Television 50 years ago
George Shiers · Journal of Broadcasting · 1975
Plans for “seeing by electricity” began to appear during the late 1870's. The fundamentals comprised selenium as a pickup element, some form of mechanical scanning to explore the scene or object and to reconstitute the picture, a means to synchronize the scanning mechanisms, and a visual display at the receiver. Conceptually older than radio, the technological development of television had to await progress in electron‐tube amplifiers, photoelectric tubes, and radio transmission and reception. Moving silhouettes were demonstrated during the early 1920s. Final success in showing recognizable images with movement and gradations in light and shade—or true television—was first demonstrated in public by J. L. Baird in January 1926. George Shiers, author of Bibliography of the History of Electronics (1972) and many other technical books, is a free‐lance writer living in Santa Barbara, California.