Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Fort Wayne, IN: Philo Farnsworth invented electronic television

(More photos of old TVs are in "Don't touch that dial."

bonnie Keefe posted
Published by Brian Thornton
Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many contributions that were crucial to the early development of all-electronic television. He is perhaps best known for his 1927 invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the "image dissector", as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. He was also the first person to demonstrate such a system to the public. Farnsworth developed a television system complete with receiver and camera, which he produced commercially in the form of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation, from 1938 to 1951, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[I remember hearing that one of the things he invented was the CRT (Cathode Ray Tube). Other TV systems had mechanical components. He developed the all-electronic system.]

AJ BonDurant "published by Brian Thorton"
LITTERALY copy and pasted from Google and wiki. 

I am in no way taking away from how neat this bit of trivia is and how it applies to the awesome history of our city. 
But Thornton is a hack and a media bozo of Fort Wayne. I wouldn't credit him with anything, as he deserves nothing.
Nick Bobay This is what ITT bought and became the beginnings of SINCGARS and night vision based on FF work. The basic CRT is his legacy. His work was done at his Pontiac St facility next to IH. Most Ft Wanye residents are not aware of the technological genius we had in our midst. He also provided the communications system for the Apollo program. Thus at the time I started with the company x USAF every handset and comms system for our space exploration was from him in Ft Wayne.Robert Bynum Farnsworth merged with Capehart I believe.Marcos Espinosa What used to be the Farnsworth museum is my office.

Craig Sedery For those interested there is a small Philo T. Farnsworth museum in the lobby of the Harris Corporation building at 1919 W. Cook Rd. Ft. Wayne, (ITT bought Farnsworth Capehart and Harris bought Exelis part of the ITT company breakup)
Joel K Butler Grew up in the era . Right off of State St. Across from the old state school there is a historical monument . It says it all.[This was his house.]

Great Memories and History of Fort Wayne, Indiana
Capehart-Farnsworth assembly line in the early 1950s, Fort Wayne, Indiana.
[It was on East Pontiac St. and became the I,T.&T. Building. They made the Zuddas Radio.]

Jeff Landis posted four photos.
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Update:
Brewminate posted
TODAY IN HISTORY: September 28, 1927 - The first successful television transmission was made by Philo Farnsworth. He is best known for his invention of the first fully functional all-electronic image pickup device (video camera tube), the image dissector, as well as the first fully functional and complete all-electronic television system. He developed a television system complete with receiver and camera—which he produced commercially through the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation from 1938 to 1951, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In later life, Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device, the Farnsworth Fusor, employing inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC). Like many fusion devices, it was not a practical device for generating nuclear power, although it provides a viable source of neutrons.
John Willetts: So just one year after British inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated his TV in 1926, this followed his first broadcast image in 1924. In 1928 Baird made the first transatlantic TV broadcast from London to New York and the first colour transmission the same year. The BBC became interested and was the first corporation to broadcast TV shows as we know them today in 1936.
Marty Hoenig: March 25, 1925, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird made the first-ever public display of moving visuals on television.
Tom Frith: Philo figured out how to make it work - when looking behind him at the furrows behind him while plowing the field -with a tractor .
Dennis Sayles shared
Trevor Kent: No mention of John Logie Baird who patented TV at least three years earlier having demonstrated TV in 1923.
Melvin Gerson: Trevor Kent mechanical tv which was a dead end.
Christopher Campbell: Farnsworth's invention actually predates Baird's. He designed the thing while he was still in high school in 1921, just before his fifteenth birthday. One of the drawings he did on the blackboard for his chemistry teacher was recalled and used in his patent infringement case against RCA, which he won.
Mike Ellenwood: Ft. Wayne was the birthplace of one of the first electronic calculators also. The Bowmar Brain. It is also the birthplace of what is now known as The Detroit Pistons, formerly the Zollner Pistons. Zollner was a manufacturer of pistons in Ft. Wayne. The original basketball floor is stored at The National Truck and Automotive Museum in Auburn, Indiana, just North of Ft. Wayne.
John Michael Leslie: I watched this about three weeks ago and it is very interesting on the History of TV... a lot of stuff happened way earlier than most people think... Also, as people have said, John Logie Baird was probably the first to do a system that got reasonable amount of use in people's homes... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UF9gMHYYk

James T. Billings posted
LIFE, July 26, 1943.
James T. Billings shared
 
Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
Farnsworth Electronics in Fort Wayne, Indiana
 
