Mechanical television

Television's first incarnation was mechanical—a spinning disk with holes that carved images into flickering scan lines. On Christmas Eve 1883, Paul Nipkow conceived the idea while sitting alone with an oil lamp. He patented his "electric telescope" January 6, 1884—his girlfriend paid the filing fee when he lacked funds. The Nipkow disk had holes arranged in a spiral, each scanning one horizontal line as the disk rotated.

The disk remained theoretical for decades until three inventors independently brought it to life. John Logie Baird, working from cramped attic rooms in London, demonstrated moving silhouette images at Selfridge's in March 1925. On January 26, 1926, Baird gave the first public demonstration of true television to the Royal Institution. Across the Atlantic, Charles Jenkins provided the first U.S. public demonstration on June 13, 1925, receiving the first commercial television license in 1927.

The system was elegantly simple in concept but fiendishly difficult. A light-sensitive selenium cell converted varying light intensities into electrical signals. At the receiving end, a neon lamp pulsed with the incoming signal while an identical disk spun in synchronization. The critical challenge: transmitter and receiver disks had to rotate at exactly the same speed or the image would roll.

The fundamental limitation was resolution. Baird's early system used just 30 scan lines—barely enough to recognize a face. More holes meant larger disks requiring more precise manufacturing. The BBC adopted Baird's system in 1929; by 1932, he had sold 10,000 television sets.

The death sentence came in 1935 when the Television Advisory Committee recommended testing Baird's 240-line mechanical system against Marconi-EMI's 405-line electronic system. On November 2, 1936, the BBC began alternating weekly. Electronic delivered sharper, brighter images with no mechanical noise. On January 30, 1937, Baird's system broadcast its final program. Mechanical television's commercial period lasted less than a decade, but it established broadcasting's vocabulary and infrastructure.