Comments on: In the 1920s, Shoppers Got Punk’d By Fake Televisions

By: Mike Flugennock

Mike Flugennock — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 04:49:25 +0000

I honestly don’t know which is worse — the public being punk’d by fake TV in the 1920s, or being punk’d by real TV in the 2000s.

“More amazing is that people may have actually fallen for these scams…”

I’m not amazed at all. Gullibility in the general public seems to be the norm, and rising. History is rife with these scams and, along with them, proof positive that overall, the general public have remained absolutely rock stupid.

By: Bob Burchett (Comm Engineer)

Bob Burchett (Comm Engineer) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 04:28:10 +0000

We have a museum viewed here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucGQ2uxn-yo where you can see some of our vintage TV sets; my specialty is collecting sets with the fabled Channel 1 on them; quite a unique hobby segment! Philo T. Farnsworth patented a working TV method in 1929 and the Olympics in Berlin 1936 was supposedly the first public appearance of demonstration TV. I didn’t know about these advertising fakir folks; that was a lot of fun reading it! We had several different methods of making TV really work; flying spot scanners, rotating wheels and more. The Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) made it practical for viewing at last. The Antique Wireless Assn has the oldest TV set I am aware of; it is from right at 1929-30 and is quite crude even for those days but impressive to see! Our oldest one is 1939 and the smallest we have are a Philco Safari 2″ set and a 3″ Pilot in the collection. Bob.Burchett@EEonTheWeb.com if you want to know more.

By: Louise

Louise — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:38:55 +0000

In the archives of Popular Science Magazine (where I once worked), there are very scientific articles published in the 1920s about real television. I believe there were genuine television broadcasts to very limited audiences in both New York and London.The war put an end to them.

By: rps

rps — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:21:46 +0000

Off-topic, but have you seen Dr Goebbel’s predictions about the year 2000, if Germany should lose the war?

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb49.htm

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 16:29:11 +0000

It amazes me that, when radio was still new and movies were still silent, people already had the idea of television in mind. More amazing is that people may have actually fallen for these scams and that a published periodical provided instructions for perpetrating a criminal enterprise – it is a third-millenium idea that widespread and open disclosure of such information began with the internet.

The mirror scam seems like a variation of some of the deceptions perpetrated by psychics/mediums, which date back even farther, I guess that this would have made TV the modern medium (sorry – couldn’t resist the pun).

I would like to see an article on the evolution of the idea and technologies that originally made television a reality, then more on the technological changes over the years that brought us color TV, HDTV, and 3-D TV; as well as the upcoming technologies such as holographic projection devices.

Thanks for the interesting article!

By: Paraic McDonagh

Paraic McDonagh — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 08:45:52 +0000

Wow in the second system they were faking color TV. That was more than a little ahead of its time.

By: Jim Lippard

Jim Lippard — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:55:16 +0000

Two methods are described, but were these methods actually used? If so, do any contemporary descriptions or photographs of such fake TV demonstrations exist?

By: Max Power

Max Power — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:34:47 +0000

The point-to-point vs. broadcast decision for TV was preceded by a similar process for AM radio.
http://earlyradiohistory.us/buildbcb.htm
It was even expected that there would only be the need for 2 broadcast frequencies in an area (1 for crop reports & weather, and the other for news and entertainment)

By: Michael Biel

Michael Biel — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 06:07:01 +0000

You can’t credit television for the demise of storefront window advertising. It was still going strong decades after television appeared. The demise of downtowns is what the cause was, because it still is strong in towns and cities where Wal-Mart hasn’t killed off downtown shopping. Likewise, look at the giant multi-page illustrated newspaper ads from the 40s into the 80s. They also continued to exist after the growth of TV. TV commercials were not the advertisers’ only option.