Fwd: Re: early instances of the word "television"

[Laurence Horn]

At 7:29 PM -0500 11/29/07, Amy West wrote:
>LH's (I think) post about the early instances of television as a
>broadcast medium prompted me to talk to a friend who's a media
>historian of sorts and here's some info off the top of his head...
>
>---Amy West

That's neat.  I'm still not sure, though, what Fitzgerald had in mind
with his references to "Miss Television" in 1928 and then 1933,
especially given how localized and avant garde the whole process was
in those years.  I'll see if there are any Fitzgerald scholars around
here who have any ideas on the matter.  (Note that the term used in
the first of the preserved recordings at the site below is
"phonovision".)

LH

>>
>>
>>The BBC started regular television broadcasts in the late 1920s -- I
>>think 1927.  Amazingly, a few folks at home recorded some of the
>>broadcasts on their home phonograph recording machines, and a few of
>>those discs have survived.  So there exist recognizable video
>>recordings of television broadcasts from the late 1920s.  You can
>>see small excerpts here.
>>http://www.tvdawn.com/
>>
>>Boston had a television station with a regular schedule in 1928.
>>
>>When I was in middle school, I talked to a fellow who worked on the
>>first television dramatic broadcast in the US, in 1928, from WGY in
>>Schenectady.  The factoid I most remember is that so much light was
>>needed to make the broadcast that the lights were water cooled.  The
>>water cooling lines were leaky, so the crew all wore raincoats to
>>avoid getting wet.  He also said that at the time, there were only
>>two sets which could receive the broadcast.
>>
>>All of these broadcasts used a primitive, extremely low definition
>>system that created postage stamp sized images.
>>
>>Bill
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org