Qskan: Jun 26, 2009

History of Internet

The Internet was the result of some visionary thinking by people in the early 1960s who saw great potential value in allowing computers to share information on research and development in scientific and military fields. J.C.R. Licklider of MIT, first proposed a global network of computers in 1962, and moved over to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in late 1962 to head the work to develop it. Leonard Kleinrock of MIT and later UCLA developed the theory of packet switching, which was to form the basis of Internet connections. Lawrence Roberts of MIT connected a Massachusetts computer with a California computer in 1965 over dial-up telephone lines. It showed the feasibility of wide area networking, but also showed that the telephone line's circuit switching was inadequate. Kleinrock's packet switching theory was confirmed. Roberts moved over to DARPA in 1966 and developed his plan for ARPANET. These visionaries and many more left unnamed here are the real founders of the Internet.

When Senator Ted Kennedy heard in 1968 that the pioneering Massachusetts company BBN had won the ARPA contract for an "interface message processor (IMP)," he sent a congratulatory telegram to BBN for their ecumenical spirit in winning the "interfaith message processor" contract.

The Internet, then known as ARPANET, was brought online in 1969 under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah). The contract was carried out by BBN of Cambridge, MA under Bob Kahn and went online in December 1969. By June 1970, MIT, Harvard, BBN, and Systems Development Corp (SDC) in Santa Monica, Cal. were added. By January 1971, Stanford, MIT's Lincoln Labs, Carnegie-Mellon, and Case-Western Reserve U were added. In months to come, NASA/Ames, Mitre, Burroughs, RAND, and the U of Illinois plugged in. After that, there were far too many to keep listing here.

Who was the first to use the Internet?

Charley Kline at UCLA sent the first packets on ARPANet as he tried to connect to Stanford Research Institute on Oct 29, 1969. The system crashed as he reached the G in LOGIN!

The Internet was designed in part to provide a communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers would direct traffic around the network via alternate routes.

The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, scientists, and librarians. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no home or office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, whether a computer professional or an engineer or scientist or librarian, had to learn to use a very complex system.

Did Al Gore invent the Internet?

According to a CNN transcript of an interview with Wolf Blitzer, Al Gore said,"During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Al Gore was not yet in Congress in 1969 when ARPANET started or in 1974 when the term Internet first came into use. Gore was elected to Congress in 1976. In fairness, Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf acknowledge in a paper titled Al Gore and the Internet that Gore has probably done more than any other elected official to support the growth and development of the Internet from the 1970's to the present .

E-mail was adapted for ARPANET by Ray Tomlinson of BBN in 1972. He picked the @ symbol from the available symbols on his teletype to link the username and address. The telnet protocol, enabling logging on to a remote computer, was published as a Request for Comments (RFC) in 1972. RFC's are a means of sharing developmental work throughout community. The ftp protocol, enabling file transfers between Internet sites, was published as an RFC in 1973, and from then on RFC's were available electronically to anyone who had use of the ftp protocol.

Libraries began automating and networking their catalogs in the late 1960s independent from ARPA. The visionary Frederick G. Kilgour of the Ohio College Library Center (now OCLC, Inc.) led networking of Ohio libraries during the '60s and '70s. In the mid 1970s more regional consortia from New England, the Southwest states, and the Middle Atlantic states, etc., joined with Ohio to form a national, later international, network. Automated catalogs, not very user-friendly at first, became available to the world, first through telnet or the awkward IBM variant TN3270 and only many years later, through the web. See The History of OCLC

Ethernet, a protocol for many local networks, appeared in 1974, an outgrowth of Harvard student Bob Metcalfe's dissertation on "Packet Networks." The dissertation was initially rejected by the University for not being analytical enough. It later won acceptance when he added some more equations to it.

The Internet matured in the 70's as a result of the TCP/IP architecture first proposed by Bob Kahn at BBN and further developed by Kahn and Vint Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70's. It was adopted by the Defense Department in 1980 replacing the earlier Network Control Protocol (NCP) and universally adopted by 1983.

The Unix to Unix Copy Protocol (UUCP) was invented in 1978 at Bell Labs. Usenet was started in 1979 based on UUCP. Newsgroups, which are discussion groups focusing on a topic, followed, providing a means of exchanging information throughout the world . While Usenet is not considered as part of the Internet, since it does not share the use of TCP/IP, it linked unix systems around the world, and many Internet sites took advantage of the availability of newsgroups. It was a significant part of the community building that took place on the networks.

Similarly, BITNET (Because It's Time Network) connected IBM mainframes around the educational community and the world to provide mail services beginning in 1981. Listserv software was developed for this network and later others. Gateways were developed to connect BITNET with the Internet and allowed exchange of e-mail, particularly for e-mail discussion lists. These listservs and other forms of e-mail discussion lists formed another major element in the community building that was taking place.

In 1986, the National Science Foundation funded NSFNet as a cross country 56 Kbps backbone for the Internet. They maintained their sponsorship for nearly a decade, setting rules for its non-commercial government and research uses.

As the commands for e-mail, FTP, and telnet were standardized, it became a lot easier for non-technical people to learn to use the nets. It was not easy by today's standards by any means, but it did open up use of the Internet to many more people in universities in particular. Other departments besides the libraries, computer, physics, and engineering departments found ways to make good use of the nets--to communicate with colleagues around the world and to share files and resources.

While the number of sites on the Internet was small, it was fairly easy to keep track of the resources of interest that were available. But as more and more universities and organizations--and their libraries-- connected, the Internet became harder and harder to track. There was more and more need for tools to index the resources that were available.

The first effort, other than library catalogs, to index the Internet was created in 1989, as Peter Deutsch and his crew at McGill University in Montreal, created an archiver for ftp sites, which they named Archie. This software would periodically reach out to all known openly available ftp sites, list their files, and build a searchable index of the software. The commands to search Archie were unix commands, and it took some knowledge of unix to use it to its full capability.

McGill University, which hosted the first Archie, found out one day that half the Internet traffic going into Canada from the United States was accessing Archie. Administrators were concerned that the University was subsidizing such a volume of traffic, and closed down Archie to outside access. Fortunately, by that time, there were many more Archies available.

At about the same time, Brewster Kahle, then at Thinking Machines, Corp. developed his Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), which would index the full text of files in a database and allow searches of the files. There were several versions with varying degrees of complexity and capability developed, but the simplest of these were made available to everyone on the nets. At its peak, Thinking Machines maintained pointers to over 600 databases around the world which had been indexed by WAIS. They included such things as the full set of Usenet Frequently Asked Questions files, the full documentation of working papers such as RFC's by those developing the Internet's standards, and much more. Like Archie, its interface was far from intuitive, and it took some effort to learn to use it well.

