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The History of Television Through the Pages of Popular Science Magazine
"Televisionis going to be big, or it isn't going to be at all." Thecrack staff atPopular Science said this in 1944, and beyond theseeming obviousness ofits either/or scenario, there's a lot to thinkabout here.
TheJetsons promised us flying cars and sentient robots by 2062.2001: ASpace Odyssey promised galactic travel - beyond today's dinkypowerwheels stuck in mud up in Mars - that's now already a decadeoverdue.And while I've jumped into damn near 300 hot tubs since Ifirst saw thetrailer for Hot Tub Time Machine, Duran Duran is stillsociallyunacceptable listening. Technology has totally failed us.
Exceptfor the television. Where all other advancements have come toa grindinghalt in our grayed, spark-less, impotent andcrumbling-from-the-insidescience and technology sector, televisionhas, by all measures,delivered on its promise.
Looking back on 70+ years of Popular Science Magazine,wecan trace the timeline of the TV as it grew from pipe dreamradiodescendant to the reason why people like Snookie and Dog TheBountyHunter are rich instead of in jail. Think of it as an HDHistoryChannel special. Just don't think of the alternative history.
September 1928 - The Real Facts About Television
Television!That was the lede, and how could they not have beenexcited? People wereclamoring to know when they'd be able to watch"swiftly moving events."Though if they'd woken up from an 80-year comajust in time to see lastweek's Oscar ceremony, they'd still bedisappointed. [Read the full texthere.]
January 1929 - Your first Television Set
Backin the Great Depression, and before we had third world nationsto do allour icky manual labor, you had to work if you wanted towatchtelevision. Not that there was much on (and you thought winterSaturdayfigure skating was bad?), but if you wanted a glimpse of thefuture, itrequired sweat, a high quality radio and some neon tubes.Also, holdingyour thumb against a disk to keep the picture straight,and the abilityto adjust motor rheostats, whatever that means. Already,we've movedway beyond this. Now you can order a television right fromyourtelevision thanks to endless home shopping channels. Question: howmanyof you would watch TV if you had to build it? [Read the full text here.]
April 1934 - Myriads Dots of Light Give New Television
Thecathode ray: the television technology for the "man in thestreet!" Man,they were so progressive those days, giving out TV to anyold bum whowanted it. And in 1934, that was half the country. Really,this wastelevision pointalism, with thousands of dots making up thepicture. Thekind of TV which us poor writers and media types stillhave. Suck it,plasma and LCD, we're retro-cool. [Read the full text here.]
December 1942 - Television Program Gives Housewives Hints from PSM
Beforethere were soap operas and Ellen Degeneres to keep the littleladyoccupied while she kept house, there was a gigantic, horriblysexistrobot that coldly reminded women how to properly toil indomesticservitude. Oh, those were the days, a kinder and more gentlerera! Thisvery magazine broadcast 15-minute segments starring a haplesshousewifewho is inevitably rescued by a frightening RosieJetson/Ronald McDonaldancestor, who teaches the distressed woman howto take "a nail out of adoor jamb without marring the wood, removingthe base of a broken lightwithout cutting or electrocuting herself,and... other feats." Forwardthinking! [Read the full text here.]
August 1944 - Post-War Television
"Entertainmenthas remained the most important function of the masscommunicationservices. It is important to instruct people, but in anervous andcomplex civilization like ours it is even more important toamuse andthrill them." Suck it Tom Brokaw, even the GreatestGeneration neededtheir Jersey Shore fix. Or something like that.
Here,the prediction is that with new technology, the small, poorpicturedtelevision of pre-war will blossom into a cutting edgeentertainmentmedium, with live telecasts of sporting events and studioshows, all ona screen up to 24 inches. Technologists of the time werealso predictingwe'd be wiped off the face of the earth by the mightySoviets, so let'sbe glad they batted .500 in the prediction game.Although many wouldargue the return of Leno was more or less afulfillment of the latterprophecy.
