Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!casbah.acns.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: KLUB@maristb.bitnet (Richard Budd) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: The Year Was 1960 Message-ID: Date: 19 Feb 91 01:15:00 GMT Sender: news@casbah.acns.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 70 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 134, Message 6 of 9 Originator: telecom@delta.eecs.nwu.edu > The Moderator writes in TELECOM DIGEST V11 #123 >> (The last COs in Chicago to go dial were cut in 1951.) No modems, no >> color television. And john@zygot.ati.com (John Higdon) writes in TELECOM DIGEST V11 #128 writes: > No color television? Speak for yourself, Pat. I was a high school > sophomore and augmented my income by baby sitting for neighbors. I > distinctly remember watching (of all things) the Perry Como show on > NBC on Saturday nights because it was very much in color on the > neighbor's RCA color TV. (The first color TV I ever saw was in 1956.) Actually, color television has been around longer than either Pat or John (if I deduce correctly from their high school graduation dates that they were born in the early 1940's). It's been available since the early 1930's, though before World War II it was strictly experimental. I'm not sure of the exact date, this information comes from a book published in 1943 on the development of radio and television by General Electric, RCA, and CBS, that I don't have in front of me right now. The Moderator then Noted: > [Moderator's Note: Maybe there was color television by then; I forget. > I am sure it was not all that common in households until the early > sixties sometime. Obviously there was no cable television, and FM > radio was in its infancy, virtually dwarfed by AM stations, which were > still doing the 'radio version' of the old shows (comedy, variety, > etc) which had begun migrating to television several years before. PAT] Color television wasn't rare, but color television programming certainly was before 1965. I remember back in grade school days when the NBC Peacock indicated that the upcoming program was in full living color. It was more a case of economics, the cost of producing a television program in color compared to black-and-white. The scarcity of color television sets before the mid-1960's made it more cost effective for the networks to broadcast in black-and-white. The same situation existed with FM programming. FM has also been around since the 1930's, but World War II and subsequent FCC regulations made it uneconomical for radio stations to broadcast in FM until the mid-1960's when the increased number of AM/FM radios and changes in the FCC by-laws made FM broadcasting practical; just in time to become the medium for the underground psychedelic music coming out of the West Coast and Texas. It wasn't the lack of technology, but rather unavailable "software" outlets and economics that made FM and color television rare commodities in 1960; the same reason VHS video-casettes became the main storage medium for VCRs instead of Betamax, even though the latter technology is more advantageous to the user. Richard Budd | E-Mail: IBMers - rcbudd@rhqvm19.ibm VM Systems Programmer | All Others- klub@maristb.bitnet IBM - Sterling Forest, NY | Phone: (914) 578-3746 [Moderator's Note: Thanks for a good history lesson. The first FM radio station in the USA was here in Chicago. Started in 1941 by the Zenith Radio Corporation to encourage the sale of FM radios by giving the new owner at least one station to listen to, WEFM broadcast classical music from 6 AM until midnight daily until 1978. The call letters stood for dward cCormick, the president of Zenith in the 1930 - 1940 era. The only advertising message was the simple statement "A service of Zenith Radio Corporation". The station was sold to Metromedia in 1978 and changed to top forty rock. PAT]