John Vassos: Transparent Television
On September 7, 2012
- TV History
John Vassos: Transparent Television
Yesterday, I posted a story on industrial design pioneer John Vassos and his influence on the RCA Television cameras. Today, I thought I’d show you the plexiglass TRK 12 receiver he built for the 1939 World’s Fair. Vassos helped design the RCA building there, and all of the display areas.
Dennis:
From what I understand, the plexiglass RCA TRK 12 was damaged in shipping at one point in it’s life, and pieces had to be glued back together.
Sorry, not true, Matt. Lexan, a product of GE, did not exist in 1939. This was ‘Plexiglass’, an acrylic polymer which is still made to this day. Lexan was much stronger than Plexiglass and was not invented until the 1960’s. I saw this very same TV set on display in the Smithsonian in 1989. It was a special exhibition for the 50th anniversary of television’s public introduction at the 1939 NY World’s Fair. The cabinet had lots of cracks in the Plexi due to its age, I guess. I wonder where it is now . . .
This set is made out of Lexan not plexiglass, very different materials.
I owned a 1949 version of this in which the 4″ picture tube faced down into a parabolic mirror which then reflected the image back up to a mirror in side lid which then bounced the image to a screen surface that would fold out when the lid was raised! In effect you ended up with a 24″ about screen image from a 4″ tube! Make sense?
The picture tubes were very long. Your TV set would be half-way into the living room. So they were down into the cabinet, and reflected off a mirror. Does that make sense? I’m typing this on one cup of coffee.
I never found out why these early tvs shot skyward and used a reflecting mirror for viewing. Anyone know the reason?