Oh, and here's the first mention of cable, which wasseen asprohibitively expensive versus broadcasting over theairwaves.Cablevision customers most definitely agreed, especially onOscarnight. [Read the full text here.]
February 1947 - Television on the Job
Notonly does it bring corrupt quiz shows into the home, TV can beused tomodernize and streamline industry and teach us about sciencestuff!Televisions used in factories help monitor workers, and directfeedingcameras dropped under the sea can help us discover things we'veneverseen before. Very prophetic: now when workers are fired becausethey'vebeen caught slagging off on closed circuit TV or simplyreplaced by oneguy who can monitor an entire factory, they can sit athome and watchPlanet Earth: Deep Sea Caves stoned out of their minds.[Read the fulltext here.]
February 1949 - What You Need To Know About Television
Bynow, the galloping post card, as they called it (what?!), hadfullytransfixed the nation (and this pre-cable, mind you). "Childrenaretransfixed into silence," they say, which I hate to break it tothem,will end half a century later when Mighty Morphin PowerRangersencourages kids to act like assholes.
As a helpful buyingguide, so readers can keep up with the Joneses(who seem so perfect, butreally live in a trap suburban marriage thatis killing them all fromthe inside), PSM offers a rule of thumb: athree inch screen ($100) isgood for one person sitting a bit over afoot away, but it's the teninch, $325 screen that is the hot seller.That's best for a family ofthree or four. If you want to entertainguests and somehow stashed moneyunder your mattress during the war,spring for the $650 16-inch screen,which is good for an audience ofseven or more sitting up to 96 inchesfrom the screen!
Today, setting aside the wall-coveringprojection screen unitsbecause people who own these are assholes, thehighest end TV onBestBuy.com is a 65 inch, HD LCD unit from Samsung,which will cost youa cool $4500. Which may seem like a lot, until youfactor in inflation- a $650 charge in 1949 comes out to $5787 today.For a 16 inch screen,plus wooden cabinet. Then again, you can't get acombinationtelevision/record player/long and short wave radio thesedays. There'sa surcharge on convenience. [Read the full text here.]
September 1951 - What Color Does For TV
So,wait. The world wasn't actually in black and white until the1950s?People lived in full range of hue and television technology wassimplytoo raw and unadvanced to capture the beautiful points on thelightspectrum that colored our lives, then and now? Racial problemswere morecomplicated than gray vs. darker gray? Well, shit. It musthave been anexciting time when color TV came out.
Following the first colorbroadcast by CBS, a ballet whose signaturepigmented moment came with adancer's exchange of red roses for black(symbolizing death, which was astrange and morbid start), thingsstarted getting crazy for the TVconsumer. Hell, you could "tell whichteam is which just by the colorsof the uniforms," and see Ivan T.Sanderson's exotic birds' feathers.Literally, feathers of exoticbirds; this was a wholesome time, so theysay.
So much easier, broadcasting in color. Costumes consideredby howthe colors matched, not how they'd translate to black and white!Camerasetups reduced 25-30 percent! It was a watershed time, and thenew,color-enabled sets manufactured by a CBS subsidiary hit storesthatfall. Of course, it'd take about 20 years and anuncomfortablemid-series transition in the Andy Griffith show to gofully mainstream,but without this technology, how would we fullyappreciate the blanchof Edward Cullen's face when we're pummeled by theTwilight on Showtimecommercial for the 400th time? [Read the full text here.]
February 1962 - Is Color TV Worth It?
Whatis that, you say? The proposition of color television? Ha! Amerepassing trend, flashing opiates for the masses! Hardly a reasontoreplace the old, trusty tube and cabinet, what with itsdistinguishedgray tones that produce classic, distinguished programming.
Wait,a 50's-era sex symbol, in flesh tones? Call up the Sears,honey, it'stime to get that three man delivery/installation crew overhere pronto!Oh, and have them leave the clearly labeled "color TV" boxoutside,right in front of the driveway, so all the neighbors can seeit and hey,if they choose to do so, interpret it as a subtle shot in ahollow,passive-aggressive suburban consumer war. I'll be watching quizshows -without having to adjust the antennae or color saturation![Read thefull text here.]
