Just a Quiet Evening.

After World War II Americans wanted peace, Korea and the cold war notwithstanding, and they found it at night in their living rooms where a few hours of escapism were delivered for free by a new gadget, the television. Television technology allowed transmission of high-quality images, and mass-production techniques meant that sets were available and affordable. But the pictures on those televisions were blackand- white, and industry leaders hoped for more.

Goldmark.

In 1951 a CBS engineer named Peter Goldmark devised a method of color television broadcasting. The concept of color television is simple. All pictures are transmitted and received as combinations of red, green, and blue. Goldmark's system required a set of whirling red, green, and blue filters placed in front of the camera lens; a similar set of filters inside the television set decoded the color signals. A black-and-white television...