090728 - 018 Cartoon Museum - explanation of The Visivision Machine by Rowland Emett
The "Visivision" Machine
This brilliant piece of electrical engineering of 1910 must surely have been the first attempt to snatch pictures from the ether, and foreshadow television-to-come.
It is constructed, at white heat, from the things most easily to hand, such as the parlour gramophone, and Auntie's old sewing machine.
Note particularly the egg-beater for stirring up electrons, the large thermionic valve (which apparently started life as a case of butterflies) and the wandering antennae, which feel through the atmosphere for the appropriate impulses.
Unfortunately these have so far only managed to assemble an inexplicable and shadowy picture (but, nevertheless, in colour!) of Grandpa bull-fighting next door's goat.
Taken at Engines of Enchantment: the machines and cartoons of Rowland Emett.
The Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH.
Tuesday- Saturday 10.30-5.30.
Sunday 12.00 - 5.30
090728 - 018 Cartoon Museum - explanation of The Visivision Machine by Rowland Emett
The "Visivision" Machine
This brilliant piece of electrical engineering of 1910 must surely have been the first attempt to snatch pictures from the ether, and foreshadow television-to-come.
It is constructed, at white heat, from the things most easily to hand, such as the parlour gramophone, and Auntie's old sewing machine.
Note particularly the egg-beater for stirring up electrons, the large thermionic valve (which apparently started life as a case of butterflies) and the wandering antennae, which feel through the atmosphere for the appropriate impulses.
Unfortunately these have so far only managed to assemble an inexplicable and shadowy picture (but, nevertheless, in colour!) of Grandpa bull-fighting next door's goat.
Taken at Engines of Enchantment: the machines and cartoons of Rowland Emett.
The Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street, London WC1A 2HH.
Tuesday- Saturday 10.30-5.30.
Sunday 12.00 - 5.30