Peter Scott of the University of Saskatchewan, recognizing the need to bring together information about all the telnet-accessible library catalogs on the web, as well as other telnet resources, brought out his Hytelnet catalog in 1990. It gave a single place to get information about library catalogs and other telnet resources and how to use them. He maintained it for years, and added HyWebCat in 1997 to provide information on web-based catalogs.

In 1991, the first really friendly interface to the Internet was developed at the University of Minnesota. The University wanted to develop a simple menu system to access files and information on campus through their local network. A debate followed between mainframe adherents and those who believed in smaller systems with client-server architecture. The mainframe adherents "won" the debate initially, but since the client-server advocates said they could put up a prototype very quickly, they were given the go-ahead to do a demonstration system. The demonstration system was called a gopher after the U of Minnesota mascot--the golden gopher. The gopher proved to be very prolific, and within a few years there were over 10,000 gophers around the world. It takes no knowledge of unix or computer architecture to use. In a gopher system, you type or click on a number to select the menu selection you want.

Gopher's usability was enhanced much more when the University of Nevada at Reno developed the VERONICA searchable index of gopher menus. It was purported to be an acronym for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives. A spider crawled gopher menus around the world, collecting links and retrieving them for the index. It was so popular that it was very hard to connect to, even though a number of other VERONICA sites were developed to ease the load. Similar indexing software was developed for single sites, called JUGHEAD (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display).

Peter Deutsch, who developed Archie, always insisted that Archie was short for Archiver, and had nothing to do with the comic strip. He was disgusted when VERONICA and JUGHEAD appeared.

In 1989 another significant event took place in making the nets easier to use. Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, more popularly known as CERN, proposed a new protocol for information distribution. This protocol, which became the World Wide Web in 1991, was based on hypertext--a system of embedding links in text to link to other text, which you have been using every time you selected a text link while reading these pages. Although started before gopher, it was slower to develop.

The development in 1993 of the graphical browser Mosaic by Marc Andreessen and his team at the National Center For Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) gave the protocol its big boost. Later, Andreessen moved to become the brains behind Netscape Corp., which produced the most successful graphical type of browser and server until Microsoft declared war and developed its MicroSoft Internet Explorer.

MICHAEL DERTOUZOS
1936-2001

The early days of the web was a confused period as many developers tried to put their personal stamp on ways the web should develop. The web was threatened with becoming a mass of unrelated protocols that would require different software for different applications. The visionary Michael Dertouzos of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Sciences persuaded Tim Berners-Lee and others to form the World Wide Web Consortium in 1994 to promote and develop standards for the Web. Proprietary plug-ins still abound for the web, but the Consortium has ensured that there are common standards present in every browser.

Read Tim Berners-Lee's tribute to Michael Dertouzos.

Since the Internet was initially funded by the government, it was originally limited to research, education, and government uses. Commercial uses were prohibited unless they directly served the goals of research and education. This policy continued until the early 90's, when independent commercial networks began to grow. It then became possible to route traffic across the country from one commercial site to another without passing through the government funded NSFNet Internet backbone.

Delphi was the first national commercial online service to offer Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email connection in July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. All pretenses of limitations on commercial use disappeared in May 1995 when the National Science Foundation ended its sponsorship of the Internet backbone, and all traffic relied on commercial networks. AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe came online. Since commercial usage was so widespread by this time and educational institutions had been paying their own way for some time, the loss of NSF funding had no appreciable effect on costs.

Today, NSF funding has moved beyond supporting the backbone and higher educational institutions to building the K-12 and local public library accesses on the one hand, and the research on the massive high volume connections on the other.

Microsoft's full scale entry into the browser, server, and Internet Service Provider market completed the major shift over to a commercially based Internet. The release of Windows 98 in June 1998 with the Microsoft browser well integrated into the desktop shows Bill Gates' determination to capitalize on the enormous growth of the Internet. Microsoft's success over the past few years has brought court challenges to their dominance. We'll leave it up to you whether you think these battles should be played out in the courts or the marketplace.

During this period of enormous growth, businesses entering the Internet arena scrambled to find economic models that work. Free services supported by advertising shifted some of the direct costs away from the consumer--temporarily. Services such as Delphi offered free web pages, chat rooms, and message boards for community building. Online sales have grown rapidly for such products as books and music CDs and computers, but the profit margins are slim when price comparisons are so easy, and public trust in online security is still shaky. Business models that have worked well are portal sites, that try to provide everything for everybody, and live auctions. AOL's acquisition of Time-Warner was the largest merger in history when it took place and shows the enormous growth of Internet business! The stock market has had a rocky ride, swooping up and down as the new technology companies, the dot.com's encountered good news and bad. The decline in advertising income spelled doom for many dot.coms, and a major shakeout and search for better business models took place by the survivors.

A current trend with major implications for the future is the growth of high speed connections. 56K modems and the providers who supported them spread widely for a while, but this is the low end now. 56K is not fast enough to carry multimedia, such as sound and video except in low quality. But new technologies many times faster, such as cablemodems and digital subscriber lines (DSL) are predominant now.

Wireless has grown rapidly in the past few years, and travellers search for the wi-fi "hot spots" where they can connect while they are away from the home or office. Many airports, coffee bars, hotels and motels now routinely provide these services, some for a fee and some for free.

The next big growth area is the surge towards universal wireless access, where almost everywhere is a "hot spot". Municipal wi-fi or city-wide access, wiMAX offering broader ranges than wi-fi, Verizon's EV-DO, and other formats will joust for dominance in the USA in the months ahead. The battle is both economic and political.

Another trend that is beginning to affect web designers is the growth of smaller devices to connect to the Internet. Small tablets, pocket PCs, smart phones, game machines, and even GPS devices are now capable of tapping into the web on the go, and many web pages are not designed to work on that scale.

As Heraclitus said in the 4th century BC, "Nothing is permanent, but change!"

source: http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html

Labels: history

History of Telephone

During the 1870’s, two well known inventors both independently designed devices that could transmit sound along electrical cables. Those inventors were Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. Both devices were registered at the patent office within hours of each other. There followed a bitter legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell subsequently won.

The telegraph and telephone are very similar in concept, and it was through Bell’s attempts to improve the telegraph that he found success with the telephone.

