1843-1923: From electromechanics to electronics[edit]

Thomas Edison's phonograph

 1843: Watchmaker Alexander Bain (inventor) develops the basic concept of

displaying images as points with different brightnessvalues.
 1848: Frederick Collier Bakewell invents the first wirephoto machine, an early fax
machine
 1861: Grade school teacher Philipp Reis presents his telephone in Frankfurt,
inventing the loudspeaker as a by-product.
 1867: French poet and philosopher Charles Cros (1842 - 1888) presents the
construction principle of a phonograph in his 'paréophone', which turned out not to
be a commercial success at the time.
 1867: James Clerk Maxwell (1831 - 1879) develops a theory predicting the
existence of electromagnetic waves and establishes Maxwell's equations to describe
their properties. Together with the Lorentz force law, these equations form the
foundation for classical electrodynamics and classical optics as well as electric
circuits.
 1874: Ferdinand Braun discovers the rectifier effect in metal sulfides and metal
oxides.
 1877: Thomas Edison (1847 - 1931) invents the first phonograph, using a tin foil
cylinder. For the first time sounds could be recorded and played. A phonograph
horn with membrane and needle was arranged in such a way that the needle had
contact to the tinfoil.
 1880: the American physicist Charles Sumner Tainter discovers that many
disadvantages of Edison's cylinders can be eliminated if the soundtrack is arranged
in spiral form and engraved in a flat, round disk. Technical problems soon ended
these experiments. Still, Tainter is regarded as the inventor of the gramophone
record.
 1884: Paul Nipkow obtains a patent for his Nipkow disk, an image scanning device
that reads images serially, which constitutes the foundation for mechanical
television. Two years later his patent runs out.
 1886: Heinrich Hertz succeeds in proving the existence of electromagnetic waves
for the first time - now the groundwork for wireless telegraphy and radio
broadcasting in physical science is laid.
 1887: Unaware of Charles Sumner Tainter's experiments, German-American Emil
Berliner has his phonograph patented. He used a disk instead of a cylinder, primarily
to avoid infringing on Edison's patent. Quickly it becomes obvious that
flat Gramophone records are easier to duplicate and store.
 1888:
  Alexander Graham Bell (1847 - 1922) significantly reduces interfering noises by
using a wax cylinder instead of tin foil. This paves the way to commercial
success for the improved phonograph.
 American Oberlin Smith describes a process to record audio using a cotton
thread with integrated fine wire clippings. This makes reel-to-reel audio tape
recording possible.
 1890:
 The phonograph becomes faster and more convenient due to an electric motor.
The electric motor brings on the first juke box with cylinders - even before flat
disk records were widely available.
 Thomas Edison discovers thermionic emission. To this day, this effect forms the
basis for the vacuum tube and the cathode ray tube.
 approximately 1893: The invention of the selenium phototube allows the conversion
of brightness values into electrical signals. The principle is applied
in wirephoto and televisiontechnology for a short time. Selenium is used in light
meters for the next 50 years.

Cinématographe camera by the Lumière brothers in 1895 (ref 86.5822) at the French
Museum of Photography in Bièvres, Essonne, France

 1895: Auguste Lumiere's cinematograph displays moving images for the first time. In
the same year, brothers Emil and Max Skladanowskypresent their "Bioscop" in
Berlin.
 1897
 Ferdinand Braun invents the "inertialess cathode ray oscillograph tube", a
principle which remained unchanged in television picture tubes.
 The Italian Guglielmo Marconi transmits wireless telegraph messages by
electromagnetic waves over a distance of five kilometers.
 1898
 The Danish physicist Valdemar Poulsen creates the world's first magnetic
recording and reproduction, using a 1 mm thick steel wire as a magnetizable
carrier.
  Nikola Tesla demonstrated the first wireless remote control of a model ship.
 1899: The dog "Nipper" is used in "His Master's Voice", the trademark for
gramophones and records.
 1902
 Otto von Bronk patented his "Method and apparatus for remote visualization of
images and objects with temporary resolution of the images in parallel rows of
dots". This patent, originally developed for phototelegraphy, impacted the
development of color television, particularly the NTSC implementation.
 For the first time audio records are printed with paper labels in the middle.
 1903: Guglielmo Marconi provides evidence that wireless telegraphic
communication is possible over long distances, such as across the Atlantic. He used
a transmitter developed by Ferdinand Braun.
