Tribute to the founder of TV

It's fitting that just as television faces its biggest threat, in the form of the internet, tribute is being paid to the man who kicked the TV revolution off 80 years ago. The New Zealand Herald reports.

"Not many people know the name Philo T. Farnsworth, but in 1938, he was the American inventor who was granted a patent for the cathode ray tube.

"A Utah schoolboy in the early 1920s, Farnsworth sketched for his science teacher a plan that was effectively a blueprint for the first electronic-scanning television. By 1927 he had a working prototype to show to journalists in San Francisco.

He used an image dissector to record a picture electronically with a camera then sent the image wirelessly to a cathode ray tube receiver. A small, hazy black-and-white picture was the first TV image. But Farnsworth's invention formed the groundwork on which modern TVs are based.

... Philo T. Farnsworth did not enjoy all the fame and wealth such an invention would bring. Instead he died in obscurity and poverty in 1971.

emily | 7:27 PM | Technology |
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