WEBVTT - RCA During World War II 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.400 stuff Works dot Com. Eitherre and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:15.920 I'm your host job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:17.800 with how Stuff Works in iHeart radio and I love 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.400 all things tech. And we are continuing our story about 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:26.040 our ci A and its history. It's celebrating one hundred 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.040 years in two thousand nineteen, so we're looking at how 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.800 this company came to be, and we left off in 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.400 the last episode talking about how our ci A formed 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.440 r k O Pictures, largely in an effort to establish 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.680 its sound on film technology called r C A photophone. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.720 That effort began in nineteen twenty nine, just as the 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.239 world was hurtling toward the Great Depression, which wasn't that 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.520 great if you ask me. But in October of that year, 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:58.600 of the stock market crashed and a panic ensued, ultimately 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:02.800 wiping out the fortunes of millions of investors large and small. 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:08.000 The effect on numerous industries was devastating. Millions of people 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:12.200 were out of work. Businesses like theaters and restaurants were closing, 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.840 but one industry remained strong, and that was radio. Radios 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.160 were seen as an important element in the home because 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.480 they provided a means of escape through entertainment programming, they 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.080 allowed families to keep up with the news of the world. 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:31.480 The radio would even play an important part in economic 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.160 recovery when on March twelve, nineteen thirty three, which is 0:01:35.160 --> 0:01:37.880 still in the middle of the Great Depression, US President 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.720 Franklin Delano Roosevelt FDR and O the Words, addressed the 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.240 country in a broadcast fireside chat to talk about the 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:50.000 bank crisis. Roosevelt urged Americans to be patient and to 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.560 trust the government as it worked to stabilize the banks. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.720 That helped reverse a trend in which people had been 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.440 participating in numerous runs on banks uh and they were 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.080 in fear of losing their savings, so they were withdrawing 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.840 all their money from the banks, and it helped make 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:09.320 stabilization a reality and helped set the ground for recovery now. 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:15.120 In the mid nineteen thirties, FDR started the Rural Electrification Administration, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.200 which was tasked with extending electric utilities to rural areas, 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.720 particularly farms. The national estimate for rural farms with electricity 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.320 was just at ten percent in the mid nineteen thirties. 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.480 Some areas like Texas were even lower, with only two 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.240 point three percent of farms having electricity. But as more 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.720 communities were getting access to electricity, more people began to 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.200 invest in radios, and so the industry continued to do 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.960 well even through the depression, and the depression wouldn't end 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:48.600 until nineteen thirty nine. That put our c A in 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.440 a particularly strong position. It had the National Broadcast Company 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:57.800 or NBC, and it's Blue and Red Networks. That was 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.400 a network of radio stations to networks of radio stations 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.840 technically stretching across the country that would broadcast material that 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.160 had been created in our CIA's New York and New 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:12.720 Jersey studios. This was the golden age of radio. Popular 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:17.320 formats included music, such as live performances from famous concert 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.079 halls and opera houses, but there was also a boom 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.080 in radio drama and radio comedy, as well as news 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.600 and game shows. All of those formats were debuting around 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:30.440 this time. These were programs that would precede the era 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.880 of television, and we're sort of experiencing these are new 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.640 today in the form of podcasts. We're getting a lot 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.200 of those sort of things like the various radio programs 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.520 and radio dramas. You can find lots of examples of 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.680 that on podcast today, and they kind of have their 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:51.080 history back in these old radio programs. Some of the 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.680 more notable programs that played on NBC included the Jack 0:03:54.720 --> 0:04:00.760 Benny Program, Dick Tracy, The Spike Jones Show, Dragnet, Burns 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:05.280 and Allen and dozens more. Tons of programs came out 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.960 around this time. Now, one thing I find really interesting 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.760 is that NBC sort of created its own rivals. It 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.320 was an effective monopoly heading into the late twenties. In fact, 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.719 it really was a monopoly. It owned a huge network 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:24.359 of radio stations. There were still some independent radio stations, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.960 but there were no competing networks. There was, however, a 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.200 talent agent named Arthur Judson, and he was getting really 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:37.080 fed up WITHINBC. He was frustrated. He kept meeting with 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.240 resistance when he was trying to get his clients onto 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.400 radio programs that were carried by NBC. And so Judson 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.200 did what any reasonable person would do. He created his 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.359 own network of radio stations, and originally it was called 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:55.880 the United Independent Broadcasters. But shortly after Judson founded this 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.560 effort in n he agreed to a merger with the 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.680 column be a phonograph and records company, and this new 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:08.640 company became known as the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting Company. The company, however, 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.960 didn't do so well. It was up against NBC, which 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.760 was a giant in radio, and so they weren't really 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.559 able to mount a strong offense while they were starting 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.960 to accrue a whole lot of debt and they came 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.479 up with a big loss of money, uh, and that 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:33.039 led to an acquisition. In nine a rich dude named 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:35.880 william S. Paley, who had come into a lot of 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:40.560 money due to his father's successful businesses, bought the struggling 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:46.520 concern and he renamed it the Columbia Broadcasting System or CBS. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.479 So you could argue that our c A created NBC 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:55.560 directly and CBS indirectly. And we're not done with all 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.440 of that yet. But first let's get back to our 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.760 c A. In the time around nineteen thirty and nineteen 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.159 thirty one, R. C. A. Victor would create the first 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.800 record albums to be played back at the speed of 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.240 thirty three and a third revolutions per minute. Now, this 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.120 isn't what we would call a long play or LP 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.839 record today, even though it was at thirty three and 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.960 a third revolutions. Now, I kind of covered all of 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.400 this in the history of turntables, so I'm just going 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:27.360 to give a relatively brief overview. In the early days 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.000 of flat disc records, most records were made out of 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.800 a shell ick compound material because it could hold up 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.160 to multiple playbacks. They needed something that was going to 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:43.440 maintain its shape as you played it over and over again. However, 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:48.200 shellec was not ideal. It was an abrasive material. It 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:51.080 had bumps on it, and that meant that a needle 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.560 going through the groove would occasionally hit these bumps and 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.200 it would cause the needles to move around a bit 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.640 and create noise in the process, So it wasn't ideal. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.760 Standard playback speed at the time was seventy eight revolutions 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.560 per minute for a couple of big reasons. One was 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:10.880 technical limitations. The motors manufactured at that time were largely 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.880 in the thirty six hundred rpm range, so that was 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.760 readily available. They were inexpensive, so that's what these these 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.520 various companies were going after. They went with these motors 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:24.520 that would turn at three thousand six centered revolutions per minute, 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:29.120 and then they would use a gear ratio to uh 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.200 change that revolutions per minute for the actual platter. So 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.000 the motors turning at three thousand six center revolutions per minute, 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.240 and the gear ratio that was most frequently used, the 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:43.440 one that was again easy to get therefore cheap, was 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.800 a forty six to one ratio gear. So if you 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.280 do that math, you say, like, all right, for every 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.800 forty six times this thing turns, this other thing turns 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.200 one time, you end up with the seventy eight revolutions 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.720 per minute. The higher speed had a secondary function. It 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.840 helped smooth out some of that noise that would otherwise 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.840 be present when you're playing back one of these seventy 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:12.960 eight RPM records. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.200 was better than playing them back slower, because if you 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.240 played them back more slowly, the noise was amplified. You 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:23.160 you just heard it more. But when Warner Brothers started 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.280 its vitaphone system for films, which I talked about in 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.520 the last episode, the company realized that it would need 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:32.520 a more efficient system than one that played back at 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.880 r p M. So, if you remember, the vitaphone system 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.840 was where you would record the audio for a film 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:43.280 onto a disk, and then you would synchronize the playback 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.320 of the disc with the playback of the film, and 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.880 that's how you got a talking picture like the Jazz Singer. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.200 But using a seventy eight RPM disc was not a 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.280 great idea for that because at that speed it only 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:01.000 takes about five minutes for a a back device like 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.520 a turntable to play through one side of a twelve 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.840 inch disk. Slowing down the RPMs. Reducing the number of 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.400 RPMs would increase the playback time. It would take longer 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.679 for the needle to travel through the groove, and so 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.040 Warner Brothers used a gear ratio that had a hundred 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.280 eight to one and that created the thirty three and 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.040 a third revolutions per minute speed. R c A decided 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.840 to embrace that approach and introduced new thirty three and 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:33.920 a third rpm turntables in nineteen thirty one that would 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:38.040 playback discs that were recorded at that speed. These turntables 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.760 still use the larger groove that the seventy rb M 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:45.439 records had. However, this is before the micro groove invention. Now, 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:49.680 if you know your history of turntables, you've heard that 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.679 the company that introduced the long play album, the LP. 