Radio annual (1950)

nEUJ m OF EnTERTflinfflEflT by BRIG. GENERAL DAVID SARNOFF Chairman of the Board, Radio Corporation of America TELEVISION shook off its adolescence and came into man's estate during 1949. Wherever it appeared the public embraced it, no longer as a novelty of sight and sound but as a service of untold potentiality. Great as is its future, from industrial, scientific and educational standpoints, the American people have been quick to recognize the new era of entertainment it has brought to the home, the significant informational services it has begun to develop, and its importance in communications by serving the eye as well as the ear. The strides it is making as an advertising and marketing medium of unsurpassed impact on the business and buying habits of the nation are now widely recognized, and new technical developments give promise of continuous improvement. In 1949 television began to exert a powerful impact on the entertainment habits of Americans. Home-life, education, news, politics, sports and all forms of entertainment are beginning to realize the social and economic import of this new art. As 1950 opened, there were 98 television broadcasting stations in the United States. Networks are being extended by coaxial cable and radio relay interconnections. Millions of people in areas still out of range of the waveborne pictures eagerly await the arrival of TV. In February, 1950, RCA Victor will manufacture its millionth television set, and sets will come off the production lines in greater numbers as increased mass production makes it possible. Achievements in 1949: Achievements of RCA scientists and research men, coupled with the accomplishments of commercial engineers, contributed much to the advance of radio-electronics in 1949. New fields of research were opened with promising possibilities for the future not only in communications but in science and industry. Among the outstanding achievements in radio-electronics and television during the year were: 1. Expansion of television as a service to the public. 2. Develoment of the RCA all-electronic, high-definition compatible color television system now being field tested. 3. Introduction of the RCA 45-rpm system of recorded music featuring the simplest and fastest phonograph record changer ever devised and providing the best quality of reproduction. 4. Advanced development of radar and its increased application for national security and safety at sea and in the air. 5. Application of the electron microscope and electronic techniques in the fields of biology and medicine; for example, its use in research for close-up study of cancer cells and tissues. • The electron tube, as the greatest basic invenstion in 50 years, has been the master key to radio progress. It opened the pathways through space for world-wide radiotelegraphy and telephony, for radio broadcasting, television, radar Ultrafax and numerous industrial applications. It will continue to unlock new developments from year to year. For example, the "memory tube," developed as an electronic brain for rapid computing machines, makes it possible to complete the multiplication of two numbers, eacli having as many as 12 digits, in a hundred millionth of a second. It is called a "memory tube" because the figures fed into it can be retained for an indefinite time and be extracted when desired. Another new RCA tube called the Graphechon has "visual memory." It can store radar signals and transient phenomena which occur in less than a millionth of a second and which ordinarily fade out in only a few seconds when traced on fluorescent screens yet this tube stores such signals for more than a minute. New photo-tubes developed by RCA ^Continued on Page 53 ^ 41