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Television is 100 years old today

diamondgeezer.blogspot.com

11–20 of 283 posts

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#13
And 100 years ago my great-aunt and grandmother (both RIP) were little kids and my great-grandmother, born in the 19th century and which I knew very well for she lived until 99 years old, was filming them playing on the beach using a "Pathe Baby" hand camera.

I still have the reels, they look like this:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Films_Path%C3%A9-Bab...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path%C3%A9-Baby

And we converted some of these reels to digital files (well brothers and I asked a specialized company to "digitalize" them).

100 years ago people already had cars, tramways (as a kid my great-grandmother tried to look under the first tramway she saw to see "where the horses were hiding"), cameras to film movies, telephones, the telegraph existed, you could trade the stock market and, well, it's knew to me but TV was just invented too.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#14
post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

Baird did. Farnsworth invented the all-electric version (sans mechanical parts).

A kin to Ed Roberts, John Blakenbaker and Mark Dean invented the personal computer but Apple invented the PC as we know it.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#15
Inspired one of my absolute favorite Zappa grooves.

I am the Slime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCQcEW98OY

I am gross and perverted

I'm obsessed and deranged

I have existed for years

But very little has changed

I'm the tool of the Government

And industry too

For I am destined to rule

And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious

But you can't look away

I make you think I'm delicious

With the stuff that I say

I'm the best you can get

Have you guessed me yet?

I'm the slime oozin' out

From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you

And eat the garbage that I feed you

Until the day that we don't need you

Don't go for help, no one will heed you

Your mind is totally controlled

It has been stuffed into my mold

And you will do as you are told

Until the rights to you are sold

That's right, folks

Don't touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video

Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video

Can't stop the slime, people, look at me go

I am the slime from your video

Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video

Can't stop the slime, people, look at me go

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Frank Zappa

I'm The Slime lyrics © Munchkin Music Co

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#16
post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

You should read about the invention of color television. There were two competing methods, one of which depended on a spinning wheel with colored filters in it. If I remember correctly, you needed something like a 10-foot wheel to have a 27-inch TV.

Sure enough, this was the system selected as the winner by the U.S. standard-setting body at the time. Needless to say, it failed and was replaced by what we ended up with... which still sucked because of the horrible decision to go to a non-integer frame rate. Incredibly, we are for some reason still plagued by 29.97 FPS long after the analog system that required it was shut off.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#18
post #10

Odd we never adapted to it. Video has a strange hypnotic power over most people and messages seem to bypass normal mental defenses.

I'd say we did, you need more and more for the same effect.

Here is the first ad ever, for a watch : https://youtu.be/ho2OJfXkvpI

For comparison, here is the latest ad for the best selling watch as of today : https://youtu.be/kdMTc5WfnkM

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#19
post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

> but every TV today is based on his technology.

Philo Farnsworth invented the cathode ray tube. unless you're writing this from the year 2009 or before, I'm going to have to push back on the idea that tv's TODAY are based on his technology. They most certainly are not.

Re: Television is 100 years old today

#20
post #6
post #2

This is interesting. John Logie Baird did in fact demonstrate something that looked like TV, but the technology was a dead end. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a competing technology a few years later, but every TV today is based on his technology. So, who actually invented Television?

For what it’s worth, Philo Farnsworth and John Logie Baird were friendly with each other. I was lucky to know Philo’s wife Pem very well in the last part of her life, and she spoke highly of Baird as a person. David Sarnoff and RCA was an entirely different matter, of course…

The article has a photo of a plaque putting Baird's death in 1946, less than 40 years old.

What happened?

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