The Last Lone Inventor

[Lizard Blizzard]

Clifton T. Sharp Jr. wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Fell off my bookshelf: "Empire of the Air. The Men who Made Radio"
by Tom Lewis. Largely details the history and demise of RCA and
touches a bit on the politics of early TV.


"The Farnsworth Chronicles" at
http://park.org/Pavilions/WorldExpositions/PhiloFarnsworth/
is great reading.

"Farnsworth was a 14 year old Mormon farm boy from Rigby Idaho with
virtually no knowledge of electronics when he first sketched his idea
for electronic video on a black board for his high-school science
teacher in 1922. 15 years later, that teacher would re-create that
sketch as part of his testimony in patent litigation between Farnsworth
and the giant Radio Corporation of America. Farnsworth eventually won
all of his extensive litigation with RCA, and became the first
Independent Inventor EVER awarded a royalty-paying patent license
from RCA."

And deservedly so. Sarnoff made every attempt to screw him out of what
was he was due. Same for Armstrong.