Aiken tube
Encyclopedia
The Aiken tube was the first successful flat panel
black and white television. Originally designed in the early 1950s, a small number of tubes were built in 1958 for military use in a collaboration with Kaiser Industries. An extended patent battle followed with a similar technology developed in the United Kingdom and planned commercial production for the home market never started. Further development was carried out by a number of companies, including Sinclair Electronics and RCA
after the patents had expired.
undergraduate student at UC Berkeley in 1941. Originally expecting to graduate in the Class of 1942, he decided to take a year off and work in industry. He got a job at the Kaiser Shipyards plant number 2 in Richmond, California
, and was promoted to head of the electrical department. When the US entered World War II
, Aiken's selective service status was declared as category 1-B. He was one of seven people in the country "frozen" in their jobs by Admiral Land
and unable to leave their job under any circumstances.
When the war ended Aiken was drafted, but declared 4-F due to asthma
, and was instead sent to work in industry in a variety of jobs. He spent the next six years working for the University of California Radiation Laboratory, today's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
, designing controls for the cyclotron
s being built there. He was then put in charge of developing an x-ray spectrometer for measuring the temperature of the fireballs from nuclear weapon
s. While working on these developments he was sent to Eniwetok during a series of nuclear tests.
It was during this time that he came up with the idea for a new type of thin cathode ray tube
(CRT) while he was working with oscilloscopes. He thought the display tubes in use at the time were too long, and a shorter tube would be much more practical. Aiken was not the first to consider the possibility of a compact CRT with a thin display screen, but no-one had been successful in developing one at that point. There were any number of problems, especially with focusing arrangements, but Aiken kept attacking them one by one until he developed what he felt was a workable solution.
Having sketched out the idea, he went to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, his employer at the time, but they didn't find the concept interesting. Returning from Eniwetok he next approached the Radiation Laboratory, but they too declined to take up development. He decided to build a thin CRT prototype on his own. He rented space in the basement of a post office
, and developed a working tube that could draw and move a dot around the screen.
, the head of General Electric
's research labs, called Aiken to set up a meeting, but Aiken demanded they sign a non-disclosure agreement
and Baker refused.
Aiken then approached some of his old contacts at Kaiser, and they proved much more interested. Happily signing the non-disclosure agreement, after seeing the unit and how it worked they decided to fund development using profits from another division. When they discovered that the profits were due to an accounting error, development almost ended.
By this time the United States Naval Research Laboratory
had heard about his work and were very interested in developing it as an interactive plotting table for displaying the data from sonobuoy
s in anti-submarine helicopter
s. They later added an additional role as a heads up display for the T-2 Buckeye
trainer, which required a transparent phosphor so the pilot could look through the display and out of the canopy. With their funding secure, Kaiser set up a new laboratory in Palo Alto, California
. Shockley Semiconductor collaborated on the development of a small transistorized computer to display basic navigation information, while Corning was brought in to develop the super-flat glass plates needed to front the display.
While development continued, Kaiser started looking for partners in the consumer electronics space that might be able to help fund the effort of taking the tube into commercial production. At the time, the NTSC
was in the process of introducing its color television
standard and enormous amounts of funding were being spent on developing a wide array of technologies in the color market. Kaiser was unable to find anyone interested in developing the system, and after the government contracts ran out, stopped funding development.
It was about this time that the similar tube developed by Dennis Gabor
(better known as the developer of holograms) first came to their attention. Gabor's design was similar in that it used an offset gun and deflection plates behind the phosphor
, but differed in having the electron gun
arranged under the display area rather than to the side. Aiken had also filed similar patents after his early attempts. A patent battle followed, with Gabor eventually winning UK rights and Aiken U.S. rights. By this point active development of both had ended, and the two became friends.
Aiken went on to develop a number of unrelated display technologies, similar to the flip-disc display
eventually forming "Display Technology Corporation" to produce them.
The primary design used an electron gun
arranged to the side of the screen, either firing horizontally across the top of the display tube, or firing vertically towards the top and then bent through 90 degrees to travel along the top. Across the top of the tube were a series of C-shaped plates and a matching set of parallel bars below it. The plates were charged relative to the bars to provide deflection, bending the beam to travel between the bars and down the face of the tube.
Behind the tube was a series of wide metal plates running horizontally along the back face of the display. These were used to bend the beam through an angle and cause it to hit the front face of the screen. 2D scanning was accomplished by charging two of the horizontal plates to select a vertical location on the display, and then quickly charging the deflection plates at the top in turn to select a horizontal location. Each vertical and horizontal plate addressed many locations on the screen, with the locations within each plate's area selected by charging it relative to its neighbors.
The patents describe a number of different systems for constructing the deflection plates, including both electrostatic and electromagnetic
circuits. Switching the plates on and off at high frequencies and high voltages is a major problem, even today, and a number of different systems were described to accomplish this, including an optical-mechanical system similar to the Nipkow disk
.
