[NJARC] Color TV's 50th anniversary

[Alex Magoun]

David Sarnoff Library to Mark Color TV�s 50th Anniversary

On March 25, 1954, RCA began marketing its first electronic color television
receiver, four years after its Princeton Laboratories demonstrated the
monochrome-compatible color TV system on which the national standard is still
based.

In honor of the golden anniversary of the ubiquitous technology that we've all
come to know and love�or hate�the David Sarnoff Library will be open to the
public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 20.  Visitors and their
children can watch some or all of the classic 1960 Peter Pan (running time:
1:41) on RCA's first color set, the CT100.  They can also compare this pioneer,
with its wooden cabinet, 12�� display, 16 channels, and 10 control knobs to the
system on which they watch television today.

"No more than 25 of this model are in working order today, making it far rarer
than a Stradivarius violin, and at least as challenging to keep in tune," says
the Library�s executive director Alex Magoun.  Magoun will also give his
illustrated presentation, "The Bananas Were Blue, the Cashflow was Red: RCA and
the Innovation of Color TV" in the auditorium at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.  In
addition, visitors can watch themselves on a 1948 RCA set via a 1951 TV camera,
test vacuum tubes in an RCA Tube Tester, and examine the rest of the history of
a remarkable man and the company he led.

For more information, call (609) 734-2636.
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