09.5

Philco Predicta //Source(s): New York Times, April 21, 1996, Page One, Section Two: "ANYONE CAN BECOME A STAR IN ASTORIA" by Ralph// Blumenthal. (((The article is about the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria Queens and its new long-term exhibition, "Behind the Screen," opening April 22.))) A large part of the third floor is taken up with the hardware of recording images and sound, including curios like the 1931 Jenkins Radiovisor, a mechanical television that used a slotted, spinning wheel to transmit images. ... One behemoth, an RGA/Oxberry Compuquad Special Effects Step Optical Printer == a name worthy of its size == used four projector heads and five computers controlling 19 separate motions to project image upon image for complex effects. The machine itself won a special Academy Award in 1986. But today, it's largely obsolete, a victim of digital technology. Another curious device is a 1927 Bell Laboratories Picture Telephone, a prototype closed-circuit television link over which Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, spoke (and appeared) from Washington to the AT&T president in New Jersey. There are showroom quantities of vintage television consoles, some predating World War II. Early sets had picture tubes so long and unwieldy that the screen had to be mounted face up, toward the ceiling, and needed a mirror to reflect the image sidways to the viewers. A thing of beauty was the 1959 Philco Predicta with its oval screen. But the streamlined design came at the price of unreliable technology, and the model flopped.
 * Dead medium: The Museum of the Moving Image: Jenkins Radiovisor, Bell Picture Telephone, RGA/Oxberry CompuQuad,**
 * From: ggg@well.com**