Ron Blanchard commented on Tommy's post
I have his book

Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
Philo Farnsworth, in full Philo Taylor Farnsworth II, (born August 19, 1906, Beaver, Utah, U.S.—died March 11, 1971, Salt Lake City, Utah), American inventor who developed the first all-electronic television system.
Farnsworth was a technical prodigy from an early age. An avid reader of science magazines as a teenager, he became interested in the problem of television and was convinced that mechanical systems that used, for example, a spinning disc would be too slow to scan and assemble images many times a second. Only an electronic system could scan and assemble an image fast enough, and by 1922 he had worked out the basic outlines of electronic television.
In 1923, while still in high school, Farnsworth also entered Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, as a special student. However, his father’s death in January 1924 meant that he had to leave Brigham Young and work to support his family while finishing high school.
Farnsworth had to postpone his dream of developing television. In 1926 he went to work for charity fund-raisers George Everson and Leslie Gorrell. He convinced them to go into a partnership to produce his television system. Farnsworth moved to Los Angeles with his new wife, Pem Gardner, and began work. He quickly spent the original $6,000 put up by Everson and Gorrell, but Everson procured $25,000 and laboratory space from the Crocker First National Bank of San Francisco. Farnsworth made his first successful electronic television transmission on September 7, 1927, and filed a patent for his system that same year.
Farnsworth continued to perfect his system and gave the first demonstration to the press in September 1928. His backers at the Crocker First National Bank were eager to be bought out by a much larger company and in 1930 made overtures to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which sent the head of their electronic television project, Vladimir Zworykin, to evaluate Farnsworth’s work. Zworykin’s receiver, the kinescope, was superior to that of Farnsworth, but Farnsworth’s camera tube, the image dissector, was superior to that of Zworykin. Zworykin was enthusiastic about the image dissector, and RCA offered Farnsworth $100,000 for his work. He rejected the offer.
Instead, Farnsworth joined forces with the radio manufacturer Philadelphia Storage Battery Company (Philco) in 1931, but their association only lasted until 1933. Farnsworth formed his own company, Farnsworth Television, which in 1937 made a licensing deal with American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) in which each company could use the other’s patents. Buoyed by the AT&T deal, Farnsworth Television reorganized in 1938 as Farnsworth Television and Radio and purchased phonograph manufacturer Capehart Corporation’s factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to manufacture both devices. Production of radios began in 1939.RCA had not taken Farnsworth’s rejection lightly and began a lengthy series of court cases in which RCA tried to invalidate Farnsworth’s patents. Zworykin had developed a successful camera tube, the iconoscope, but many other necessary parts of a television system were patented by Farnsworth. Finally, in 1939, RCA agreed to pay Farnsworth royalties for his patents.The years of struggle and exhausting work had taken their toll on Farnsworth, and in 1939 he moved to Maine to recover after a nervous breakdown. World War II halted television development in America, and Farnsworth founded Farnsworth Wood Products, which made ammunition boxes. In 1947 he returned to Fort Wayne, and that same year Farnsworth Television produced its first television set. However, the company was in deep financial trouble. It was taken over by International Telephone and Telegraph (IT&T) in 1949 and reorganized as Capehart-Farnsworth. Farnsworth was retained as vice president of research. Capehart-Farnsworth produced televisions until 1965, but it was a small player in the industry when compared with Farnsworth’s longtime rival RCA.Farnsworth became interested in nuclear fusion and invented a device called a fusor that he hoped would serve as the basis for a practical fusion reactor. He worked on the fusor for years, but in 1967 IT&T cut his funding. He moved to Brigham Young University, where he continued his fusion research with a new company, Philo T. Farnsworth Associates, but the company went bankrupt in 1970.
Linda Graham LeSure My Mother-in-law Phyllus Fogg started work for Farnsworth as soon as he came to FW (after WW2) and retired from ITT about 30 yrs later. She would always point out his homestead (directly across from old State School) on State Blvd when ever we passed by it.



A video of his appearance on "I've Got a Secret" His secret was "I invented electronic television (When I was 14 years old - 1922)" The Winston Cigarette commercials were also history. For one, they were the only advertiser of a half-hour show. Secondly, I remember their slogan real well: "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." And I remember an English teacher saying that the use of "like" was bad English. They should have used "as."


Tommy Lee Fitzwater posted
I didn’t remember the Farnsworth water tower (I started there as ITT in early 70’s). Retired in 2010
Where was this?
Kirby Volz
 Pontiac St. by International Harvester.
My father worked at ITT in the '50's, '60's, and early 70's. He was a tool & die maker. Farnsworth used to come to our house and pick my father up when he needed a part made on the weekend.

Steve Tiny Michaels posted
September 7,1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth.

Ron Schoenle shared
As I was moving my ”smaller” 32inch tv into my bedroom I had to laugh remembering when a 17” or 19” screen was considered huge.

Bob Lalich commented on a post
Here is a 1949 Charles Cushman photo of Frank Kralj's tavern. Television!
Thanks for pointing out the TV sign. I would have missed that. I can remember when motels used to advertise Color TV.

20190925 9471

Shawn Carroll posted
Capehart-Farnsworth ad 1950. Anyone else own one? Ours was mahogany. Had a radio and record player also. Did you know anyone who worked there?
David Henry: A lot of people don't know the tv and the calculator were invented here.
David Gerlock: David Henry both of my parents and myself worked for Magnavox. My father also had worked at Bowmar Instruments as an engineer, and was one of the engineers involved in the design and development of the first handheld calculator. Being employees of Magnavox, we were always able to get the latest and greatest of new things. The very first video game was invented by Magnavox, the game called PONG. Mom and dad bought each of us kids the game, and to this day, I still have mine, and still in it's original box. I also still have one of the very first hand held calculators that came out. I just can't part with some things, especially when where they came from has so much personal meaning.
Sharon Slough: Capehart-Farnsworth , ITT Telephone and Telegraph, ITT Industries, then Harris and some other names. I retired from ITT after 25 yrs service in Fort Wayne IN. We made SINCGARS hand-held radios for the Army and NOAA Weather Satellite Systems. There used to be a room (museum) of old radios, TV’s and historical information at ITT building in Fort Wayne.
 I worked in Engineering at all the ITT Fort Wayne buildings, main Pontiac Street, East Pontiac Street, Industrial Park, then new buildings on St Road 3, TAC I, II, III. My mom worked at the Pontiac Street building back during WWII . Their policy back then was no relatives were allowed to be employed. An aunt and uncle also worked there at the same time. They all had different last names, would see each other on weekends, then work go to together...Greeted each other on Monday with a “Hi, how was your weekend?” !
John Hume: My father was a tool and die maker at IT&T. Farnsworth went to my father when he needed something made. I can remember him picking my dad up on a Sunday in his Cadillac in deep snow to have a part made.

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