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Scotsman John Logie Baird invents mechanical television which he calls a "Televisor".
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Philo Farnsworth transmits the first "electric television" picture (about the size of a postage stamp, an inch and a half square) in his San Francisco Laboratory.
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the date of the first broadcast of the expanded NBC -- all the way
to the West Coast, for a total of 47 stations in the chain. -
Billboard magazine publishes its first music chart of performed songs.
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The Edison Co. ceases the manufacturing of sound recordings.
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To improve TV pictures, German scientist Fritz Schroeter applies for a patent on interlaced scanning.
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Vladimir Zworykin applies for a patent on a TV camera vacuum tube he calls the "Iconoscope."
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Richard M. Hollingshead opened the first Drive-In Movie Theater in Camden, NJ on june 6.
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Western Union introduces the first "singing telegram" service.
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Regular FM Radio broadcasting begins in New York City.
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The National Television Standards Committee adopts the "NTSC standard" of
525 interlaced horizontal scan lines for all U.S. commercial television broadcasts
and just under 30 frames per second consisting of two interlaced fields. -
Captured German magnetic tape recorders brought to the United States which are copied
for commercial use by A. M. Polikoff who founds AMPEX (he added "EX" for excellence.) -
The first cable TV systems appear (called Community Antenna TeleVision systems,
or CATV) for carrying television signals by wire into areas that are geographically remote. -
The Audio Engineering Society (The AES) is formed.
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A local Los Angeles filmed TV sitcom which will air in 1950 on the full NBC network
called "Hank McCune Hall", about the life of a television variety show host, introduces
the technique of "the laugh track" -- "canned laughter" -- edited in from other comedy
shows, which unfortunately continues to plague sitcoms to this day... -
RCA finally gave in to market pressures and began producing 33 1/3 microgroove (1-mil)
LPs to compete with Columbia and others. -
The first ID jingle company to "sing-over" pre-recorded backgrounds - PAMS, Inc. is
formed in Dallas, Texas by former radio studio musician Bill Meeks on August 20, 1951. -
The "CBS Eye" network logo debuts on September 10, 1951, designed by network art
director William Golden. An animated version debuted on the air on October 17th. -
Coast-to-coast network TV is a reality via telephone company coaxial cables.
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The first pre-recorded reel-to-reel tape (at 7 1/2 ips) is offered for sale.
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The First "transistor radio" went on sale in the U.S. named The Regency TR-1
(it had 4 transistors and cost $49.99.) -
Larger 12" LP's overtake 10" LP's as the preferred size for long-playing records.
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Ampex Co. of Redwood City, CA demonstrates the first videotape system in February
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Compatible Stereo disks and record players are offered for sale (33 1/3 and 45rpm.)
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Sony introduces the first "solid-state" TV set, using transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
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FM Stereo radio broadcasting begins and FM slowly starts to gain respect.
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Multitrack analog tape recording starts being used in recording studios.
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Ivan Sutherland does his M.I.T. Doctoral Thesis on Interactive Computer Graphics
creating a "Sketchpad" program using an interactive light pen instead of a mouse;
which leads to the first practical uses of interactive graphics on computers. -
The "Dolby-A" professional noise reduction system is used in some recording studios
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The FCC requires cable TV systems with more than 3500 subscribers to include
locally-originated programming -
The first Microprocessor (computer on a chip) is introduced by Intel -- the 4004
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The first ARPANET (later Internet) EMail program called "SNDMSG" -- short for
"Send Message" -- was created by Ray Tomlinson working at BBN Technologies
(Called BBN because it was founded by Bolt, Beranek and Newman.) -
Gloria Gaynor records "Never Can Say Goodbye" -- the first disco record on US radio
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Atari of Santa Clara, CA develops "Pong" -- the first electronic computer arcade game.
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The first all solid-state video cameras are introduced using Bell Labs "CCD"
(charge-coupled device) instead of an Image Orthicon or Plumbicon camera tube -
NBC's weekend radio format MONITOR is cancelled after nearly 20 years --
It's final broadcast airs on Sunday jan, 26 -
Garrett Brown invents the gyroscopic Steadicam, a motion picture camera stabilizer
mount, worn by the cameraman himself, first used in the movie "Rocky."
