(AP Photo/Ed Ford)
Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Will Jones, who writes:
This television set [above], retailing for $100, is reportedly the first moderately priced receiver manufactured in quantity. Rose Clare Leonard watches the screen, which reproduces a 5×7 image, as she tunes in at the first public post-war showing at a New York department store, on August 24, 1945.
Although television was invented prior to World War II, the war prevented mass production. Soon after the war, sales and production picked up, and by 1948, regular commercial network programming had begun.
Thank you for that bit of history, Will!
No such thing as “instant on” in those days, it took a minute or so for the TV to warm up.
In 1938, American Television Corp. of NYC began advertising TV attachments for your radio, priced at $125. NBC was the only station on the air in NYC at the time. Because parent company RCA wanted to be first to market with sets, NBC shut the station down for a few months and waited for the upstart to go away.
“Flat screen” had a whole different meaning back then. 🙂
How come it took your emoji and turned mine into a question mark?
Not sure what you typed for that emoji, but I think WP automatically changes a “:” and “)” combo into a smiley face. Beyond that, I don’t know the other ones.
-T
That explains it. I entered an actual emoji. WP can be pretty brain dead at times.
$1400 in today’s money. And I’ll bet it doesn’t even have Bluetooth! ?
TVs in those days had nice woodwork and cabinets.(and radios too!). They were considered Furniture, not Electronics.