Scientific research and experimentation with vacuum tube technology and early television technology has contributed to the advancement of video display technologies used in today's computers. The following brief timeline on television technology is presented here solely for historical perspective.

DATES and EVENTS

1884

Paul Nipkow invented a mechanical scanning disc. He received a patent on his device

1910

Boris Rosing experimented with early television technology using a mechanical scanner in a transmitter and an electronic Braun tube in the receiver.

1923

Vladimir Zworykin applies for a patent on his electronic television system and demonstrates it to a group of engineers at Westinghouse.

1925

Charles Francis Jenkins uses a scanning disc with vacuum-tube amplifiers and photoelectric cells (early television technology).

1925

John Logie Baird uses a Nipkow Disk and photoelectric cell to transmit a picture over a distance of several feet (early television technology).

1926

Philip Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971) produces the first all-electronic television image.

1928

(May 11) television station WGY in Schenectady, New York, becomes the first station to provide regularly scheduled broadcasts. WGY showed programs three evenings a week.

1929

(November 18) Vladimir Zworykin demonstrates an all electronic television receiver, using the kinescope as the picture.

1930

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) begins operation of W2XBS, an experimental television station in New York City.

1931

NBC conducts experimental broadcasting from the top of the Empire State Building.

1931

(July 21) the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began a regular schedule of television broadcasting on station W2XAB in New York City.

1939

(April 30) National Broadcasting Company (NBC) introduces television as a regular service. Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first president to be seen on TV.

1940

Television stations WNBT and WCBW in New York City become the first TV transmitters commercially licensed to go on the air.

1949

(January 20) the inauguration of President Truman was seen over 15 television stations from Boston to St. Louis. On May 31, 1949, the first closed-circuit color television broadcast of a surgical operation was made from the University of Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia.

1964

Television signals are transmitted via satellite.

1965

Live television pictures of the moon are transmitted to earth by Ranger IX.

1969

Live telecast from the moon's surface are transmitted to earth by Apollo astronauts.

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