The telegraph had been a highly successful communication system for about 30 years before Bell began experimenting. The main problem with the telegraph was that it used Morse code, and was limited to sending and receiving one message at a time. Bell had a good understanding about the nature of sound and music. This enabled him to perceive the possibility of transmitting more than one message along the same wire at one time. Bell’s idea was not new, others before him had envisaged a multiple telegraph. Bell offered his own solution, the “Harmonic Telegraph”. This was based on the principal that musical notes could be sent simultaneously down the same wire, if those notes differed in pitch.

By the latter part of 1874 Bell’s experiment had progressed enough for him to inform close family members about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Bell’s future father in law, attorney Gardiner Green Hubbard saw the opportunity to break the monopoly exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company. He gave Bell the financial backing required for him to carry on his work developing the multiple telegraph. However Bell failed to mention that he and his accomplice, another brilliant young electrician Thomas Watson, were developing an idea which occurred to him during the summer. This idea was to create a device that could transmit the human voice electrically.

Bell and Watson continued to work on the harmonic telegraph at the insistence of Hubbard and a few other financial backers. During March 1875 Bell met with a man called Joseph Henry without the knowledge of Hubbard. Joseph Henry was the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution. He listened closely to Bell’s ideas and offered words of encouragement. Both Bell and Watson were spurred on by Henry’s opinions and continued their work with even greater enthusiasm and determination. By June 1875 they realised their goal of creating a device that could transmit speech electrically would soon be realised. Their experiments had proven different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire.

Now all they had to do was build a device with a suitable membrane capable of turning those tones into varying electronic currents and a receiver to reproduce the variations and turn them back into audible format at the other end. In early June, Bell discovered that while working on his harmonic telegraph, he could hear a sound over the wire. It was the sound of a twanging clock spring. It was on March 10th 1876 that Bell was to finally realise the success and communications potential of his new device. The possibilities of being able to talk down an electrical wire far outweighed those of a modified telegraph system, which was essentially based on just dots and dashes.

According to Bell’s notebook entry for that date, he describes his most successful experiment using his new piece of equipment, the telephone. Bell spoke to his assistant Watson, who was in the next room, through the instrument and said “Mr Watson, come here, I want to speak to you”.

Alexander Graham Bell was born on 3rd March 1847 in Edinburgh, Scotland. His family were leading authorities in elocution and speech correction. He was groomed and educated to follow a career in the same speciality. By the age of just 29 in 1876 he had invented and patented the telephone. His thorough knowledge of sound and acoustics helped immensely during the development of his telephone, and gave him the edge over others working on similar projects at that time. Bell was an intellectual of quality rarely found since his death. He was a man always striving for success and searching for new ideas to nurture and develop.

The telephone – important dates

1. 1874 – Principal of the telephone was uncovered.

2. 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, beating Elisha Gray by a matter of hours.

3. 1877 – The very first permanent outdoor telephone wire was completed. It stretched a distance of just three miles. This was closely followed in the U.S. by the worlds first commercial telephone service.

4. 1878 – The workable exchange was developed, which enabled calls to be switched between subscribers rather than having direct lines.

5. 1879 – Subscribers began to be designated by numbers and not their names.

6. 1880’s – Long distance service expanded throughout this period using metallic circuits.

7. 1888 – Common battery system developed by Hammond V. Hayes, allows one central battery to power all telephones on an exchange, rather than relying on each units own battery.

8. 1891 – First automatic dialling system invented by a Kansas City undertaker. He believed that crooked operators were sending his potential customers elsewhere. It was his aim to get rid of the operators altogether.

9. 1900 – First coin operated telephone installed in Hartford, Connecticut.

10. 1904 – “French Phone” developed by the Bell Company. This had the transmitter and receiver in a simple handset.

11. 1911 – American Telephone and Telegraph (AT & T) acquire the Western Union Telegraph Company in a hostile takeover. They purchased stocks in the company covertly and the two eventually merged.

12. 1918 – It was estimated that approximately ten million Bell system telephones were in service throughout the U.S.

13. 1921 – The switching of large numbers of calls was made possible through the use of phantom circuits. This allowed three conversations to take place on two pairs of wires.

14. 1927 – First transatlantic service from New York to London became operational. The signal was transmitted by radio waves.

15. 1936 – Research into electronic telephone exchanges began and was eventually perfected in the 1960’s with the electronic switching system (SES).

16. 1946 – Worlds first commercial mobile phone service put into operation. It could link moving vehicles to a telephone network via radio waves.

17. 1947 – Microwave radio technology used for the first time for long distance phone calls.

18. 1947 – The transistor was invented at Bell laboratories.

19. 1955 – Saw the beginning of the laying of transatlantic telephone cables.

20. 1962 – The worlds first international communications satellite, Telstar was launched.

21. 1980’s – The development of fibre optic cables during this decade, offered the potential to carry much larger volumes of calls than satellite or microwaves.

22. 1980’s, 1990’s, to present – Huge advances in micro electronic technology over the last two decades have enabled the development of cellular (mobile) phones to advance at a truly astonishing rate. A cellular (mobile) phone has its own central transmitter allowing it to receive seamless transmissions as it enters and exits a cell.

Some people believe the impact of the telephone has had on our lives is negative. Whatever your beliefs, it is un-doubtable that the invention and development of the telephone has had a massive impact on the way we live our lives and go about our every day business.

Labels: history

History of Television

1872 - 1877: A series of photographs can be viewed by stroboscopic disc.
1884: George Eastman invents flexible photographic film.
1887: Thomas Edison patents motion picture camera.
1888: Edison attempts to record picture photos onto a wax cylinder.
1891 - 1895: Dickson shoots numerous 15 second motion pictures using Edison's kineograph, his motion picture camera.
1895: First public demonstration of motion pictures displayed in France.
1897: Development of the Cathode Ray Tube by Ferdinand Braun.
1907: Use of cathode ray tube to produce television images.
1923: Patent for the iconoscope, the forerunner of the picture tube.
1927: Talking films begin with Al Jolson in "The Jazz Singer".
Early 1930s: RCA conducts black and white broadcasting experiments.
1936: First television broadcast made available in London.
1938: Initial proposal for color TV broadcast made by George Valensi.
1945: There were fewer than 7,000 working TV sets in the country and only nine stations on the air; three in New York, two each in Chicago and Los Angeles, and one each in Philadelphia and Schenectady, N.Y.