 1904
 For the first time, double-sided records, and those with a diameter of 30 cm are
produced, increasing playing time up to 11 minutes (5.5 minutes per side).
These are created by Odeon in Berlin and debuted at the Leipzig Spring Fair.
 The German physicist Arthur Korn developed the first practical method
for telegraphy.
 1905: The Englishman Sir John Ambrose Fleming invents the first electron tube.
 1906
 Robert von Lieben patented his "inertia working cathode-ray-relays". By 1910 he
developed this into the first real tube amplifier, by creating a triode. His invention
of the triode is almost simultaneously created by the American Lee de Forest.
 Max Dieckmann and Gustav Glage use the Braun tube for playback of 20-line
black-and-white images.
 The first jukebox with records comes on the market.
 American Brigadier General Henry Harrison Chase Dunwoody files for a patent
for a carborundum steel detector for use in a crystal radio, an improved version
of the Cat's-whisker detector. It is sometimes credited as the
first semiconductor in history. The envelope detector is an important part of
every radio receiver.
 1907: Rosenthal puts in his image telegraph for the first time a photocell.
 1911: First film studios are created in Hollywood and Potsdam- Babelsberg .
 1912: The first radio receiver is created, in accordance with the Audion principle.
 1913: The legal battle over the invention of the electron tube between Robert von
Lieben and Lee de Forest is decided. The electron tube is replaced by a
high vacuum in the glass flask with significantly improved properties.
 Alexander Meissner patented his process "feedback for generating oscillations",
by his development of a radio station using an electron tube .
 The Englishman Arthur Berry submits a patent on the manufacture of printed
circuits by etched metal.
 1915: Carl Benedicks leads basic studies in Sweden on the electrical properties
of silicon and germanium. Due to the emerging tube technology, however, interest in
semiconductors remains low until after the Second World War.
 1917
  Based on previous findings of the Englishman Oliver Lodge, the Frenchman
Lucien Levy develops a radio receiver with frequency tuning using a resonant
circuit.
 1919: Charlie Chaplin founded the Hollywood film production and distribution
company United Artists
 1920: The first regularly operating radio station KDKA goes on air on 2 November
1920 in Philadelphia, USA. It is the first time electronics are used to transmit
information and entertainment to the public at large. The same year in Germany an
instrumental concert was broadcast on the radio from a long-wave transmitter in
Wusterhausen.
 1922: J. McWilliams Stone invents the first portable radio receiver. George Frost
builds the first "car radio" in his Ford Model T.
 1923
 The 15-year-old Manfred von Ardenne is granted his first patent for an electron
tube having a plurality of electrodes. Siegmund Loewe (1885-1962) builds with
the tube his first radio receiver "Loewe Opta-".
 The Hungarian engineer Dénes Mihály patented an image scanning with line
deflection, in which each point of an image is scanned ten times per second by a
selenium cell.
 August Karolus (1893-1972) invents the Kerr cell, an almost inertia-free
conversion of electrical pulses into light signals. He was granted a patent for his
method of transmitting slides.
 Vladimir Kosma developed the first television camera tube, the Ikonoskop, using
the Braun tube.
 The German State Secretary Karl August Bredow founded the first
German broadcasting organization. By lifting the ban on broadcast reception and
the opening of the first private radio station, the development of radio as a mass
medium begins.
1924-1959: From cathode ray tube to stereo audio and TV[edit]

 1924: the first radio receivers are exhibited at the Berlin Radio Show
 1925
 Brunswick Records in Dubuque, Iowa produced their first record player, the
Brunswick Panatrope with a pickup, amplifier and loudspeaker
 In the American Bell Laboratories, a method for recording of records obtained by
microphone and tube amps for series production. Also in Germany working on it
is ongoing since 1922. 1925 appear the first electrically recorded disks in both
countries.
 At the Leipzig Spring Fair, the first miniature camera "Leica" is presented to the
public.
 John Logie Baird performs the first screening of a living head with a resolution of
30 vertical lines using a Nipkow disk.
 August Karolus demonstrated in Germany television with 48 lines and ten image
changes per second.
 1926
  Edison developed the first "LP". By dense grooves (16 grooves on 1 mm) and
the reduction of speed to 80 min -1 (later 78 min -1 ) increases the playing time
up to 2 times 20 minutes. He carries himself with the decline of his phonograph
business.
 The German State Railroad offers a cordless telephone service in moving trains
between Berlin and Hamburg - the idea of mobile telephony is born.
