Very Interested In the History of CCTV

[Fiona 0]

Any footnotes on the Baird-Farnsworth connection?

Let's not forget Vladimir Zworykin from RCA, who invented the first CRT (cathode ray tube) in 1928 which was later used in TV.

Then there's Nikola Tesla who invented the electric alternator in 1884.

[Fiona 0]

Found a reference to Farnworth and Baird in Wikipedia:

In 1932, while in England to raise money for his legal battles with RCA, Farnsworth met with John Logie Baird, a Scottish inventor who had given the world first public demonstration of a working television system in London in 1926, using mechanical imaging systems, and who was seeking to develop electronic television receivers. Baird demonstrated his mechanical system for Farnsworth, and explained "the superiority of his system". But after watching several minutes of Farnsworth's version, "He advanced slowly, as if hypnotized, until he was standing directly before it, He stood there for some time; he turned without a word and left" (How would any academic writer know this? It reads more like a B-novel.)

 

The footnote given by Wikipedia is Donald G. Godfrey. Godfrey is a relentless promoter of the Mormon Church. Philo Farnsworth was a Mormon.

Donald Godfrey is not an impartial academic writer or researcher.

[fa chris 0]

Any footnotes on the Baird-Farnsworth connection?

Let's not forget Vladimir Zworykin from RCA, who invented the first CRT (cathode ray tube) in 1928 which was later used in TV.

Then there's Nikola Tesla who invented the electric alternator in 1884.

 

There's a debate over whether or not farnsworth or zworykin invented the TV. Even though Zworykin ended up with all the credit, Farnsworth eventually got the patent. Farnsworth had a working invention patented in 1928.

 

Zworykin filed his original application in the early 1920s but the original patent design wouldn't work and when it was finally awarded sometime in the 1930's it had been revised to match Farnsworth's working design, but it still had his original patent filing date on it, all of this was of course pushed by RCA so they can claim they invented TV.

 

The whole history is debated. People witnessed Farnsworth's invention, there were plenty of lab notes, it can be reproduced. No witnesses, notes, or anything on Zworykin's invention outside of him claiming 10 years after the fact (and years after Farnsworth) he managed to build a device and transmit an image. Zyworkin and RCA can definitly be credited with taking farnsworth's ideas and turning them into mass marketed TV's though (and they did so, by paying for use of Farnsworth's patents...)

 

As for Farnsworth-Beard, all that can be sure is Beard's project was dropped and his company moved to acquire access to all of Farnsworth's patents and ideas.

 

I read a real interesting article on this not to long ago (hence why the details are fresh in my head!), but can't seem to come up with it now.

[Fiona 0]

In any competition of 'firsts', the US remains adamant about being ‘first over the line.’

The word 'tele-vision' implies a form of transmission. The recent Farnsworth endorsement appears to be an attempt to sideline Baird; just like Tsutomu Nakamura’s contribution to CMOS seems to have been overwritten by Eric Fossum. America can then falsely claim to have ‘invented’ two critical technologies. When Baird was transmitting recognisable images before no less an institution than the Royal Society, Farnsworth was transmitting a glowing blob.

By 1927, Bell Laboratories used Farnsworth’s method to demonstrate television to the Americans. The stunt required the support of a thousand technicians to send a signal between Washington and New York (200 miles). Less than two months later, Baird broadcast signals over twice that distance from London to Glasgow with only seven men. Then, in 1928, he really showed off when he made the first television broadcast across the Pond (the Atlantic).

History is written by the victors and numbers count: US population: 312 million

Scotland’s population: 5 million

[Soundy 1]

^The fact is, few inventions, EVER, are the sole work of one person. Debating "who thought of it first", "who made it work first", and "who patented it first" are all pretty meaningless, since all three are quite often different people. Not always... but more often than not.

[Fiona 0]

That's old news.

 

Where would we be without a world interested in 'firsts' and in 'records'? We'd lose our competitive spirit. We'd become an amorphous mass of undifferentiated consumers. The Olympics; the NFL and Nascar would become irrelevant. Watersheds in history would be explained as collective endeavours. Individual initiative and that never-say-die 'can-do' frontier-like attitude would give way to widespread social apathy. Collective effort? Sounds like communism. So no thanks.

[Soundy 1]

[Numb-nuts 1]

Searching for images for my new website I found this I thought might amuse you

 

Copyrighted The Image Works