Near the end of October, Gimbel's Department Store in Philadelphia holds the first large-scale TV demonstration. More than 25,000 people come over three weeks for a chance to watch NBC programs from New York and local shows sent out by Philco's Philadelphia station.

1946

The Blue Network, part of NBC, officially becomes the ABC network. A 1941 FCC ruling required RCA to divest itself of one of its two networks; NBC Blue was sold in 1943 to Edward Noble for $8 million, and becomes ABC in 1945.

NBC and Gillette stage what's billed as the first "television sports extravaganza" -- the Joe Louis-Billy Conn heavyweight fight at Yankee Stadium -- in June. The fight is a viewing success with an estimated audience of 150,000 watching 5,000 sets. For every TV set tuned into the fight, there are, on average, 30 people watching, many seeing an event on TV for the first time.

In October, the Television Broadcasters Association declares "television is ready to proceed on an expanded basis," and that the new industry is "well on the way to becoming one of the most important in the nation."

1947

"Howdy Doody," a children's series, premieres live on NBC in December as a one-hour Saturday program. Symbolic of the first generation nurtured on TV, the show remains on the air until 1960.

In May, live theater equivalent to the Broadway stage comes to TV on a regular, commercially sponsored basis with the premiere of "Kraft Television Theatre."

In March, FCC postpones final decisions on Color TV but reaffirms a go-ahead on existing standards.

NBC debuts "Meet the Press," a kind of made-for-TV news conference. It goes on to become the oldest series on network TV.

1948

"The Ed Sullivan Show" (originally "Toast of the Town") makes its debut in June. Sponsored by Lincoln-Mercury, the show becomes one of TV's longest-running and most successful variety series. The show airs on CBS into 1971, spurring the advancement of scores of show business careers.

Advertisers accept the medium: Throughout the year, 933 sponsors buy TV time, a rise of 515% over 1947.

By the fall, FCC has issued 108 licenses for new stations, with hundreds more applications pending across the nation.

The earliest cable systems are born in remote areas of Pennsylvania and Oregon. Known then as Community Antenna Television, its function was simply to bring TV signals into communities where off-air reception was either non-existent or poor because of interfering mountains or distance.

B.F. Goodrich sponsors the new TV series of radio comedy team George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Milton Berle makes his TV debut in September as the master of ceremonies on "The Texaco Star Theater," which runs until 1956. By November, Mr. Berle is so popular the show earns the highest rating yet -- 86.7% of all TV households.

1949

By January, number of TV stations grows to 98 in 58 market areas.

A special broadcast in January inaugurates East-Midwest TV linkage. Included in the broadcast is a one-hour sampler with the networks displaying their best: Arthur Godfrey for CBS, Ted Steele for DuPont, Milton Berle and Harry Richman for NBC, and for ABC a mystery show called "Stand By for Crime." The event moves Chicago Tribune to report: "The end of dull sustaining filler on television screens appears to be in sight."

FCC adopts the Fairness Doctrine, making broadcasters responsible for seeking out and presenting all sides of an issue when covering controversy. (Earlier in the Communications Act of 1934 broadcasters were required to give "equal air time" to candidates running in elections.)

U.S. Dept. of Commerce confirms TV's selling power when it reports in May: "Television's combination of moving pictures, sound and immediacy produces an impact that extends television as an advertising medium into the realm of personal sales solicitation."

Betty Furness starts pitching refrigerators and appliances in TV spots for Westinghouse, launching a relationship that lasts more than 11 years and makes her one of the first stars created for commercial TV.

1950

In January, Arthur Godfrey and Faye Emerson are named most pleasing personalities in Look's TV awards show on CBS.

National sponsors exit radio for TV at record rates, moving Variety to describe the exodus as "the greatest exhibition of mass hysteria in biz annals."

1951

"Omnibus," one of commercial TV's most honored cultural series, debuts. Hosted by Alistair Cooke, the program takes in $5.5 million in advertising revenues during five years on the air, against $8.5 million in costs.

"I Love Lucy," a half-hour filmed TV sitcom, is born. The show, unlike the live TV productions typical of the time, ranks No. 1 in the nation for four of its first six full seasons. It is sponsored by Philip Morris.

CBS broadcasts the first color program on June 21, but only 25 receivers can accommodate mechanical color. Viewers of 12 million existing sets see only a blank screen.

"Hallmark Hall of Fame" series launches in December with "Amahl and the Night Visitors."

1952

National Association of Radio & Television Broadcasters ratifies a new Television Code establishing guidelines for content and addressing the concerns of social critics. Nearly half the code is devoted to advertising.

In response to protests about program content, a House subcommittee investigates "offensive" and "immoral" TV programs and touches on wide range of topics -- from beer spots to dramas depicting suicide.

Bob Hope takes his comedy from radio to TV when "The Bob Hope Show" debuts in October.

Borden's Elsie the Cow beats out actor Van Johnson and U.S. Sen. Robert Taft in recognition polls as one of America's most familiar faces.

NBC's "Today" show, first and longest-running early-morning network show, bows with host Dave Garroway and chimpanzee sidekick J. Fred Muggs.

By year's end, the number of TV households grows to 20 million, up 33% from previous year. U.S. advertisers spend a record $288 million on TV time, an increase of 38.8% from 1951.

1953

Color broadcasting officially arrives in the U.S. on Dec. 17, when FCC approves modified version of an RCA system.

1954

"Captain Kangaroo"

the first network kids show, begins on CBS.

The Hamm's bear is introduced in a TV spot that initially runs as a sequel to a 1953 Hamm's commercial that featured beavers beating on tom-toms.

The first color commercial televised in a local show was commissioned in March by Castro Decorators, New York, in a contract with WNBT. It was first telecast on Aug. 6.

1954

NBC launches "The Tonight Show," featuring comedian Steve Allen, on Sept. 27. For nearly four decades -- until CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" enters the scene in 1993 -- the show dominates late night.

In April, groundwork is laid for the Television Advertising Bureau. For the first time, television is the leading medium for national advertising.

1955

Immensely popular daytime radio show "Queen For A Day" shifts to TV in January. Between radio and TV, the show had a run of nearly 20 years, although widely criticized as an exploitation of human misery, wrapped in commercial plugs. At the peak of popularity, NBC increased the show's length from 30 to 45 minutes to gain time to sell at the premium ad rate of $4,000 per minute.

Future U.S. President Ronald Reagan becomes host of "General Electric Theater," long-running anthology series on CBS (1953-61) in which many top Hollywood film stars appeared.

