Link: Aaron Sorkin: The Father of ‘Invention’. On Tuesday, the La Jolla Playhouse will open its workshop production of “The Farnsworth Invention,” Sorkin’s first new play since “A Few Good Men” premiered on Broadway 18 years ago. With 17 actors playing 100 roles, Sorkin’s sweeping work about the birth of television may be one of […]
Almost Ready for Prime Time? Read More »
Link: Inventor of the TV Remote dies Hit the mute button for a moment of silence: The co-inventor of the TV remote, Robert Adler, has died. Article Tools Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made the couch potato possible, died Thursday of heart failure at
Inventor of the Couch Potato Dies Read More »
Let’s call this the "FarnoVideo of the Week." It’s a video featuring music by a duo called "The Weepies" that we think rather highly of. The tune is called "Nobody Knows Me At All." The video was produced by Ashli Cole and Zac Benjamin, a couple that goes by the combined name of "Shlizak" Congratulations,
I used to get an e-mail from somebody like every other week reminding me that John Logie Baird demonstrated a mechanical television system in 1926, and that he should be therefore regarded as the "inventor of television." But until this morning It had been so long since I’d gotten one, I thought maybe the Baird crowd had finally seen the light (as it were). So imagine my surprise when this showed up in my e-mail this morning:
– – – – –
From: "Bernard V. de Lara"
Subject:
just a few questions
— When Neil Armstrong set
foot on the moon, the camera used to transmit the live pictures was based on
Baird’s Field Sequential Colour System, because this was the best and most
reliable available.
— Virtually nothing of Farnsworth’s technology is
delivered to our living rooms today.
– – – –
To which I have replied:
Dear Bernard:
As the website you mention points out, Baird’s system was mechanical. It was obsolete the moment it was demonstrated. Saying Baird invented television is sorta like saying that the first guy who hooked a horse up to a cart invented the motor car. Or that the first person who put a match to a candle invented the light-bulb.
Farnsworth’s contribution was seminal: it removed all the mechanical contrivances, and demonstrated a mastery of quantum physics previously unknown. I like to call it "the leap from parts to particles." I find Abramson’s assessment of a "blob of light" particularly laughable. That "blob of light" proved a principal, and had Abramson’s own patrons — Zworykin, RCA — clamoring for the patent rights to that principal.
Baird -v- Farnsworth – AGAIN Read More »
A new video has been added to the FarnoVideos Library: Here we see Cliff Gardner building the replica of the Image Dissector tube that was used in the "Golden Anniversary" celebration in 1977. Cliff, who was Philo Farnsworth’s brother in law (Pem’s brother), was the self-taught glass blower who built all the tubes that were
New Video – “50 Years Later” Read More »
I am often asked, where did the term "television" actually come from. There are numerous accounts of the origin of the term. One of them attributes its first use to the writings of one Hugo Gernsback, who published numerous magazines about science and invention during the early 20th century. I recall the first time I
Meet Hugo Gernsback Read More »
…and you don’t need any kind of card to gain access. This is actually one of the things I’ve been wanting to do for some time; Over this past weekend I finally got all the video clips I’ve had lying around for years uploaded to YouTube so that I could present them here in a
The FarnoVision Video Library is Open Read More »
There is an outfit near Columbus, Ohio called The Early Television Foundation, which operates a museum that houses hundreds of vintage televisions and other electronic gear. Their website offers photos of their collection as well as a virtual tour down early TeeVee’s memory lane. They’re even having a convention in May for serious early TeeVee
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I’m in the process now of sorting thorugh all the video segments I’ve got lying around here and uploading them to YouTube, which I will eventually compile into a "farnovision" channel. Let’s start with this segment from the Discovery Channel’s "Origins" program from 1996, to which I contributed the Farnsworth side of the story: This
The Origins of Television Read More »