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.440 The vinyl LP was Columbia Records, and that this didn't 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.760 happen until the nineteen forty these And that's true. When 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.280 Columbia Records would bring this innovation forward, it did so 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.600 on a new material that was called vinyl, made from 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.520 PVC plastic, and it introduced the micro groove technology that 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.280 brought the width of the groove to the records down 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.319 to about a millimeter wide, and that meant you could 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.720 fit way more grooves on each side of a record, 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:25.040 and you could extend playtime to about twenty two minutes 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.959 for a twelve inch disc. But if our Cia introduced 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.720 a thirty three and a third format in nineteen thirty one, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.720 why does Columbia Records get the credit for a thirty 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.880 three and a third album in the nineteen forties. Well, 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.280 it's because our Cier's efforts were a total failure. The 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:44.560 company had tried to introduce a brand new format and 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.120 technology right at the beginning of the Great Depression, and 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.240 while families were willing to make payments on their radio sets, 0:10:51.240 --> 0:10:54.000 because a lot of families were buying these things on credit, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.160 they would end up paying for their radio, say they 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.839 were leaves that would get rid of other luxuries, but 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:03.600 they would keep that radio because it was such an 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:07.600 important element of home life. They were not ready to 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.480 dip in and buy a whole new piece of electronic equipment. 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:12.040 They didn't have the money for it, they didn't have 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:14.040 the interest in it. They would rather just stick with 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.839 the thing they already had. So the economics just weren't 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.640 there for our Cia, so the company ultimately abandoned the 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.839 thirty three and a third format. When Columbia Records was 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.040 ready to debut its technology more than a decade later, 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.520 executives reached out to our Cia to see if the 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.280 company would want to license the technology and build its 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.920 own thirty three and a third turntables. But David Sarnoff, 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:39.400 who you'll remember from the last episode was the very 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.600 strong willed guy who was in charge of our Cia, refused. 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.600 He did not like the idea of conforming to someone 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.760 else's standards, particularly since our Cia had tried to do 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.840 it earlier. Instead, he would push our Cier to market 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:56.680 its own disc format, which would play back at forty 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.959 five revolutions per minute, and thus another format war began. 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.080 The speed wars. Our Cer would sell seven inch discs 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.240 that would play back at forty five rpm, and Columbia 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.319 focused on twelve inch discs at thirty three and a 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.880 third rpm. This took place in the late nineteen forties, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:18.079 and by nineteen fifty, after seeing several artists leave our 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.559 c A to join Columbia, the company finally gave up 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:23.520 and began to create its own thirty three and a 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.360 third rpm long playing records. The forty five RBM disc 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.760 would become the favorite format for singles and juke boxes, 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.079 so it wasn't a total loss. R c A still 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.040 made money off of its format, it just did not 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:38.920 become the standard. I have a lot more to say 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.920 about our ci A and its innovations, but first let's 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:52.199 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, we 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:55.120 gotta jump back to the nineteen thirties. Now, we went 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:57.480 ahead a little bit to talk about the thirty three 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:01.200 and a third versus forty five rpm speed wars that 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.160 stretched all the way into the late nineteen forties back 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:07.520 to the nineteen thirties. In nineteen thirty two, under pressure 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.160 from the United States federal government, the partners that formed 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.440 our ci A all jumped ship at issue was the 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.840 monopoly like status that our CIA enjoyed as both an 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.079 operator of radio stations and as an arm for these 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.959 various companies to develop and sell technologies. So, in other words, 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:29.079 the government that had created this monopoly now felt that 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.440 maybe things have gone a bit too far, because remember, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.200 the United States made this monopoly, they encouraged it, and 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:40.000 now they were saying, well, this is getting a bit uncomfortable. 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.200 So General Electric, Westinghouse and A. T and T All 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.120 sold their interest in our Cia to the new company. 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.599 It became an independent company called the r C A Corporation. 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.680 David Sarnov would remain in charge of this new independent company. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.840 Our CIA was a pioneer and another big consumer electronic category, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.480 which would be television. Our Cia had employed Vladimir's Warkin, 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.120 the television developer who had fought for the title of 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.000 inventor of television, a title that most people would give 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:14.760 to his rival Filo Farnsworth. Farnsworth first demonstrate electronic television 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.040 back in nine seven. Zorekin, however, had worked with a 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.760 guy named Boris Rosing in Russia who had been working 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:26.880 on a similar experiment more than a decade before. Farnsworth's demonstration, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.200 but Rossing's work had not really reached a level of 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.720 sophistication interesting enough for big business at the time, and 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:39.000 it was crewed by comparison to Farnsworth's invention. Sarnov would 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.080 hires Warrikin to head up a division in our c 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.920 A to develop electronic television technology with the goal of 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.400 creating a consumer product in the future. Now as a whole, 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:53.000 our c A would invest around fifty million dollars into 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.280 this project, which is a princely sum today, but remember 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.640 this was back in the late twenties and into the 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:05.560 third season forties. That was a truly gargantuan sum of 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.920 money back then, and it shows how Sarnoff, the man 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.080 who had proposed the radio music box before becoming the 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.640 head of our CIA, could see how the future of 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.880 an entertainment might unfold. He was convinced that television would 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.000 be the next big thing after radio, and you certainly 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.880 could say he was absolutely right. Now, all of that 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:30.000 work that this investment would bring about would gets shown 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.520 off on a very large stage the nineteen nine World's 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:36.400 Fair in New York City. R c A demonstrated the 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:40.840 electronic television system there and broadcast the first televised address 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.760 by a US president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That same year, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:47.560 our CI A would pay Farnsworth some licensing fees to 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.560 use some of his patents, and our CIA began selling 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:54.280 television sets. They were pretty darn small. The picture tubes 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:58.080 measured five by twelve inches or twelve point seven by 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:02.000 twenty five point four centimeters. So you might wonder how 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:06.880 do these electronic television's work. The heart of the technology 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:11.440 is the CRT, or a cathode ray tube. This is 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.720 not just how the images get generated, it's also what 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:19.520 serves as the screen that you look at in these 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.360 old televisions. I'm talking about the old big TVs, the 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.960 wide deep TVs, not flat screen or anything like that. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:31.200 That's a different method to produce the same sort of result. 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.240 So the CRT is essentially an electron generator. A CRT 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.320 is kind of like a giant lightbulb, a more sophisticated lightbulb. 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.400 Inside the CRT is a filament, a small piece of 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.040 material that's meant to heat up and then shed electrons. 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.800 If you run current through the filament, it causes it 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.880 to heat up and as the atoms in the filament 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.000 gain energy they begin to shed these electrons. The elect 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:05.880 trons pop off of the atoms. Positively charged elements called anodes, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:10.439 attract the electrons. Because opposite charges attract right electrons have 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:13.119 a negative charge, they get attracted to things that have 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.240 a positive charge. The old CRT sets had essentially a 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.800 focusing anode which would pull the stream of electrons into 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:24.320 a very tight beam, and an accelerating anode, which would 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.280 you know, accelerate the stream of electrons. The destination for 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.960 this stream of electrons is the backside of the television 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.440 screen itself. So you're looking at a screen on a TV. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:40.560 On the reverse side of that screen, that's the backside 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.760 for you. That is where the electrons are making impact. Uh. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:47.800 It's like looking at the fat end of a light 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.200 bulb if you think about it. That's what the television 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.080 screen is. So on the back side of this TV 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.320 screen is a coding a phosphor, which is a material 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.000 that will give off light when it's sighted by energy, 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:04.399 in this case, when it's struck by electrons. And coding 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.119 the rest of the inside of the tube is a 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.520 conductive material that's meant to soak up electrons as they 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:12.600 build up on the screen side of the tube. Wrapped 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:15.879 around the base of the CRT are two sets of 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.119 steering coils. One set runs parallel to the base of 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:24.119 the CRT and one set wraps across the base of 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:27.760 the CRT. These are copper windings, the kind you would 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.280 find in an electromagnet. In fact, they are essentially electromagnets, 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.920 and when you run electricity through the coils, you create 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:39.280 magnetic fields. These sets of windings are at perpendicular angles 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.480 to each other. Right, you've got the parallel kind and 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.639 the perpendicular kind. And one set is used to steer 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.240 the beam of electrons vertically and the other one steers 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:51.119 the beam of electrons horizontally. And if you change the 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.159 voltage in the coils, that directs the electron beam to 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:58.639 specific points on the screen. Now, when you turn on 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.240 this electron beam, it starts to paint the back side 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.720 of the screen. That is, it's shooting electrons at the 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.280 phosphors on the back side of the screen, causing those 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.280 phosphors to glow. The beam scans across the screen one 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.480 line at the time, from the top to the bottom. 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.159 So the beam first moves left or right across the 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.560 top of the screen. When it reaches the right side, 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.600 the beam turns off the electron flow and then rapidly 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.360 redirects back to the left and down one line, so 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.920 it goes down a notch, and then it does it again. 