One of NBC's perennial specials -- "Peter Pan" with Mary Martin and Cyril Richard -- first telecast in March as a live production. It's billed as the first network presentation of a full Broadway production. Videotape later makes it possible to present the show annually for several years.

The classic Western series "Gunsmoke" begins its 20-year run on CBS. "The $64,000 Question," sponsored by Revlon, premieres in June on CBS, igniting a U.S. game show craze.

1956

Videotape is introduced by Ampex Corp. at a CBS-TV affiliates' session. Most TV shows at the time are produced by the kinescope process.

The 1939 movie "Wizard of Oz" debuts in November on CBS's "Ford Star Jubilee." After more than three decades of exposure, the feature is considered one of the most successful single programs in TV history and the longest continually sponsored theatrical movie on TV.

1957

Variety reports in May that during a typical week, viewers encounter 420 commercials totaling 5 hours, 8 minutes.

By August, for the first time, more countries worldwide allow TV advertising than forbid it.

< Host Jack Paar revives NBC-TV's "Tonight" show beginning on July 29.

In an October report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Meyer Naide identifies "television legs," blood clots that result from watching TV too long.

CBS's "Ed Sullivan" show is the year's most-watched network program, with a 50.4 average audience rating.

1958

There are 525 cable TV systems serving 450,000 subscribers in the U.S. In February, CBS takes out a two-page ad in TV Guide in which it warns the public: "Free television as we know it cannot survive alongside pay television."

Advertising Age reports "videotape seems to be catching on like wildfire." By October, 61 TV stations in the U.S. use tape.

By the end of the TV season, there are 22 network quiz shows; 18% of NBC's programming alone consists of quizzes. In August, contestant Herbert Stempel charges "Twenty-One" is rigged, triggering a congressional investigation.

In December, Edward R. Murrow writes in TV Guide that viewers must recognize "television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us."

By year's end, ad expenditures in radio and TV cross the $2 billion mark.

1959

The cartoon ad character Mister Magoo becomes the nearsighted spokesman for General Electric bulbs.

NBC's Sunday night hit "Bonanza" makes its debut. It becomes the highest-rated program of the 1960s and is on the air 14 years.

1960

DuPont Co. begins a two-year sponsorship of the "June Allyson Show," a series of dramatic plays.

The first of four "great debates" between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is broadcast on Sept. 26 across the country, breaking new ground in presidential campaigning.

The most popular shows of the year include "Gunsmoke" and "Wagon Train." Audience share figures regularly exceed 50% for many of the most popular entries in prime time.

1961

In search of added profit, ABC stretches the station break between programs to 40 seconds from 30. The other networks follow.

FCC Chairman Newton Minow delivers a May 9 speech in which he denounces U.S. TV as a "vast wasteland," calling for heightened federal regulation of the medium. The same day, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey calls U.S. TV "the greatest single achievement in communication that anybody or any area of the world has ever known ."

1963

The New York chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality persuades Lever Bros. to air a network commercial featuring an African-American, a spot for Wisk detergent that shows a black boy and white boy at play.

On Aug. 28, Dr. Martin Luther King delivers his "I have a dream" speech as millions watch on TV.

On Nov. 22, President Kennedy is shot by a sniper in downtown Dallas, and TV coverage of the assassination and the funeral grip the nation and the world for four days. Shortly thereafter, Jack Ruby shoots accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on an NBC live broadcast as the latter is being transported by law officials.

TV surpasses newspapers as an information source for the first time; a November Roper poll indicates 36% of Americans find TV a more reliable source, compared with the 24% who favor print.

Instant replay adds a new dimension to televised sports when it's featured in a telecast of an Army-Navy football game. In 1964, it becomes a standard technique and goes on to become controversial in the NFL.

1964

Negative political TV advertising is born with the "Daisy" spot for Lyndon Johnson's presidential candidacy, in which a mushroom cloud suggests GOP candidate Barry Goldwater would not hesitate to use nuclear warfare.

Debate over the airing of cigarette commercials heats up after the U.S. Surgeon General issues a report finding smoking a health hazard.

FCC issues its first cable regulation: Operators are required to black out programming that comes in from distant markets and duplicates a local market station's own programming, if the local station demands it. There are about 1 million homes wired for cable in the U.S. at the time.

73 million viewers tune in to the appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show" of the British pop group, the Beatles.

CBS is the champion of the "Big 3" networks -- demanding $50,000 from advertisers for a prime-time minute, while ABC brings in $45,000 and NBC brings in $41,000 for the same time.

WOR-TV, New York, is the first station to air a program comprised only of commercials. The special features spots selected as Clio award winners at an earlier American Television Commercials Festival. It runs uninterrupted (without paid messages) until the end of the telecast, when two paid commercials are aired.

1965

Color TV booms as NBC leads the way and begins to use the phrase "The Full Color Network". By year's end, 96% of NBC's nighttime schedule is broadcast in color, along with all major programs, sports events and specials.

1966

A live-action representation of the comic strip Batman is brought to TV and achieves instant success with its star, Adam West.

A New York Times Magazine article reports: "TV is not an art form or a cultural channel; it is an advertising medium ... it seems a bit churlish and unAmerican of people who watch television to complain that their shows are lousy. They are not supposed to be any good. They are supposed to make money."

1967

An opinion survey sponsored by National Association of Broadcasters shows a high level of public dissatisfaction with TV commercials and programs. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed would prefer TV without commercials.

1968

Manufacturers churn out 11.4 million new TV sets, up from the 5.7 million receivers made in 1960.

NAB Code Authority increases scrutiny of violence in TV programming after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate.

Spending for TV in presidential campaigns increases to $27 million, from $10 million in 1960.

1969

Public Broadcasting Service begins, and in November launches "Sesame Street," one of the most influential achievements in children's TV.

On July 20, astronaut Neil Armstrong takes mankind's first step on the moon as millions of U.S. viewers watch the historic event live on network TV.

The U.S. Supreme Court applies the Fairness Doctrine to cigarettes -- granting anti-smoking forces "equal time" on the air to reply to tobacco commercials. That same year, the FCC issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to ban cigarette ads on TV and radio. As Congress debates the issue, tobacco companies and certain members of the Senate hold discussions in which cigarette advertisers, in order to stave off controls on the sale of cigarettes, agree to stop advertising them on the air.

