Comment Baird: Jan 1926 (Score 3, Insightful) 358
The best way to look at this is not "who was first" - but to look at the parallel lines of thought and development in various countries.
Baird gave his first public demo in Jan 1926. Campbell-Swinton had come up with the concept of television scanned, synchronised and displayed by electronic means in 1908. Baird's implementiation was very low cost in engineering terms - when the BBC used it for broadcasts they were able to use their audio transmitters. The BBC actually broadcast using Baird's system from 1932 to 1935. Mechanical scanning was based on Nipkow's ideas (a German - around 1884)
Baird was also the first to record television (on a wax disk). I think he also had a colour system. Mechanical scanning was not ideal, but it was all that could be done at the time and worked well enough for the BBC to broadcast using it. He can't just be written out of history.
The Farnsworth article makes much of the claim that the idea ocurred to him when he was 14 (no evidence is offered - and what was needed was not the ideas - they were in place but the electronics to practically apply them) as it concedes that practical application postdated Baird's demo.
Nick
Baird gave his first public demo in Jan 1926. Campbell-Swinton had come up with the concept of television scanned, synchronised and displayed by electronic means in 1908. Baird's implementiation was very low cost in engineering terms - when the BBC used it for broadcasts they were able to use their audio transmitters. The BBC actually broadcast using Baird's system from 1932 to 1935. Mechanical scanning was based on Nipkow's ideas (a German - around 1884)
Baird was also the first to record television (on a wax disk). I think he also had a colour system. Mechanical scanning was not ideal, but it was all that could be done at the time and worked well enough for the BBC to broadcast using it. He can't just be written out of history.
The Farnsworth article makes much of the claim that the idea ocurred to him when he was 14 (no evidence is offered - and what was needed was not the ideas - they were in place but the electronics to practically apply them) as it concedes that practical application postdated Baird's demo.
Nick
