Customer Reviews

Tube: The Invention of Television (Sloan Technology Series)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Tube is easily the most accessible history of television's early years (its "prehistory"), and a good read to boot. The great Zworykin/Farnsworth technology battle is pretty well presented, and the men themselves come alive in the text. Color television's development gets easily the best treatment I've seen anywhere in the non-technical press. However, the final chapter on the future of television was mostly worthless; historians (along with most of the rest of us) do not do well in predicting the future. In a few years that chapter probably will be seen as an embarassment which the rest of the book does not deserve

"Tube" is a scholarly rendering of a fascinating, important, but largely untold piece of history. Unfortunately, the authors failed to search beneath the surface of the surviving historical record to find the true facts, and have instead reiterated a false accounting that has been preserved by more than than 60 years of corporate public relations.

"Tube" repeats oft cited historical record that "Vladimir Zworykin became 'the father of television' when he invented as device called the "iconoscope" while working for RCA in 1923." That is a single sentence that manages to embody about four historical innacuracies.

What's worse, repeating this false litany obscures one of the most amazing achievements of the 20th century: that television as we know it emerged whole from the mind of a 14 year old farm boy named Philo T. Farnsworth. The Fishers' book recognizes Farnsworth, but fails to differentiate his achievement from that of Zworykin, or to examine the patent record deeply enough to unveil the true magnitude of Farnsworth's contribution.

Philo T. Farnsworth paved the way for today's living room dreams, but the Fishers' book treats his contribution no better than dozens of volumes that precede it. For the true story, read "The Farnsworth Chronicles" on the web at

http://songs.com/philo

--Paul Schatzkin

Lively, intelligent, thoroughly researched, Tube is the best history of its kind available. The grousings of certain Farnsworth zealots notwithstanding, the countrified genius of television finally gets his due in this volume. A great read

What a find! Most books that deal with the history of a technology are pretty dry and boring, even if you are a geek, but Tube is an exciting account of the history of television that emphasizes the human lives that shaped it. I don't think I've ever raced through a book as fast as I did with this one. So much is going on with so many racing to be first that you can't wait to see what happens next.

David Fisher provides just the right amount of technical information with very simple graphics to allow the reader to understand the importance of different discoveries to the advancement television. If you can understand an ordinary light-bulb, you can keep up with this book.

Did you know that the FCC first approved a color TV system that would have required a spinning disk in every home set? But no company produced any sets for the home so it went nowhere until the relentless David Sarnoff succeeded in driving RCA, the company he headed, to produce a color system that was compatible with black and white TV.

The personal story of Philo T. Farnsworth, a self-taught Iowa farm-boy who was the first to come up with an all-electronic (instead of mechanical) television system would make this book worthwhile if that were the only story told, but there are a host of colorful characters that will keep you reading.

I'm not sure if this book is still in print; I found it in a used book store but if you find a copy, grab it! There's even a chapter at the end to fill you in on the early development of digital TV, though that is a story of committees rather than personalities.

First-rate storytelling and science writing by the father-son team of David Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher. The eccentric geniuses who invented television come alive in these pages

This fine work has many of the qualities of a suspense novel, and is probably one of the best books of its kind ever written. It is written with a heart, and the reader easily feels what some of its subjects endured in this fascinating tale of the development and evolution of television, and later, color television. After this read, the reader will want to immediately order the equally excellent book about the development of HDTV by Joel Brinkley.

To those seeking an introduction to television history, it may initially seem like an accurate book. First impressions can be deceiving.

What TUBE gains in advertising space, it lacks in accuracy. To a reader with sufficient previous background, it will appear to have been written and researched on the quick, and it comes to several misleading conclusions that evolve into outright fabrication. The authors do not seem to know how to get out of corners they carelessly write themselves into. They seem only too willing to make judgements on technologies and events which they clearly have not fully researched. There are simply too many outstanding errors for Tube to be a dependable reference for historians.

Let's hope if Tube has been reprinted, that the Fishers have done more background research, and have fixed the recurring 'boo-boos' that troubled the version I read.

A 2nd edition (with corrections) or even an enclosed 'errata' page is long overdue. Call me cynical, but I strongly suspect that the errors would happily be carried through to further printings, (if this has not occurred already). I do not recognize the new cover, but I expect it is simply a paperback version of the earlier hardcover with no content changes.

This may seem strong, but the more knowledge you amass about TV History from reputable sources, the more frustrated you will become with Tube.

L'auteur du livre nous a raconté une belle histoire, celle des principaux protagonistes de l'invention de la télévision. Il a su vulgariser les notions scientifiques complexes qui intervinrent dans la réalisation du téléviseur moderne. Il s'adressait à un large public. C'est pourquoi son histoire est personnifiée.

Nous retrouvons les principaux inventeurs indépendant qui orientèrent leurs recherches dans le cadre du paradigme mécanique, Jenkins, Baird, Ives. D'autres figures peuplent les recherches dans le cadre du paradigme électronique, Zworykin, Farnsworth. L'auteur entre dans le détail biographique propre à nous illustrer les conditions de l'invention. La personnification de l'histoire permet d'attirer le lecteur.

Par ailleurs, le livre rend bien la complexité du développement de la télévision. Ce n'est pas un seul individu qui trône au dessus de l'histoire. En effet, l'invention de la télévision va d'au moins 1880 à 1939 et elle a mobilisé des chercheurs de partout dans le monde : Allemagne, Japon, Canada, Italie, URSS, France, en plus des États Unis d'Amérique et de la Grande Bretagne. Des inventeurs indépendants, des chercheurs universitaires et des chercheurs de grande compagnies y investirent nombre de jours. Plusieurs brevets furent déposés. Il n'y a pas -le- brevet décisif, mais plusieurs connaissances, savoir faire.

Cependant, pour le spécialiste de l'histoire des techniques, il ne s'agit que d'un livre de vulgarisation respectant avec intelligence les règles de l'art. Les livres publiés antérieurement sur l'histoire de la télévision (et il n'en existe guère peu) étaient soit trop rivés sur les faits, soit trop techniques, soit trop concernés par les débats entourant la télédiffusion de l'apprés seconde guerre mondiale.

Or, nous sommes toujours en attente d'une histoire de la télévision sous l'angle de l'histoire des techniques. Une histoire qui répondrait aux questions suivantes : quelles sont les contraintes exercées sur l'innovation technique par l'option paradigmatique des chercheurs? quel rôle a joué la présence de l'industrie dans le passage de l'invention à l'innovation? comment des inventeurs indépendants, tel Farnsworth ont-ils pu tenir tête à des industries telles RCA? pourquoi les Bell Lab., disposant de compétences techniques et de savoir faire éprouvés, en plus des ressources financières nécessaires, se sont-ils lancés dans l'aventure de la télévision mécanique plutôt que celle électronique?