 John Logie Baird developed the first commercial television set in the world. It
was not until 1930, he is called a " telescreen sold "at a price of 20 pounds.
 1927
 The first fully electronic music boxes ("Jukeboxes") used in the USA on the
market.
 German Grammophon on sale due to a license agreement with the Brunswick-
Balke-Collender Company. Its first fully electronic turntables.
 The first industrially manufactured car radio , the "Philco Transitone" from the
"Storage Battery Co." in Philadelphia, USA, comes on the market.
 The first shortwave radio - Rundfunkübertragung overseas broadcast by the
station PCJJ the Philips factories in Eindhoven in the Dutch colonies.
 Opening of the first regular telegraphy -Dienstes between Berlin and Vienna.
 First commercial sound films ("The Jazz Singer", USA) using the "Needle sound"
back in sync with the film screening for LPs over loudspeakers.
 First public television broadcasts in the UK by John Logie Baird between London
and Glasgow and in the USA by Frederic Eugene Ives (1882-1953) between
Washington and New York.
 The American inventor Philo Taylor Farnsworth (1906-1971) developed in Los
Angeles, the first fully electronic television system in the world.
 John Logie Baird developed his Phonovision, the first videodisc player. 30-line
television images are stored on shellac records. At 78 RPM mechanically
scanned, the images can be played back on his "telescreen". It could not play
sound nor keep up with the rapidly increasing resolution of television. More than
40 years later, commercial optical disc players came onto the market.
 1928: Fritz Pfleumer got the first tape recorder patent. It replaces steel wire with
paper coated in iron powder. According to Valdemar Poulsen (1898) to the second
crucial pioneer of magnetic sound, image and data storage
 Dénes Mihály presented in Berlin a small circle, the first authentic television
broadcast in Germany, having worked at least since 1923 in this field.
 August Karolus and the company Telefunken put on the "fifth Great German
Radio Exhibition Berlin 1928" the prototype of a television receiver, with an
image size of 8 cm × 10 cm and a resolution of about 10,000 pixels, a much
better picture quality than previous devices.
 In New York (USA) the first regular television broadcasts of the experiment
station WGY, operated by the General Electric Company (GE). Sporadic
television news and dramas radiate from these stations by 1928.
 The first commercially produced television receiver of the Daven Corporation
in Newark is offered for $75.
  John Logie Baird transmits the first television pictures internationally, and the
same across the Atlantic from London to New York. He also demonstrated the
world's first color television transmission in London.
 1929
 Edison withdraws from the phono business - the disk has ousted the cylinder.
 The company Columbia Records developed the first portable record player that
can be connected to any tube radio. It also created the first radio / phonograph
combinations, the precursor to the 1960s music chests.

Daylygraph wire recorder


 The German physicist Curt Stille (1873-1957) records magnetic sound for film,
on a perforated steel band. First, this "Magnettonverfahren" has no success.
Years later it is rediscovered for amateur films, providing easy dubbing. A
"Daylygraph" or Magnettongerät had amplifier and equalizer, and a mature
Magnettondiktiergerät called "Textophon".
 Based on patents, which he had purchased of silence, brings the Englishman E.
Blattner the " Blattnerphone "the first magnetic sound recording on the market. It
records on a thin steel band.
 The first sound film using optical sound premiers. Since the early 1920s, various
people have developed this method. The same optoelectronic method also
allows for the first time the post-processing of recorded music to sound
recordings of it.
 The director Carl Froelich (1875-1953) turns "The Night Belongs to Us", the first
German sound film.
 20th Century Fox presents in New York on an 8 m × 4 m big screen the first
widescreen movie.
 The radio station Witzleben begins in Germany with the regular broadcasting of
television test broadcasts, initially on long wave with 30 lines (= 1,200 pixels) at
12.5 image changes per second. It appear first blueprints for television receiver.
 John Logie Baird starts in the UK on behalf of the BBC with regular experimental
television broadcasts to the public.
 Frederic Eugene Ives transmits a color television from New York to Washington.
 1930
 Manfred von Ardenne invented and developed the flying-spot scanner, Europe's
first fully electronic television camera tube.
 In Britain, the first television advertising and the first TV interview
 1931
 The British engineer and inventor Alan Dower Blumlein (1903-1942) invents
"Binaural Sound", today called "Stereo". He developed the stereo record and the
first three-way speaker. He makes experimental films with stereo sound. Then
he becomes leader of the development team for the EMI -405-line television
system.