1970

FCC enacts the Financial Interest Syndication Rules (effective 1971), prohibiting the three major networks from owning and controlling the rebroadcast of prime-time shows. The rules ended controversial policies of withholding or delaying network hits from independent stations that could then program them against network news and prime-time fare. In the same action, FCC enacts the Prime Time Access Rule, limiting the networks' use of peak viewing time to three hours per night. The rule effectively shaved off 30 minutes of prime-time programming from the networks each night and returned it to the local stations in the top 50 markets.

Action for Children's Television petitions the FCC to eliminate all commercials from children's TV programs, citing a variety of shortcomings in terms of quality and regulation of advertising. The petition fueled existing debate within the industry about advertising and children.

I'd like to teach

Coca-Cola's "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" commercial saturates the radio and broadcast airwaves, becoming an instant hit. Coca-Cola goes on to sell a million records featuring a non-commercial version of the popular jingle.

1971

The transition from 60-seconds to 30-seconds as the standard length for commercials takes hold. The change began in the 1960s with the controversial practice of "piggybacking," or putting messages for two related products from one company into the same one-minute commercial. The networks cast aside concerns about corporate relationships and began selling 30-second units.

As of Jan. 2, the 1970 congressional ban on radio and TV cigarette advertising takes effect, stripping the broadcast business of about $220 million in advertising.

The landmark series "All In The Family" debuts on CBS as one of the first sitcoms to contain realistic characters, mature themes and frank dialog. The show becomes the highest-rated TV program of the decade, with a 23.1 average rating. There were 212 episodes done during its nine seasons on the air.

"The Ed Sullivan Show" comes to an end after 23 seasons on CBS. Mr. Sullivan, the master of ceremonies for the show, dies in 1974.

1972

In response to growing concern over TV's effect on children, NAB and the networks agree to reduce commercial time in children's weekend fare from 16 minutes an hour to 12 minutes an hour (effective Jan. 1, 1973). Revisions in the code do away with "tie-ins," the mention of products in a program context, and with the use of program hosts or cartoon characters as the commercial pitchman.

1973

Variety reports in April that by a margin of 5-1, Americans judge TV commercials as "a fair price to pay for being able to view the programs."

The Senate Watergate Hearings begin May 17. Together ABC, CBS and NBC offer almost 300 hours of rotated coverage, estimated to have cost a combined total of $10 million in lost ad revenues and air time.

1974

NAB adds additional curbs on ads to children, with a new policy limiting non-program material in weekend children's fare to 10 minutes hourly, effective Jan .1 , 1975.

1975

The Robert McNeil Report (later the McNeil-Lehrer Report) introduces a new news format to public broadcasting with the support of AT&T Co.

KNTV, San Jose, Calif., becomes the first U.S. station to run a TV commercial for Trojan condoms. The spot ran despite a NAB code that banned commercials for contraceptives.

A study by the Council on Children, Media, and Merchandising reveals that approximately 50% of ads in children's programming from 1965 to 1975 were for food, primarily sugared cereals, cookies, candies, and soft drinks; 30% were for toys.

Time Inc. initiates the concept of linking satellite programming to cable systems with the launch of Home Box Office. On Sept. 30, the heavyweight boxing championship bout between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali is broadcast from Manila.

Family viewing time is incorporated into the NAB TV code. It was decided that the time before 9 p.m. was supposed to be devoted to all members of the household. This results in a marked drop in violence on the air in "family time" during the 1975-76 season. In November 1976, a federal court overturns the policy, deeming it a violation of free speech.

"Gunsmoke" comes to an end after a 20 year run on CBS. The show finishes among the top 10 programs 13 times.

1976

Ted Turner's WTBS, Atlanta, becomes a "superstation" to viewers in much of the U.S. via cable TV.

1977

More than 75% of TV-equipped homes are able to receive color on one or more sets.

ABC airs the first episode of its 26-hour miniseries "Roots" Jan. 23. The Jan. 30 installment becomes the third most-watched TV program in history, earning a 51% rating.

A Mississippi minister, Rev. Donald Wildmon, and his grass-roots protest group, American Family Association, organize a national "Turn Off TV Week" in February.

Gross TV advertising revenues this year rise to $7.5 billion -- 20% of all U.S. advertising

1978

Viacom's Showtime cable network launched in March.

Warner Cable establishes an interactive/videotex system called QUBE Ohio. Viewers were able to participate in public opinion polls by punching buttons their homes. Warner ended the experiment in 1984.

1979

A TV Guide poll in May indicates 44% of Americans are unhappy with what they find on their TV screens and 49% are watching TV less than they did a few years earlier.

ESPN

ESPN, a total sports network, makes its debut on cable. It becomes the largest and most successful basic cable channel, carried by virtually every cable system, and reaches more than 57 million households.

1980

"Who Shot J.R?" a November episode of CBS' hit TV show "Dallas," reveals the identity of the attacker of J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman) and breaks records by a drawing a 53.3 rating and 76 share.

Ted Turner's Cable News Network is born, lining up TV's two major sponsors, Procter & Gamble Co. and General Foods.

In March, Walter Cronkite steps down after 19 years of anchoring the CBS evening news and is replaced by Dan Rather.

Nielsen produces its first Cassandra ratings report for syndicated programming.

MTV: Music Television makes its debut in August.

1982

Alberto-Culver Co. experiments with "split 30" commercials. The test is not received warmly by the networks, which accept the commercials at the insistence of the advertiser but seek restrictions on use.

Federal Judge Harold Greene outlaws NAB's TV code -- created for industry self-regulation -- in "U.S. vs. NAB." Court held the code violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by artificially increasing cost.

Home Shopping Network is launched.

1983

The final episode of "M*A*S*H" draws the largest audience in TV history. More than 125 million homes tuned in. The going rate for a :30 on the 2 1/2-hour finale was $450,000.

On Nov. 11, ABC broadcasts "The Day After," a two-hour made-for-TV film about thermonuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union, Because of its controversial nature, the movie appears with few advertisers but demolished the ratings of other TV programs that night.

1984

During the third quarter of the Super Bowl, Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh computer with a 60-second Orwellian epic commercial called "1984," created by Chiat/Day. The spot, which cost $400,000 to produce and $500,000 to broadcast in its single national paid airing, launches a new computer technology, turns the Super Bowl into a major ad event and begins an era of advertising as news.

Superstar Michael Jackson makes a highly publicized Pepsi-Cola commercial, and during a shoot his hair accidentally catches fire, requiring surgery to his scalp. The campaign, is considered the forerunner of big-budget celebrity ads.

With the deregulation of the cable industry, Tele-Communications Inc. aggressively begins buying cable systems nationwide. By the end of the decade, TCI will have spent nearly $3 billion for 150 cable companies.

