John Baird, 1926 by an unknown press photographer in England
Toronto. Today, with smartphones de rigueur, we take television and videos for granted. It wasn’t always so. In 1926, the Scottish inventor, John Baird held a demonstration for the media in London, England.
Baird demonstrated, “the first workable system of televisually transmitting an image from one place to another“. The face you see is that of John Baird. Baird appears to be using a Nipkow disk to scan an image for transmission.
This portrait and short story are one of three mentioned in a brief video by the Morgan Library and Museum in New Zealand, narrated by Joel Smith. The third portrait, which is of Gene Krupa, is the subject of yesterday’s post.
And as stated, my very good friend George Dunbar came through with the New Zealand link shown above. As a young man, I had an older friend who partnered with his brother-in-law to do television repairs. It was he who introduced me to the strange Nipkow disk and the issues early television faced.
While the PHSC is primarily an historical society of ‘still’ photography, we all seem to have a movie camera kicking around and some interest in technology, be it stills, movies, television, videos, or smartphones …