January 1973 - How 2-Way Cable TV Will Change Your Life
MITRECorporation had a dream. Using a little push-button telephone,wired toa TV, you could retrieve news, balance bank accounts, makedoctorsappointments, find phone numbers and download pictures of funnypuppieswhile masturbating to Japanese girls banging dinosaursandkeyboard-playing cats. Or something like that.
The earliestconsumer internet was dawning, with "wired-city"connections laid out inOverland Park, Kansas and Orlando. Soon,everyone could check stocks andshop at home and work remotely fromwired offices outside of cities.Agoraphobics and miserable suburbdwellers, this is all you!
Notsure anyone could have predicted the full breadth of theInternet'scapability, but again, this is probably the only instance ofthe latterhalf of the 20th century that science was spot on. OneMotorolaexecutive even predicted Conan O'Brien's downfall andGawker.TV,claiming the wired city will do away with the need forstandardbroadcast, and that we should set a date to close down allordinary TVstations. Except for Fox News. Those viewers are still inthe February1949 section. [Read the full text here.]
December 1982 - Camera Chip Senses TV Images in Total Darkness
Infa-redcamera technology: the ability to film in completedarkness. Little didthey know, this is what would catapult ParisHilton to internationalfame and acclaim. Thanks, scientists!
October 1983 - Hand-size, but here at last: flat-screen color TV
Herewe go, the high flyin' 80's and the beginning of our descentintoJapanese-fueled consumer hell! Bringing the technology fromcalculatorsto those pocket-sized, black and white UHF/VHF receivingtelevisionsyou'll now find as you clean out your grandfather's garage,Seiko and ahost of industrious Japanese companies began producing thefirst colorscreen LCD TVs. Sure, they were tiny and largelyimpractical, but ittook new types of liquid crystals and stuff to makeit happen!
TheJapanese expected a pretty penny for the convenience of watchinga tiny,tiny screen in full color from your backyard or toilet seat -the SonyWatchman (the less successful and now embittered brother ofthe Walkman,natch) ran $350 ($744 in today's dollars) and the007-inspired Seiko TVwristwatch set a giant geek back $499. [Read thefull text here.]
November 1990 - Stay Tuned For Smart TV
Hateto see how they'd react to digital cable and satellitetelevision; theSOS call from an overwhelming sea of 40 to 50 channelscalleddesperately for help in making the increasingly impossiblechoice ofwhat to watch. Bring in the robots, they had ESPN andsuperstations![Read the full text here.]
Littlecolor screens were cute and all, but the 90's were really thegatewayperiod for our crippling (awesome) TV addiction. No longercontent withpaper TV listings and the Preview Channel (THEY STILL HAVETHIS?!?!),sufferers of "channelization" (this was a real ailment,apparently)needed help.
The stuff PSM predicted must have seemed straight upwacky. TV thatoffered digital menus of searchable programs? With theability torecord shows when asked - or even automatically? Thebrainpower tonotice viewing trends and suggest new shows? Yeah, it cametrue - wecall it digital TV and DVR. Now, anyone without TV like thisis asocial outcast, not to mention undateable.
But this is wherewe finally start to get disappointed by emptypromises. PSM was offeringvisions of TV's with Apple-style icons thatplayed CDs and uploadedalbum art (iTunes for TV?); and more bitterlymissing of all, voicecontrolled DVR. If only we could be lazy enoughto not even have to moveour fingers to record shows we're too lazy tobe awake to watch (sorryConan!).
September 1991 - Little Dish TV
Savedby the Bell was in its campy hey-day, and rural folk would bedamned ifthey couldn't join in with Zack and the Gang just becausethey removedthemselves from society to the point that cable wirescouldn't reachthem. Even Thoreau needed Bayside.