The second design, described in U.S. Patent 2,837,691, was similar to the first for vertical addressing, but used a conventional horizontal scanning system. The gun was moved to the lower middle of the display, firing upward, scanned horizontally by a single pair of deflection plates arranged just above the gun. Horizontal scanning is much faster than vertical, so this change greatly reduced the complexity of the driver electronics. At the top of the screen was a single wire charged to very high voltages, which bent the beam through 180 degrees back towards the bottom of the display. The vertical deflection plates were mounted on a plate arranged to lie between the path of the beam as it traveled upwards at the back of the tube and back down at the front.
Flat panel display
Flat panel displays encompass a growing number of electronic visual display technologies. They are far lighter and thinner than traditional television sets and video displays that use cathode ray tubes , and are usually less than thick...
black and white television. Originally designed in the early 1950s, a small number of tubes were built in 1958 for military use in a collaboration with Kaiser Industries. An extended patent battle followed with a similar technology developed in the United Kingdom and planned commercial production for the home market never started. Further development was carried out by a number of companies, including Sinclair Electronics and RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
after the patents had expired.
Genesis
William Ross Aiken was an electrical engineeringElectrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
undergraduate student at UC Berkeley in 1941. Originally expecting to graduate in the Class of 1942, he decided to take a year off and work in industry. He got a job at the Kaiser Shipyards plant number 2 in Richmond, California
Richmond, California
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
, and was promoted to head of the electrical department. When the US entered World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Aiken's selective service status was declared as category 1-B. He was one of seven people in the country "frozen" in their jobs by Admiral Land
Emory S. Land
Vice Admiral Emory Scott Land was an officer in the United States Navy, noted for his contributions to naval architecture, particularly in submarine design. Notable assignments included serving as Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair during the 1930s, and as Chairman of the U.S...
and unable to leave their job under any circumstances.
When the war ended Aiken was drafted, but declared 4-F due to asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
, and was instead sent to work in industry in a variety of jobs. He spent the next six years working for the University of California Radiation Laboratory, today's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , just outside Livermore, California, is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center founded by the University of California in 1952...
, designing controls for the cyclotron
Cyclotron
In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction...
s being built there. He was then put in charge of developing an x-ray spectrometer for measuring the temperature of the fireballs from nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s. While working on these developments he was sent to Eniwetok during a series of nuclear tests.
It was during this time that he came up with the idea for a new type of thin cathode ray tube
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
(CRT) while he was working with oscilloscopes. He thought the display tubes in use at the time were too long, and a shorter tube would be much more practical. Aiken was not the first to consider the possibility of a compact CRT with a thin display screen, but no-one had been successful in developing one at that point. There were any number of problems, especially with focusing arrangements, but Aiken kept attacking them one by one until he developed what he felt was a workable solution.
Having sketched out the idea, he went to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, his employer at the time, but they didn't find the concept interesting. Returning from Eniwetok he next approached the Radiation Laboratory, but they too declined to take up development. He decided to build a thin CRT prototype on his own. He rented space in the basement of a post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
, and developed a working tube that could draw and move a dot around the screen.
Kaiser enters
It was one thing to draw a dot on the screen and move it around, it is another entirely to make a working television. Looking for development capital, Aiken started shopping the concept around to anyone who expressed an interest. Warner Brothers sent an engineer to examine it, but declined to fund development believing it was being faked. Walter BakerWalter Ransom Gail Baker
Walter Ransom Gail Baker was an American electrical engineer. He was a vice president of General Electric, and was Director of Engineering for the Radio Manufacturers Association...
, the head of General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
's research labs, called Aiken to set up a meeting, but Aiken demanded they sign a non-disclosure agreement
Non-disclosure agreement
A non-disclosure agreement , also known as a confidentiality agreement , confidential disclosure agreement , proprietary information agreement , or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties that outlines confidential material, knowledge, or information that the parties...
and Baker refused.
Aiken then approached some of his old contacts at Kaiser, and they proved much more interested. Happily signing the non-disclosure agreement, after seeing the unit and how it worked they decided to fund development using profits from another division. When they discovered that the profits were due to an accounting error, development almost ended.
By this time the United States Naval Research Laboratory
United States Naval Research Laboratory
The United States Naval Research Laboratory is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps and conducts a program of scientific research and development. NRL opened in 1923 at the instigation of Thomas Edison...
had heard about his work and were very interested in developing it as an interactive plotting table for displaying the data from sonobuoy
Sonobuoy
A sonobuoy is a relatively small expendable sonar system that is dropped/ejected from aircraft or ships conducting anti-submarine warfare or underwater acoustic research....
s in anti-submarine helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
s. They later added an additional role as a heads up display for the T-2 Buckeye
T-2 Buckeye
|-See also:-External links:*****...
trainer, which required a transparent phosphor so the pilot could look through the display and out of the canopy. With their funding secure, Kaiser set up a new laboratory in Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
. Shockley Semiconductor collaborated on the development of a small transistorized computer to display basic navigation information, while Corning was brought in to develop the super-flat glass plates needed to front the display.
