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| Image Source - Starts at Sixty: How the Jetson's Predicted the Future |
The first television I remember my family owning was black and white, and so largely was society's views of social interaction, equality, etc. It used cathode ray tube technology, and as I recall looking in with my father, a lot of vacuum tubes - if they blew, you had to replace them - precursors to integrated circuits now, their usage in the space program fostered by NASA's need to reduce launch payload size into space (tubes are also quite heavy). They are not extinct, and do still have their specialized uses. We needed "rabbit ear" antennas to receive a radio frequency (RF) signal on the television; a large antenna connected by an analog cable usually on the roof. To attenuate a signal properly for my parents, sometimes I had to hold the ears and stand - absolutely still - next to the set while Walter Cronkite delivered after the sound of teletype actual NEWS completely devoid of theme songs, bombast and "infotainment," because as voiced by his signature line: "that's the way it was." I was also the resident channel surfer, AKA the analog remote control and sometimes dishwasher. Absolutely NO ONE looked at television during a lightning storm (and, really shouldn't now), but surge and electrical fire during the age of fuses was a far more prevalent danger back then before better power distribution schemes and GFCI. There was ABC, CBS, NBC and maybe a few local UHF channels if you were lucky. Television played the Pledge of Allegiance, and went OFF at midnight to a pattern, or static snow.
However, it was Saturday morning cartoons where I saw my first flat screen. Jane, Judy, Elroy, George, Rosie the robot maid and Astro the dog: The Jetsons got a lot of things right about the future - as the link below the picture above attests. There's a lot going on in that image: a video chat with a doctor (we call Skype, among others now); a hint of 3-D technology - the doctor "leaning out" of the screen - and nanotechnology (though I'm dubious on the article's claim: Secret Squirrel did the same trick, after all). And since I'm not too far from my sixth decade, I'm very fortunate to find out it won't be over for me. Sadly though, with the advent of 24-hour news closely followed by hundreds (thousands?) of 24-hour cable channels with appropriate-age cartoon channels, I've noticed a casualty of this advance in technology: one of the very mediums that probably started a lot of future designers, engineers and scientists dreaming up how to bring about what was artists' imaginations to pass...
...Saturday morning cartoons! May they rest in peace (and syndication).
Institute of Physics: Flat Screen Displays (PDF); Television (History)
The Royal Society:
Flat-panel electronic displays: a triumph of physics, chemistry and engineering, Cyril Hilsum
Post script: I will be moving to new apartments for this reason, apparently legal, but unfortunate nonetheless. I have a few posts "in the hopper" that can auto-post, but because I will be packing, I may take a blog-break if the boxes prove overwhelming. I'll let you know how it goes.
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