1985

In March, Capital Cities Communications buys ABC for $3.5 billion -- proving network TV no longer remains an untouchable institution.

1986

In January, the anonymous "Herb" becomes the object of a national, $40 million manhunt by Burger King in what becomes the most elaborate advertising flop of the decade. The effort is dropped after four months.

NBC's "The Cosby Show" breaks existing records for a network series by commanding $350,000 to $400,000 for 30 seconds of commercial time.

CBS undergoes a management shift in September when its board ousts Thomas H. Wyman, chairman-CEO. Replacing Mr. Wyman as acting chief executive is investor Laurence A. Tisch.

The 1985-86 season marks the 60th anniversary of NBC and the first time it ever wins the prime-time ratings race. NBC hikes rates for early buys of 1986-87 season time, but ABC and CBS cut rates for first time.

ABC, CBS and NBC have trouble selling commercial time for sports programs for the first time. Rates for the 1986 NFL season drop 15% from 1985.

California Raisin Advisory Board introduces a hit commercial featuring dancing, singing, sneaker-clad raisins via new animation technology called Claymation. It was done by Claymation creator Will Vinton.

Spanish-language network Telemundo Group is launched by Reliance Capital Group.

1987

In January, San Francisco station KRON-TV becomes the first major market TV station in the U.S. to air a condom commercial.

In April, 20th Century Fox owner Rupert Murdoch launches Fox Broadcasting Co.

Playtex International makes history in May when networks begin airing its commercials showing women wearing bras.

In August, five veteran admen die in a tragic rafting accident in Canadian rapids. Among those killed when their raft overturned in the Chilko River was Robert Goldstein, VP-advertising for Procter & Gamble Co., and Richard O'Reilly, who headed the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

A.C. Nielsen Co.'s electronically advanced "people meter" is introduced to replace its 30-year-old diary system.

"Wheel of Fortune," the highest-rated show in syndicated programming, draws an asking price of $95,000 for a 30-second spot, The show generates revenues of $400,000 an episode.

More than 50% of U.S. households are now wired for cable.

1988

Barter syndication revenues total $875 million, up from $50 million in 1980.

Widespread use of videocassette recorders zap away at the TV viewing audience. At the start of the year, almost 60% of TV households have a VCR -- up from 4% in 1982.

1989

Pay-per-view becomes a familiar part of cable TV service, reaching about one-fifth of all wired households.

The broadcast networks reach an all-time low of 55% of the total TV audience in July.

Nissan begins its new age "Rocks and Trees" campaign by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, grabbing attention by never showing the product -- its luxury Infiniti. Instead, the spots feature nature scenes.

BBDO pulls Pepsi commercials featuring pop singer Madonna after just one airing due to controversy over her "Like a Prayer" video.

Time Inc. and Warner Communications announce a $14 billion merger.

Fox's TV network earns $33 million in profits with just three nights of programming. Its animated sitcom, "The Simpsons" is considered a genuine hit.

1990

The Children's Television Act takes effect limiting the amount of commercialization in children's TV programming (including cable) and requiring operators to carry at least some programming designed to meet children's educational and informational needs.

1991

The broadcast TV networks and cable's CNN provide extensive coverage of the Persian Gulf War, which begins in January. But advertisers take a backseat; Procter & Gamble Co., Sears, Roebuck & Co., Pizza Hut and major airlines all refuse to air spots during news coverage of the war. NBC, for one, reports losses of $5 million as a result of canceled advertising and the cost of coverage.

Coca-Cola Co. promises its sponsorship of the 92 Olympics telecasts will be its biggest ever ever. Pepsi runs spots starring basketball great Magic Johnson as a spokesman, before the Olympics start.

In June, the Clio Awards, one of advertising's best-known award shows, turns into a farce when poor financial management and organization forces finalists to rush onto the stage to claim statuettes.

In October, the broadcast networks preempt afternoon soap operas and much of their evening and weekend schedules to cover the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation of Anita Hill's accusations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas. More than 40 million U.S. households watch the two-day televised hearings; the networks lose an estimated $15 million to $20 million in ad revenue after pulling most commercials in favor of continuous coverage.

Courtroom Television Network, owned jointly by Cablevision, NBC, Time Warner and American Lawyer Media, is established, providing 24-hour live and taped coverage of trials in 41 states.

1992

Infomercials become a hot ad medium. National Infomercial Marketing Association estimates infomercials generate sales of $750 million, more than double their revenues of 1988.

Johnny Carson, the king of late-night TV, retires as the longtime host of NBC's "Tonight Show." Jay Leno is named as his replacement.

In August, NBC and cable partner Cablevision fail to meet projected goals for consumer purchase of their unusual Olympic Triplecast pay-per-view alternative for comprehensive Olympic viewing. The venture ends up with losses of more than $100 million.

1993

By the start of year, 98% of U.S. households own at least one TV set, 64% have two or more sets.

After 11 years at NBC, David Letterman announces he's jumping to CBS. His new "Late Show With David Letterman" begins in August and, quickly moving to No. 1 in latenight ratings and bumping "The Tonight Show" from its longtime lead.

In February, NBC issues a humiliating retraction and apology to General Motors Corp. on "Dateline NBC" for a staged on-camera explosion during a report on alleged safety problems with GM trucks. During the controversy, GM temporarily shifts its ad budget to the network's entertainment and sports programming and threatens to cancel its $160 million-plus budget for NBC.

The final episode of NBC's 11-year hit sitcom "Cheers" in May attracts 93.1 million viewers, with a 45.5 Nielsen rating.

In a first-of-its-kind arrangement, Visa International signs a $3 million deal to become the official credit card of Atlanta, the host city of the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Time Warner announces plans to launch a full-service interactive network in Orlando, Fla.

"NYPD Blue" is an instant ratings hit on ABC's new fall prime-time line-up after attracting pre-debut attention for nudity and rough language. The hourlong police drama is the only new series to crack Nielsen Media Research's Top 20 in virtually every major adult demographic group.

In October, the deliberately tasteless "Beavis and Butt-head" MTV animated series, the top-rated show on the music network, is attacked for allegedly inspiring a 5-year-old to start a fatal fire. In response, MTV agrees to run the show in a later time spot and the writers agree not to use references to fires in the future.

Seattle's Bon Marche department store gives new meaning to subliminal advertsing with a spot for Frango chocolates. The commercial consists of four frames (each costing $945) and lasts less than a second. Running during "Evening Magazine," it cost the retailer $3,780 for airtime.

