Technikatörténeti szemle 20. (1993)

TANULMÁNYOK - Tihanyi Glass, Katalin: The Iconoscope: Kalman Tihanyi and the Development of Modern Television

KATALIN TIHAMYI GLASS* THE ICONOSCOPE: KALMAN TIHANYI AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN TELEVISION If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Isaac Newton Great sums have been paid out In lawyers' fees and other costs to develop patent position gilving them dominance. And dominance, insofar as RCA is concerned, is predicated upon the cathode ray scanner, the Iconoscope (1). Introduction This article is the result of nearly two decades of research into the history and development of modern electronic television. The conclusions are drawn on primary source material, of which the most revealing have been the archival files containing the original U.S. patent applications and related correspondence by Kalman Tihanyi (2) and V.K. Zworykin (3), and the Hungarian patent application, filed by Kalman Tihanyi on March 20, 1926 (4), still preserved at the National Archives in Budapest. In addition to these heretofore unexamined documents, the writer was greatly aided by the extraordinary cache of private letters and other documents the Hungarian inventor left behind at his death in February 1947. Canonical and other views As the theme of the 1939 New York World's Fair was the future and its technologies, no occasion would have been more fitting to launch television, the much anticipated new medium of communication, than the opening ceremony on Sunday, April 30, in the presence of the thousands who came to participate in the celebrations. Indeed, those who were fortunate enough to not only hear President Roosevelt's dedication speech but also see the historical telecast on receivers at the pavilion of the Radio '8721 Santa Monica Bl., Suite 646