entertainment technology in the past
Created by slly8s3 on Mar 6, 2011
Last updated: 03/06/11 at 02:08 PM
technology in the past has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
in 1994 The U.S. Army and DARPA launched an aggressive successful project to construct a software radio that could become a different radio on the fly by changing software.
in 1990 amateur radio experimenters began to use personal computers with audio cards to process radio signals.
In 1972, the FCC began requiring UHF tuners in all TVs sold in the United States. At this time, there were only 130 UHF stations in the country, mostly low-power ones that carried local programming. Up to this point, UHF support from TV manufacturers was sporadic. Most sets did not come factory-equipped with them, and often merely included an empty slot in the cabinet where an optional UHF tuner could be installed.
1971 was the first year that sales of color TVs in the US exceeded B&W ones. In other countries, color was slower to arrive and did not become common in Western Europe until the '80s.
The first Instant Replay occurred on December 7. 1963. Tony Verna, a CBS-TV director, invented Instant Replay and aired it during his direction of a live, televised sporting event, the 1963 Army-Navy Game played in Philadelphia.
in 1963 color television was commercially transmitted, and the first (radio) communication satellite, Telstar, was launched.
The first live satellite signal to Britain from the United States was broadcast via the Telstar satellite on July 23, 1962.
Throughout the 1960s, television sets used exclusively vacuum tube electronics. This resulted in relatively heavy and unreliable TVs. In addition, vacuum tubes were poorly-suited to color television, as it required a large amount of tubes which caused further reliability problems. Because vacuum tubes only allowed for very simple NTSC/PAL filtering, the picture quality of early color sets was rather poor. The tint control that is still found on NTSC televisions originally was meant to correct the color burst phase's drifting when channels were changed. In addition, the large number of vacuum tubes required for color prevented the use of it in portable TVs.
In 1960 Sony introduced their first transistorized radio, small enough to fit in a vest pocket, and able to be powered by a small battery. It was durable, because there were no tubes to burn out. Over the next twenty years, transistors displaced tubes almost completely except for picture tubes and very high power or very high frequency uses.
In 1948, a new wavelength plan was set up for Europe at a meeting in Copenhagen. Because of the recent war, Germany (which did not exist as a state and so was not invited) was only given a small number of medium-wave frequencies, which are not very good for broadcasting. For this reason Germany began broadcasting on UKW ("Ultrakurzwelle", i.e. ultra short wave, nowadays called VHF) which was not covered by the Copenhagen plan. After some amplitude modulation experience with VHF, it was realized that FM radio was a much better alternative for VHF radio than AM. Because of this history FM Radio is still referred to as "UKW Radio" in Germany. Other European nations followed a bit later, when the superior sound quality of FM and the ability to run many more local stations because of the more limited range of VHF broadcasts were realized.
In 1947, Motorola introduced the VT-71 television for $189.95, the first television set to be sold for under $200, finally making television affordable for millions of Americans. While only 0.5% of U.S. households had a television set in 1946, 55.7% had one in 1954, and 90% by 1962.
There were 12,000 to 15,000 receivers. Some sets in restaurants or bars might have 100 viewers for sport events (Dunlap, p56).The outbreak of the Second World War caused the BBC service to be suspended on September 1, 1939, resuming from Alexandra Palace on June 7, 1946.
In 1954 Regency introduced a pocket transistor radio, the TR-1, powered by a "standard 22.5V Battery". In the early 1960s, VOR systems finally became widespread for aircraft navigation; before that, aircraft used commercial AM radio stations for navigation. (AM stations are still marked on U.S. aviation charts).
In 1943, the United States Supreme Court ruled one Marconi patent invalid on the basis of prior art by John Stone Stone and Tesla. This decision was based on the fact that prior art existed before the establishment of Marconi's patent. Ignoring Tesla's prior art, the decision may have enabled the U.S. government to avoid having to pay damages that were being claimed by the Marconi Company for use of its patents during World War I (as, it is speculated, the government's initial reversal to grant Marconi the patent right in order to nullify any claims Tesla had for compensation).
1940s in North America. Armstrong's FM system was designated by the FCC to transmit and receive television sound.
Update Sources