Color Guns

Color Guns Color Guns

By the novel expedient of changing horses in the stretch, Radio Corp. of America made a surprise spurt in the color television sweepstakes.* Abandoning the "dichroic mirror" cathode tube which it had used through the past 3 1/2 months of demonstrations before the Federal Communications Commission, RCA last week unveiled a new, all-electronic, direct-view color tube to some 60 newsmen at an NBC studio in Washington.

Two Types. Staring at three TV sets, the newsmen watched a program of Latin American singers and dancers broadcast from the Wardman Park Hotel, three miles away. Two of the three sets showed the program in color that ranged from fuzzy to fairly clear. The third set, an ordinary stock model, pictured the same program at the same time in better than normal monochrome--showing that RCA's color telecasts could be received as black & white by any of the 5,000,000 TV sets now in use, without adjustments or converters.

RCA's new tube--which eventually may be used in other color systems--comes in two types. The first has a single electron "gun" in the neck of the tube, which shoots a single beam of electrons--producing three colors: red, blue and green--onto the face of the tube. The millions of electrons are spun in front of a mask containing 117,000 minute holes, or one for every three dots on the viewing screen itself. The holes in the mask expose the incoming electrons to each of the color dots in turn, thus making a picture which approximates the color of whatever object or scene is being telecast.

The second type of color tube works in a similar way, except that each of the three colors is produced by its own special "gun." Whenever a beam is uncovered by one of the infinitesimal holes in the mask, the right color dot appears at the right point on the screen.

The Threshold. RCA believes that either or both tubes may prove to be the final answer. "There are still some refinements we want to make. We are not fully satisfied with either, right now," said RCA Vice President Dr. Elmer W. Engstrom. "We want more dots, for one thing, to bring the definition of the picture up ... We feel sure that a tricolored kinescope of this kind marks the beginning of color television in the home. This marks the passing over the threshold."

This week in Washington RCA and its closest rivals, CBS and Color Television Inc., begin what may be the final tests before FCC. Whatever the result of FCC's deliberations might be, it seemed clear that color TV had suddenly moved a bit closer from the distant future.

*The purse: multimillions in royalties from the broadcasting industry and the U.S. public.

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