What does TV look like?

Answer 1

The first televisions had mechanical scanning rather than electronic scanning as they also had a wheel with a spiral of holes called a Nipkow disk (named after a Russian). The wheel rotated at high speed and a single light was made to flicker (modulated) by the image information. At the other end the camera also contained a disk which allowed lines of light enter a photosensitive detector. Other cameras used a drum of mirrors to achieve the same thing.

These mechanical television lasted a very few years until fully electronic systems took over in the mid 1930's. Those early televisions were huge by modern standards. Two large units made up the receiver and display. The display itself was only a few inches across. By the 1940s, they were beginning to resemble their more modern counterparts but were still large as a contributor remembers:

The first TV we had I can still remember my father and uncle carried a kind of base about the same size as a card table without the whole top. next came the tv it was about three feet on all sides and maybe 24 inches tall. In the middle of the front was a TV screen about 7 inches in diameter which agave a glorious black and white picture if you held the antenna right. The back of this box had a removable panel which housed a myriad of tubes and wires. If the tv crapped out you just took all the tubes to the drug store where you would find a tube tester to tell you which tube was burned out. You could buy the tube right there in the store. As I remember the vacuum tube lasted well into the 60s or 70s. I'm really not sure because our tv didn't crap out till the 80s and by then they were all electronic. So I can say that tv's with tubes were sold from the 40s thru at least early 60s.

Answer 2

A standard television set comprises multiple internal electronic circuits, including those for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is properly called a monitor, rather than a television. A television system may use different technical standards such as digital television (DTV) and high-definition television (HDTV). Television systems are also used for surveillance, industrial process control, and guiding of weapons, in places where direct observation is difficult or dangerous.

TV looks like a box

Answer 3

Amazing...like a moving picture.