2008 Issue

UTAH ENGINEERS COUNCIL JOURNAL 35 speed. The light sensitive material selenium could be used to generate a video signal. But no camera to convert that signal into a video stream or electronic circuits had been devised by which to provide beam scanning over an optical image or transition timing so that the reproduced picture would match the scanned image was available. Farnsworth is the father of electron control, but, other early fathers invented specific circuits - amplifiers, oscillators, detectors, counters, etc. all used in today’s television. They started the path which matured to modern elec- tronics during WWII with developments such as radar. As Philo, at age 14, described it to his High School physics teacher, he conceived the electronic Image Dis- sector camera principal which answers TV’s miss- ing link. Philo’s camera would focus an image of an optical scene onto a selenium photo-surface and would emit an elec- tron image which could be scanned to make an electrical signal. The so- lution of the video cam- era came to Philo while plowing a potato field. His electronic video Im- age Dissector works simi- lar to plowing the field. It draws lines back and forth from end to end, as it progresses slowly across the field’s width. Philo synchronized high and low frequency sine wave generators to make the raster scan. With blanking and timing circuits this is the standard backbone of modern TV. Image dis- section was the first element of a successful TV, the second was the scanning and tim- ing circuits. But the Image Dissector which converts an optical image into an electron image is the heart of the system. The third critical element needed for TV, beam focusing, was from German inventors (electrostatic type) and fromRCA (magnetic type). Philo realized the implications of elec- tron beam focusing on his Dissector concept and its application - the first use of magnetic focusing was a major breakthrough to TV. The first focusing of the CRT picture tube beamwas electrostatic. Magnetic (short field) did not arrive (at RCA) until 1936, long after Dissector operation was well known. In 1928, Farnsworth’s TV provided proof of concept; the public now saw electronic television (and themselves on TV) for the first time on a “large” 343-line 12-inch CRT. It drew the crowds. The books follow Philo’s footsteps as he convinced others to finance his invention. There would be opposition at every turn, both from sponsors and com- petitors. The U.S. Patent Office declares that Farnsworth is the inventor of TV. That should have settled the issue. But it did not Farnsworth was faced with an unasked-for war. Any good program requires a hero. It also requires villains. Our villains are David Sarnoff and Vladimir Cosma Zworykin. Both were immigrants from Russia and both became highly regarded - Zworykin as the continued on page 36 The solution of the video camera came to Philo while plowing a potato field. His electronic video Image Dissector works similar to plowing the field, It draws lines back and forth from end to end, as it progresses slowly across the field’s width. inventor and Sarnoff as the captain of the electronic industry. They are from different cultures but their joint modus-operandi ap- pears straight from intrigues of the Bolshevik revolution. That does not denigrate the con- tributions of RCA workers or of any of the many other contributors to modern TV. Zworykin studied engineering at the Institute of Technology in St. Petersburg. In 1911, he became assistant to Boris Ros- ing, where he helped with development on and became a convert to electronic TV. It is not clear how much each contributed to the idea of a Mosaic storage target, but that was a major concept. It became both Zworykin’s obsession and its difficulty the obstacle to his achieving TV first. He came to the United States in 1919 thanks to the Russian revolution. He gained employment at the Westinghouse research laboratory where he demonstrated and filed for a TV patent in 1923. It is not clear what that accomplished.