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June 1971 Radio-Electronics
 [Table of Contents]
Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics.
See articles from Radio-Electronics,
published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.
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Note that the obituary of
sorts for Philo Taylor Farnsworth, which appeared in the
June 1971 edition of Radio-Electronics magazine, specifically states that
he was responsible for the development of the electronic television system, as opposed
to the simple television system. That is because the earliest television schemes
were as much - if not more - mechanical than electronic (see "Television Forges Ahead"
in the March 1930 issue of Radio News). Philo invented the "image dissector" detector tube used in his video camera. Reconstructing
the image with a cathode ray tube is a simple matter compared to first detecting
the image. After his company was swallowed up by International Telephone and Telegraph
(ITT), he stayed
on as a researcher and developed the long persistence CRT that came in really handy
for radar
plan position indicator (PPI) displays.
Philo T. Farnsworth Obituary
 Philo T. Farnsworth, one of the fathers
of electronic television, died March 11 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was 64.
At the age of six he decided he would be an inventor and he first fulfilled that
aim when, as a 15-year-old high-school boy he described a complete system for sending
pictures through the air. Six years later his first patent covering the complete
electronic television system was filed.
Dr. Farnsworth was awarded the basic patents on electronic television, and is
the inventor of the basic principles of the camera tubes now known as Image Orthicon
and Image Dissector, both widely used today. He made the first public demonstration
in the world of electronic TV at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, for 10 days
during the summer of 1935.
The firm he founded, Farnsworth Radio & TV Corporation, later became part
of the International Telephone and Telegraph System. He was president and technical
director of this corporation until his retirement in 1967.
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