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:34.800 When it gets all the way down to the bottom 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.119 right side of the screen, the beam turns off and 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.360 it returns back to the upper left position and starts over. 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.840 It would take a while before broadcast standards would really 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.880 define how all televisions would work in the United States, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.480 but eventually it evolved into this approach where a CRT 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:56.240 television would paint a screen sixty times per second. However, 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.280 it would only paint half the lines per for frame, 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.840 so in the first frame it might paint all the 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.120 odd lines so one, three, five, seven, and so on, 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.160 and the second frame would have the electron beam paint 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.760 all the even lines. So while the electron beam would 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.960 be moving across the screen sixty times per second the 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.040 entire frame of odd and even lines, the total screen 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.919 would be painted thirty times per second. Eventually, TVs had 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.960 a standard of five twenty five lines, so every second 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.720 the electron beam would paint a total of fifteen thousand, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:39.119 seven hundred fifty lines. So our c shows off this 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.920 technology in nine. The company also broadcast the first televised 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.600 baseball game on May sevent ninety nine. It was between 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:51.119 Columbia University and Princeton. I don't know who won. I 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.760 didn't look it up, but it was all done on 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:57.800 a single camera, which I imagine created a somewhat limited 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:04.159 effect for watching on TV, especially considering that at the 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.280 time you needed a whole lot of light to get 0:21:08.280 --> 0:21:12.840 a good picture on these on these televisions because the 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.679 cameras were limited, early television broadcasts were tricky in general. 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:19.280 The camera technology, like I said, required a whole lot 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:21.920 of light to create a strong enough signal to send 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:24.040 out to t VS, and a lot of light meant 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.800 that television personalities, you know, actors, newscasters, that sort of thing. 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.879 They were all pretty much exclusively white people at that time. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:34.760 They would appear washed out on screen because they had 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.960 so much light on them. To deal with that, the 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.440 actors would often have to wear dark makeup, frequently green makeup. 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.000 It would show up better. And remember all TVs at 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.880 this point are black and white sets, so no one 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:52.520 knew that the people were all green because they're seeing 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.600 a black and white image. The actors, newscasters, etcetera. Would 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:59.600 often also wear black lipsticks so that their lips would 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:03.679 actually be visible on screen. Early TV sales were a 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.080 little slow. The nation was still climbing out of the 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:10.000 Great Depression, and it was an expensive new technology. And 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.400 another event meant that the entire industry would be put 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.600 on pause for several years. And that little event would 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.840 be World War Two. Now, if you listen to my 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:22.960 last episode, if you haven't, you should, you know that 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.879 the First World War was what led to the formation 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.760 of our CIER in the first place. World War two 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.040 would slow down the consumer electronics business, but our ci 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.200 A wasn't put into moth balls and storage. They weren't struggling. Instead, 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.520 the company opened up the r c A Research Laboratories 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.120 in Princeton, New Jersey, and for years the company had 0:22:43.160 --> 0:22:46.280 relied upon its close association with General Electric for R 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.440 and D. But now it could pursue its own research 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.080 with its own facility with I think a hundred scientists 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:56.000 when they first opened up, and much of that early 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.080 research would be dedicated to the war effort on the 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:01.840 part of the United States. Our c A would develop 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.919 a smaller version of its Icono scope for the military. 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:10.720 The iconoscope was uh the television camera tube that Zorakin 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:14.520 had developed. So I described how the cathode ray tube 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.840 worked in a effort to display images. The econoscope was 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:23.159 how these images were initially captured to be transmitted to 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.840 a television And it's an element that has a particularly 0:23:28.000 --> 0:23:34.120 peculiar shape. It would be inside the television camera. I've 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.320 seen the shape referred to as a barrel shaped bulb 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:41.199 and an angled neck. And there were a couple of 0:23:41.200 --> 0:23:43.840 different versions of the econoscope that did not take that 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:46.960 particular shape, but most of them did. I do not 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:50.760 think I can adequately describe what this looks like. I don't. 0:23:50.920 --> 0:23:53.640 I don't think it's within my powers of description. So 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:56.960 I suggest if you are interested in seeing what these 0:23:57.000 --> 0:23:59.679 things look like, because they're kind of funky looking, you 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.440 go onto an image search and look for icona scope 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:07.040 I C O IN O S c O p E 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:12.800 because they do look pretty unusual. So they consisted of 0:24:12.840 --> 0:24:16.120 a few parts. One part was called the target. This 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:19.080 was the area of the icono scope that would receive 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.479 the focused light coming from the camera's lens. All right, 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:24.280