the life of Philo T Farnsworth - Early Television Foundation

90 THE STORY OF TELEVISION
in the image, as compared to the minimum of 250,000 elements
now considered necessary in television transmission.
When Phil connected up his first transmitting and receiving
apparatus in the fall of 1927, he had no illusions about the
quality of the image it would produce. It was possible that the
whole scheme wouldn't work and that no picture would be
transmitted. If an image was produced
it was expected that it
would be nothing but a crude outline of the simplest sort. The
first
problem was to prove that electronic scanning would work.
The transmission of any picture, however simple, would suffice
for the test.
Phil chose the most elementary image for the first trial.
painted a black triangle on a clear piece of glass
for the initial
tryout. I knew what was going on and asked Phil to let me be
present. After much adjusting and days of planning, Phil
phoned that all was in readiness. I went to the lab. We all felt
something of the historic importance of the occasion and were
keyed up in anticipation of what might take place.
I went into the room that Phil used as his office. He was
doodling over some electrical circuits.
"I think we will have a picture as soon as the boys get the
new circuits wired up," he said. "It won't take long." Then
after a pause, "I don't know how good
it
is very low, and we may not be able to get
noise."
He
will be. The signal
it out over the
After a few minutes we strolled out into the lab. Cliff Gardner
was tinkering around the crude boxlike television camera, and
the other boys were in the receiving room fussing around with
the amplifier. The light source was a carbon arc. Finally, when
all seemed to be ready, Phil took a glass
slide with a black triangle
painted on it and laid it beside the camera.
"This will be our first picture," he said.