So here came small dishsatellite TV, bringing the baseentertainment of regional superstationsinto the homes of even theboldest frontiersmen. While big satelliteslittered crazy people'shomes since the 70s in America, the smallerdishes, new wavelengths andcompression technology (boring!) was new toour shut ins and shut outs.With seven regional superstations and audiochannels and access toPay-Per-View movies, a $300 fee to buy a dish (oran installation andmonthly rental fee) and a $35 monthly subscriptionwas totally a greatdeal!
This was, however, an importantdevelopment. The dish: how the westwas won, and then reduced to ahollow landscape of boxed dinner-eatingzombies crippled by years ofGilligan reruns.
November 1992 - Interactive Television
Onecould most certainly say that television, as we know it today,trulycame of age in the early-to-mid 1990's. One would sound weirdforassigning human characteristics to cold wires andtheoreticaltechnology, but nonetheless, it wouldn't be inaccurate. PSMdevotedmuch of this issue to the TV technology that we're justbeginning tofully appreciate today.
Actually, what PSM promisedhere was far more than what thetelevision delivers today; some of that,like the stoner's dream ofcustom pizza ordering, thealready-promised-twenty-years-ago onlineshopping and news aggregation,would be left to the internet. Add inthe potential to subscribe tomagazines beamed over the television, andholy crap, it's the firstconceptual iPad! Suck it, Steve Jobs!
Also, digital signals beganto replace the shitty "ghosting" analogbroadcasts. Sure, it took 16years, but here we are today, with clearscreens (except for old people,who had the rug pulled out from undertheir crappy old TVs).
Finally,wide screen TVs. This was a bitch - it forced us to replaceall of ourDVDs because now we could see a bit more of the peripheralshot and ifwe didn't have wide screen, people wouldn't want to hang inour dormsand watch movies because clearly we didn't appreciate cinemaenough. Howelse could Eternal Sunshine really be watched?
[Read the full text here.]
June 2005 - Holographic TV
Sothis was a misfire. Perhaps inspired by Princess Leia's desperatepleato Obi Wan bursting forth from R2D2's projector, scientists got toworkbringing holograms to television. Instead of the Rebel Alliance,weended up with Wolf Blitzer and Candy Crowley in our homes duringthe2008 election. A rare misfire. [Read the full text here.]
September 2006 - TV Before Your Eyes
Let'sbe real here. Who wasn't beyond sick of having to strain theireyes tosee a big screen a few feet away, let alone having to seethings otherthan television shows?
Finally - Finally! - a solution to thishorrible problem. TVglasses! The iCuiti iWear, released in 2005,plugged right into thevideo iPod to bring the look of a 35-inch TV amere inch from aviewer's face. The catch: horrible social animus due tolooking likeyou belong on the Starship Enterprise. But not to worry! By2007,they'd have normal looking specs that beamed high definitionvideoright into your eye!
That's what Lumus promised, but thetechnology isn't quite thereyet. You still have to wear your geekinesson your sleeve and agree toabstain from any physical contact with theopposite gender to weartheir TV glasses. But hey - porn beamed rightinto your eye, that'seven better! [Read the full text here.]
March 2007 - The Other Cable TV
Internetmarketplaces and set top boxes streaming shows directlyfrom computer totelevision: how tech geeks are inadvertently killingtraditionaltelevision, undercutting the hip shows we love and givingus more andmore cheap reality TV! But, it's made by Apple, it has tobe good,right?!
Ugh. Sorry Conan. And Arrested Development. And the restof theworld, for causing Jay Leno to come back. Our bad. [Read the fulltext here.]
This article was made possible by the wonderful free archives at Popular Science.
JordanZakarin is a full time web editor, freelance writer andfounder ofridiculous websites WhyMyExSucks.com andSuperAwesomeIdeas.com. He's notgood at telling jokes, grows patchyfacial hair past three days and isavailable to write on any of a widerange of topics he is a certifiedexpert in, from sports toentertainment to politics. He's appeared ontelevision for SportsNetNew York and likes to tell people that he wason PBS' Zoom as a child,though it's a blatant lie. You can find him at JordanZakarin.com.
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