 The company RCA Victor presents to the public the first real LP record, the
35 cm diameter and 33.33 RPM give sufficient playing time for an entire
orchestral work. But the new turntables are initially so expensive that they are
only gain broad acceptance after the Second World War - then as vinyl record.
 The French physicist René Barthélemy leads in Paris the first public television
with clay before. The BBC launches first Tonversuche in the UK.
 Public World Premiere of electronic television - without electro-mechanical
components such as the Nipkow disk - on the "eighth Great German Radio
Exhibition Berlin 1931 ". Doberitz / Pomerania is the first German location for a
tone-TV stations.
 Manfred von Ardenne can be the principle of a color picture tube patent: Narrow
strips of phosphors in the three primary colors are closely juxtaposed arranged
so that they complement each other with the electron flow to white light. A
separate control of the three colors has not yet provided.
 1932
 The company AEG and BASF start for the magnetic tape method of Fritz
Pfleumer to care (1928). They develop new devices and tapes, in which celluloid
is used instead of paper as a carrier material.
 In Britain, the BBC sends first radio programs time-shifted instead of live.
 The company telephone and radio apparatus factory Ideal AG (today Blaupunkt)
provides a car radio using Bowden cables to control it from the steering column.
 1933
 After the Nazi seizure of power in Germany is broadcasting finally a political tool.
Systematic censorship is to prevent opposition and spread the "Aryan culture".
Series production of the " People's recipient VE 301 "starts.
 Edwin Howard Armstrong demonstrates that frequency-modulated (FM) radio
transmissions are less susceptible to interference than amplitude-modulated
(AM). However, practical application is long delayed.
 In the USA the first opened drive-in theater.
 1934: First commercial stereo recordings find little favor - the necessary playback
devices are still too expensive. The term "High Fidelity" is embossed around this
time.
 1935
 AEG and BASF place at the Berlin Radio Show, the tape recorder "
Magnetophon K1 "and the appropriate magnetic tapes before. In case of fire in
the exhibition hall all four exhibited devices are destroyed.
 In Germany the world's first regular television program operating for about 250
mostly public reception points starts in Berlin and the surrounding area. The
 mass production of television receivers is - probably due to the high price of
2,500 Reichsmarks - not yet started.
 At the same time, the research institute of the German Post (RPF) begins with
development work for a color television methods , but which are later reinstated
due to the Second World War.
 1936
 Olympic Games in Berlin broadcast live.
 "Olympia suitcase", battery-powered portable radio receiver, introduced.
 The first mobile television camera (180 lines, all-electronic) is used for live
television broadcasts of the Olympic Games.
 Also in the UK are first regular television broadcasts - now for the perfect
electronic EMI system, which soon replaced the mechanical part Baird system -
broadcast.
 Video telephony connections between booths in Berlin and Leipzig. Later
connections from Berlin to Nuremberg and Munich added.
 The Frenchman Raymond Valtat reports on a patent, which describes the
principle of working with binary numbers abacus.
 Konrad Zuse works on a dual electromechanical computing machine that is
ready in 1937.
 1937
 First sapphire needle for records of the company Siemens
 The interlaced video method is introduced on TVr to reduce image flicker. The
transmitter Witzleben uses the new standard with 441 lines and 25 image
changes, i.e. 50 fields of 220 half-lines. Until the HDTV era the interlace method
remains in use.
 First movie encoder make it possible not to send the TV live, but to rely on
recordings.
 1938
 The improved AEG tape-recorder "Magnetophon K4" is first used in radio
studios. The belt speed is 77 cm / s, which at 1000 m length of tape has a
playing time of 22 minutes.
 Werner Flechsig invents the shadow mask method for separate control of the
three primary colors in a color picture tube.
 1939
 On the "16th Great German Radio and television broadcasting exhibition Berlin
1939 ", the" German Unity television receiver E1 "and announces the release of
free commercial television. Due to the difficult political and economic situation,
only about 50 devices are sold instead of the planned 10,000.
 In the USA the first regular television broadcasts take place.
 1940
 The development of television technology for military purposes increases the
resolution to 1029 lines at 25 frames per second. Commercial HDTV television
reached that resolution almost half a century later.
  The problem of band noise with tape devices is reduced dramatically by the
invention of radio frequency bias of Walter Weber and Hans-Joachim von
Braunmühl.
