Television: An International History of the Formative YearsFrom the first notions of 'seeing by electricity' in 1878, through the period of the first demonstration of rudimentary television in 1926 and up to 1940, when war brought the advance of the technology to a temporary halt, the development of television gathered about it a tremendous history. Following the discovery of the photo-conductive effect, numerous schemes for television were suggested but it was in the wake of Baird's early demonstrations that real industrial interest developed and the pace of progress increased. Much research and development work was undertaken in the UK, the US, Germany and France. By 1936 television technology had advanced to the point where high definition broadcasting was realistic. This meticulous and deeply researched book presents a balanced and thorough international history of television from 1878 to 1940, considering the factors - technical, commercial and social - that influenced and led to the establishment of public services in many countries. Highly illustrated throughout, this is a major book in the study of history of science, technology and media. |
Contents
Images and society c 16th century to c mid19th century | 3 |
Images by wire picture telegraphy 1843c 1900 | 19 |
Seeing by electricity the earliest notions 18781880 | 35 |
Persistence of vision and moving images 1825c 1900 | 63 |
Distant vision 18801920 | 78 |
A possible way forward 19001920 | 101 |
Developments of importance to television | 130 |
The breakthrough J L Baird and television the 1920s | 143 |
RCA Sarnoff and television 19191932 | 403 |
RCA and allelectronic television 19331935 | 414 |
EMI Shoenberg and television 19311934 | 431 |
Progress in the UK and abroad 19341935 | 479 |
The London station and foreign developments 19351938 | 503 |
Television in the US 19351941 | 546 |
The worlds first regular public highdefinition service 19361939 | 576 |
The charge storage principle | 618 |
The approaches of a lone inventor and a chief engineer the 1920s | 195 |
Excellence in lowdefinition television 19251930 | 220 |
German and French developments the 1920s and early 1930s | 242 |
Some lowdefinition television broadcasting services c 1930 | 283 |
Largescreen television 19301935 | 308 |
Part III | 327 |
Early electronic camera tubes and the work of Farnsworth | 351 |
Zworykin and the kinescope 19231930 | 377 |
Some patents on scanning 18891933 | 621 |
Characteristics of mechnical optical scanning systems | 629 |
Brief survey of the present television situation The Gramophone Company Ltd 27 October 1930 | 630 |
Comparison of intensity and velocity modulation | 635 |
Estimated cost of a television service from London and four regional stations | 636 |
Bibliography | 637 |
640 | |