Fox snares broadcast rights to National Football League's NFC Conference from CBS for $1.58 billion over four years.

1994

The Winter Olympics sets ratings records, becoming the most-watched event in TV history with 204 million U.S. viewers, or 83% of the country, watching at least some of CBS's coverage. Ratings are boosted by the controversy surrounding the women's figure skating competition; prior to the Olympics, U.S. figure skater Tonya Harding was involved in an attack on teammate Nancy Kerrigan.

Speaking before the American Association of Advertising Agencies in May. P&G CEO Ed Artzt warns agency executives they risk losing control over clients and media unless they step up their participation in shaping the future of the new-media landscape.

The world TV premiere of "Gettysburg" on TNT in June lives up to its epic billing by attracting the largest viewership ever for a movie on basic cable: 23 million people watch all or portions of the two-part special.

The World Cup audience from 52 televised games reaches up to 33 billion people. Univision, the Spanish-language network, anticipates $24 million in ad revenue. ABC gets a 4.7 rating and 15 share for the 10 games prior to the final.

Football legend and actor O.J. Simpson is arrested as the primary suspect in the brutal murders of his former wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The incident throws the media into overdrive, as 95 million viewers watch at least some part of Mr. Simpson's freeway chase in June.

In September, Blockbuster Entertainment and Viacom complete a $7.6 billion merger only five months after Viacom buys Paramount Communications for $9.5 billion.

National Hockey League players delay start of season with strike announcement. Fox Network purchases NHL TV rights in September for $155 million.

More than 43 million people tune in to at least some part of the highly touted "Baseball" documentary miniseries on PBS in September, giving it the largest cumulative audience in the network's 25-year history.

A Major League Baseball strike derails the Baseball Network, a fledgling joint venture between NBC, ABC and the league. The venture loses $95 million in advertising and nearly $500 million in national and local spending.

1996: Digital satellite dishes that are only 18 inches in diameter hit the market. They become the biggest selling electronic item in history next to the VCR.
1997: Mini DV is introduced as a new, higher definition, digital recording format. Perfect copies can be made from them without loosing any quality.

1999: Sony releases Digital 8 video format and the world prepares for Y2K.

2000: The year of the Digital Disc, aka DVD.; After years of speculation, the DVD finally takes hold and DVD movies are as common as those on VHS tape.
: Sony introduces CDCam video format. You can now record directly on a CD from a camcorder.; AOL and Time Warner merge and become the largest company of it's kind in the world.

2001: DVD's becomes a major player in the home entertainment field. Most movie studios now release their movies on DVD, which is starting to catch up with VHS tape sales.

2002: Sony introduces the MicroMV Digital MPEG-2 tape based digital recorders. This system offers high resolution recorders small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. It records digitally onto a tiny tape with files small enough to be transferred to a PC within minutes. It also has the ability to record video that can be played directly over the internet.

2003: First DVD camcorder is released, allowing total digital recording directly to disk in the MPEG2 format. DVD's gain in popularity and pre-recorded DVD's over take video tape rentals in stores. DVD's take up less room, are much higher quality, and contain many features not found on video tapes. They also can hold a lot more information and a single disc can have up to 6 hours of high quality video with multiple sound tracks.

2004: DVD's Out Sells VHS tapes., Disc sales go through the roof as DVD's surpass VHS as the most common format for home entertainment. The price of DVD's has also fallen as it's popularity increases. Blank DVD's can now be purchased for as little as 25 cents for a 4X disc. Just a year ago, prices were as high as $15.00 for a single 1X disc. Home DVD recorders are now as inexpensive as a good quality VCR. For more than 25 years, VHS dominated the world home entertainment market after winning a challenge from Sony's Betamax in the early 1980s. By next year, some retailers are actually going to stop selling VHS VCR's as the DVD format now dominates the home video market. DVD's also have the advantage of containing "Extra's" that movie studios add to encourage sales of their disc's.
: Another major advance this year is the use of large capacity hard drives to record video. Digital video recorders (VDR's) are available for under $1000.00. Some models combine a hard drive with a DVD burner so you can record 100's of hours of video on the hard drive and then burn what you really want to keep on the internal DVD burner. This is far superior to VHS VCR'.

2005: Flat screen TV's & HDTV are the "In" thing of the year. Almost all televisions sold are now flat LCD and Plasma screens. Some are only a few inches thick. Large screen Plasma and LCD TV's are also well within the reach of the average consumer. A 42" Plasma screen retails for as low as $1400.00 with prices getting lower as the year progresses. Hi Definition TV's, (known as HDTV) are also the big seller for 2005. A 42" Plasma HDTV usually retails for $4500.00 - $7000.00. Some new 42" TV's even sell for as low as $999.00. By 2006 all television stations will switch to a HiDef broadcast.
Click Here for more information on HDTV

2006

Flat screen TV's are larger and less expensive. They are finding their way into more & more homes as prices continue to drop and screen size gets larger. LCD TV's are now outselling plasma screens and projected to be the most popular kind of TVs in the world by 2009.
	Blu-Ray DVD's are released in the middle of the year. A single-layer Blu-ray disc, which is the same size as a DVD, can hold up to 27 GB of data -- that's more than two
hours of high-definition video or about 13 hours of standard video. A double-layer Blu-ray disc can store up to 54 GB, enough to hold about 4.5 hours of high-definition video or more than 20 hours of standard video. And there are even plans in the works to develop a disc with twice that amount of storage.

Toshiba introduces HD Disks as competition to the Sony Blu-ray. A format war starts with some companies backing Blu-ray and others backing HD.

2007

Organic LCD TV's (OLCD) are Introduced and promises to revolutionize flat panel displays with their thin size.

Time Running Out on Analog TV's as the FCC deadline approaches. By 2009 all broadcasts are to be in Hi-def digital format.

2008

Blu-ray Seems to Win over HD Disks as Wal-Mart, Target, Netflix & Best Buy Stores commit to the Blue-ray format. Most Blu-ray players now also "Upconvert" which means that a regular DVD played on a Blu-ray system will almost have the definition of a hi-def disc.

Government Gives Out Set-top Converter Coupons to people that don't have cable or satellite TV. Once the change over to all digital, anyone receiving TV from an antenna will need a converter in order to watch the new digital signals on older (non-digital) TV's.

SOURCE: http://www.high-techproductions.com/historyoftelevision.htm

Labels: history, History of Television, techhistory

Qskan

Jun 26, 2009