 1942 : The first all-electronic computer is used by John Vincent Atanasoff, but
quickly fades into oblivion. Four years later the ENIAC completed - the beginning of
the end of Electromechanics in computers and calculators.
 1945-1947 : American soldiers capture in Germany some tape recorders. This and
the nullified German patents leads to the development of the first tape recorders in
the United States. The first home device " Sound Mirror "by the Brush Development
Co. is there on the market.
 1948
 The American physicist and industrialist Edwin Herbert Land (1909-1991)
launches the first instant camera, Polaroid camera Model 95 on the market.
 Three American engineers at Bell Laboratories (John Bardeen, Walter
Brattain and William Shockley) invent the transistor. Its lesser size and power
compared with electron tubes brings (from 1955) portable radio receivers starting
its march through all areas of electronics.
 The Hungarian-American physicist Peter Carl Goldmark (1906-1977) invents
the vinyl record (first published 1952), much less noisy than their predecessors
shellac. Thanks to micro-groove (100 grooves per cm) can play 23 minutes per
side. The LP record is born. This one is the redemption of the claim "high fidelity
one step closer" to the end of the shellac era.
 The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) leads the music format with 45 RPM
records, later to conquer the market for cheap players. The first publication in
Germany in this format appears 1953rd
 The British physicist Dennis Gabor (1900-1979) invents holography. This method
of recording and reproducing image with coherent light allows three-dimensional
images. It was not until 1971 when the procedure gained practical importance,
he received the Nobel Prize for Physics.
 1949
 In Germany, FM broadcasting starts regular program operation.
 Experimentally since 1943, series production since 1949 there are for
professional use stereo - Tonbandgeräte and matching ribbons. Also portable
devices for reporters, initially propelled by a spring mechanism, has been around
since 1949
 1950
 In the USA the first prerecorded audio tapes are marketed.
 Also in the USA the company Zenith markets the first TV with cable remote
control for channel selection.
 1951
 The CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) broadcasts in New York the first color
television program in the world, but using the field sequential standard, not
reaching to the resolution of the black and white television and was to be
incompatible.
  With the " tape recorder F15 "from AEG 's first home tape recorder appears on
the German market.
 RCA Electronic Music is the first synthesizer prior to the creation of artificial
electronic sounds.
 1952
 Reintroduction of regular television broadcasts in Germany after the Second
World War.
 20th Century Fox developed with "Cinemascope" the most successful wide-
screen process to better compete with television. Only some 50 years later pulls
the TV with the 16: 9 size screen after.
 1953
 The "National Television System Committee" (Abbreviated as NTSC) normalized
in the USA named after her black-and-white-compatible NTSC -Farbfernseh
process. A year later, this method is introduced in the United States.
 The car radio top model "Mexico" from Becker for the first time to an FM area (in
mono) and an automatic tuning.
 1954
 RCA developed for the first apparatus for recording video signals on magnetic
tapes. 22 km magnetic tape are needed per hour. By 1956, succeeds the
company Ampexthrough the use of multiple tracks, the tape speed to more
practicable 38.1 cm / s lower.
 The European Broadcasting Union is founded "Euro Vision".
 First regular television broadcasts in Japan.
 1955
 The second generation "TRADIC" (Transistorized Digital Computer), first to use
only transistors therefore much smaller and more powerful than its predecessor
tube computers.
 The Briton Narinder S. Kapany investigated the propagation of light in fine glass
fibers (optical fibers).
 The first wireless remote control for a television US-based Zenith consists of a
better flashlight, with which one lights up in one of the four devices corners to
turn the unit on or off, change the channel or mute the sound.
 1956
 The company Metz introduces radio device type 409 / 3D. First mass production
of printed circuit boards. This follows since the 1930s, several improvements to
the manufacturing technology.
 The company Ampex introduces the "VR 1000" the first video recorder. That
same year, CBS uses it for the first magnetic video tape recording (VTR) from.
Although other programs are produced in color since 1954, the VTR cannot
record color.
 1957 : The Frenchman Henri de France (1911-1986) developed the first generation
of color TV system SECAM, which avoids some of the problems of the NTSC
method. The weaknesses of the SECAM system be fixed in later modifications of
the standard for the most part.
 1958
 By merging the Edison patents and the Berliner, the Blumlein stereo recording
method becomes commercially viable. The company Mercury Records launches
the first stereo record on the market.
 The company Ampex expands the video recorder with the Model "VR 1000 B" to
give it color capability.