While development continued, Kaiser started looking for partners in the consumer electronics space that might be able to help fund the effort of taking the tube into commercial production. At the time, the NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
was in the process of introducing its color television
Color television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
standard and enormous amounts of funding were being spent on developing a wide array of technologies in the color market. Kaiser was unable to find anyone interested in developing the system, and after the government contracts ran out, stopped funding development.
It was about this time that the similar tube developed by Dennis Gabor
Dennis Gabor
Dennis Gabor CBE, FRS was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and inventor, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics....
(better known as the developer of holograms) first came to their attention. Gabor's design was similar in that it used an offset gun and deflection plates behind the phosphor
Phosphor
A phosphor, most generally, is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence. Somewhat confusingly, this includes both phosphorescent materials, which show a slow decay in brightness , and fluorescent materials, where the emission decay takes place over tens of nanoseconds...
, but differed in having the electron gun
Electron gun
An electron gun is an electrical component that produces an electron beam that has a precise kinetic energy and is most often used in television sets and computer displays which use cathode ray tube technology, as well as in other instruments, such as electron microscopes and particle...
arranged under the display area rather than to the side. Aiken had also filed similar patents after his early attempts. A patent battle followed, with Gabor eventually winning UK rights and Aiken U.S. rights. By this point active development of both had ended, and the two became friends.
Aiken went on to develop a number of unrelated display technologies, similar to the flip-disc display
Flip-disc display
The flip-disc display is an electromechanical dot matrix display technology used for large outdoor signs, normally those that will be exposed to direct sunlight. Flip-disc technology has been used on buses across North America and Europe. It has also been used extensively on public information...
eventually forming "Display Technology Corporation" to produce them.
Description
Aiken developed a number of different tube designs while working with Kaiser, a number of which were described in U.S. Patent 2,795,731.The primary design used an electron gun
Electron gun
An electron gun is an electrical component that produces an electron beam that has a precise kinetic energy and is most often used in television sets and computer displays which use cathode ray tube technology, as well as in other instruments, such as electron microscopes and particle...
arranged to the side of the screen, either firing horizontally across the top of the display tube, or firing vertically towards the top and then bent through 90 degrees to travel along the top. Across the top of the tube were a series of C-shaped plates and a matching set of parallel bars below it. The plates were charged relative to the bars to provide deflection, bending the beam to travel between the bars and down the face of the tube.
Behind the tube was a series of wide metal plates running horizontally along the back face of the display. These were used to bend the beam through an angle and cause it to hit the front face of the screen. 2D scanning was accomplished by charging two of the horizontal plates to select a vertical location on the display, and then quickly charging the deflection plates at the top in turn to select a horizontal location. Each vertical and horizontal plate addressed many locations on the screen, with the locations within each plate's area selected by charging it relative to its neighbors.
The patents describe a number of different systems for constructing the deflection plates, including both electrostatic and electromagnetic
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
circuits. Switching the plates on and off at high frequencies and high voltages is a major problem, even today, and a number of different systems were described to accomplish this, including an optical-mechanical system similar to the Nipkow disk
Nipkow disk
A Nipkow disk , also known as scanning disk, is a mechanical, geometrically operating image scanning device, invented by Paul Gottlieb Nipkow...
.
The second design, described in U.S. Patent 2,837,691, was similar to the first for vertical addressing, but used a conventional horizontal scanning system. The gun was moved to the lower middle of the display, firing upward, scanned horizontally by a single pair of deflection plates arranged just above the gun. Horizontal scanning is much faster than vertical, so this change greatly reduced the complexity of the driver electronics. At the top of the screen was a single wire charged to very high voltages, which bent the beam through 180 degrees back towards the bottom of the display. The vertical deflection plates were mounted on a plate arranged to lie between the path of the beam as it traveled upwards at the back of the tube and back down at the front.
Patents
- U.S. Patent 2,795,731, "Cathode Ray Tube", William Ross Aiken/Kaiser Aircraft & Electronics, filed 4 December 1953, issued 11 June 1957
- "Description 179,404", "Television Receiver", William Ross Aiken/Kaiser Aircraft & Electronics, filed 21 January 1955, issued 18 December 1956
- U.S. Patent 2,837,691, "Electronic Device", William Ross Aiken/Kaiser Aircraft & Electronics, filed 24 August 1955, issued 2 June 1958
- U.S. Patent 2,879,443, "Electronic Device", William Ross Aiken/Kaiser Aircraft & Electronics, filed 15 December 1955, issued 24 March 1959
Further reading
- "Thin Tube Foretells Wall TV and Sky View for Air Pilot", Popular Mechanics, January 1958, pg. 104