History of Video Tape

I love history. I dig into many topics, from military to technology. This is about a neat Silicon Valley story - how video recording came to be.

I posted the pages of the booklet up on my Picassa page. It was printed up by Ampex in 1981, written by Charles P. Ginsburg. The article describes how a small team of engineers went through the high stress times of creating something the world hadn't seen before. The project in the mid-1950's, centered in Redwood City, would make it an early success story examplifing the spirit of the Bay Area.

These days we think "tape delay" is something to groan about, that live trumps all. But in 1956, it was something to trumpet. First was CBS with the "Douglas Edwards and the News" show. Another piece of trivia: Ray Dolby was part of the team. It is his company Dolby Labs that give us the audio encoding advancements today.

-Mike M.