by Television has come a long way over the last 100 years. Our society went from watching black and white television on a small screen to a color television on a large flat screen. The newer televisions have also become much lighter than the older televisions too. Older televisions weight hundreds of pounds and had poorer picture quality. New televisions weigh less than 50 pounds and look 10 times better than older televisions. Isn’t that amazing?
Television Types from the 1800s To Now
Let’s explore the history of television and the various types of televisions that were invented over the years. We’ll start from way back in the 1800s and proceed all the way to the present.
1) Mechanical Television – Early 1800s to Early 1990s
Mechanical televisions were the first televisions ever invented. They did not require any electricity to run either. Of course, there was no motion picture seen on the screen of a mechanical television. Images were mechanically scanned from one end and sent to the television screen on the receiving end. The mechanical scanner was a rotating disk with wires that connected to a screen.
People didn’t call it a television back in those days. It was referred to as an electric telescope. The resolution of the picture on the screen consisted of 18 lines. This would seem highly primitive by today’s standards, but this ability to transmit still images was revolutionary for the time period.
2) CRT Televisions – 1920s to 2000s
The cathode ray tube (CRT) television was the first electronic television ever invented. It basically consisted of electron guns and a vacuum tube. The guns would beam various electrons of blue, red and green colors onto a screen made of phosphor. This would cause thousands of colored dots to create moving pictures on the screen. Of course, the picture appeared in black and white during the early days of CRT television.
CRT was the most popular type of television because it was used for nearly 80 years. However, it was merely used for commercial purposes between the 1920s and 1950s. It was such a revolutionary invention that you could only see in trade shows and world fairs. It was also a very expensive invention which ordinary people could not afford anyway.
In the 1950s and 1960s, CRT televisions finally entered the mainstream marketplace. Ordinary people could afford at least one CRT television for the living room, where their families would gather to watch the same show. As the decades progressed, color CRT televisions were released. Not only that, but the CRT televisions were getting cheaper too. The average home would have two or three CRT televisions instead of just one.
3) LCD Televisions – Late 1990s to Present
In the late 1990s, the first LCD flat screen televisions were released. LCD uses CCFL lamps as the backlighting for the screen. These lamps shine light through a filter before they reach colored crystal cells. Colors on the screen are created by each cell after the backlighting shines on them.
People quickly saw how much better the picture quality of an LCD screen was compared to the quality of a CRT screen. On top of that, LCD televisions are very light televisions that anyone could carry around with two arms by themselves.
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4) Digital / Smart Televisions – Late 2000s to Present
Digital televisions are smart LCD televisions. They are still flat screen and have amazing picture quality. But the digital televisions are made with more computer technology because they’re able to connect to the internet. If you have a Wi-Fi network in your house, then your digital television could actually play Netflix movies or other video streams.
