Television's Pirates: Hiding behind your picture tube - Hardcover

Robert B. Cooper

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 097779802X ISBN 13: 9780977798025

Publisher: Far North Cablevision, Ltd., 2006

Synopsis

Television's development, while often attributed to major corporations such as RCA, in fact has been the culmination of unexpected efforts by individual backyard inventors. It is no coincidence the majority of such developments originated in the work shops of amateur or 'ham' radio operators using rudimentary tools and driven by the challenge from experts who insisted, 'that cannot be done - or we would have already done it.' The earliest televisors (reception sets) were amateur designed and built. The first cable television system in America was conceptualised and created by a 'ham'. And the very first reception of satellite television in a private, home environment was accomplished by amateurs. Virtually every aspect of television's development, from the late 30s through to present day delivery of television via the web, has had one or more backyard inventor at the core of discovery and commercial exploitation. Television's Pirates is the story of hundreds of individuals who collectively made television the technological marvel it has become today. What sets this book apart from others is the very personal, human stories of these individuals whom the author has known from 1950 onward as each appeared on the scene with an 'invention' destined to improve the technology behind the transmission or reception of television services. 'Pirates' A descriptive term identifying those who did what they did from outside the established corporate framework of invention and development. And as television matured from a * over the air broadcast service to cable and later satellite, requiring payment of a fee to 'subscribe', an underground movement developed. 'Any encryption system they can design we can break' became the mantra for an entire generation of home workshop creators who sought to take apart, one byte at a time, pay television barriers to * access

Edition details

• Publisher: Far North Cablevision, Ltd.
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 097779802X
• ISBN 13: 9780977798025
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Ina Claus
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 928
• Editor: R.B. Cooper