Farnsworth) and it turns out they have the same hairstyle. Kind of a resemblance in facial features too if my memory is serving accurately.
It's a shame John Logie Baird didn't get this much attention last year when he invented television in 1926, color TV 4 years later and 3d tv in 1935.
To credit Farnsworth, the title should be "The first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube) turns 90".
You pay very little interest in the buzzing of the insects on the outside when you live in such a vastly more advanced country like the USA. The rest of the world could die off and the USA would be fine. If the USA disappeared, the rest of the world would be fucked.
Europe might as well be a country because all of the constituent parts of it are so minuscule and unnoteworthy on their own. England? That dinky little island "nation"? Pfft. Gone with a couple of nukes. France? A bunch of limp wristed cowards and wimp. Slovenia? What the fuck is that supposed to be? And on and on. You Europeans are jokes.
You have it backwards, Farnsworth was the one in the 1930s who wanted the title and used courts.
I'm not confused, I know of even more television systems than those.
The point is even the electromechanical systems were coupled to radio transmission, which makes it electronic television. Just as a fax machine, scanner, copier are electronic devices.