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Thank you, Carmine, for posting the excerpt. It "filled in" some holes for me as to the decline and fall of the US consumer electronics industry. :yes:
Kevin

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carmine (Post 3072770)

Really Sandy? You know because you were in those boardrooms right? You must have at least read that book I mentioned... No? So when Zenith won an Emmy for MTS stereo in the 80s, that was because they were "down there with the dogs and cats"? At least there were never any Panasonic or Sony's with "simulated woodgrain finishes". Oh wait, I HAVE a Sony with a sticker that actually says that. And those '69 shareholder reports that show Zenith working with laser and plasma flat displays were just lies. Zenith's work in the Grand Alliance HDTV standard didn't occur because you noticed those economy 23" metal cabinet sets they pretty much made just for a presense in K-mart... America's number one retailer at the time.

Anyway, I'm not going to waste time telling you what you don't know. I'd just like to know why you always have to chime in with your folksy, nostalgic BS? It's like listening to your know-it-all uncle drone on about the "gubbbernment", but he can't tell you the state capital. You really don't know what you're talking about, but it never slows you down does it?

Oh, and, EXCUSE DAPHUCK outta me for having an opinion, & expressing it...I realize that I'm just an old, inbred, ignorant hillbilly PRICK, I'll just keep my goddam trap shut on any of your threads, it obviously INFURIATES you entirely too much...BTW, NASHVILLE is the State Capitol of Tennessee...So there. N'yah, n'yah..

Quote:

Originally Posted by etype2 (Post 3072781)

RCA could have cornered the market with flat screens, at least for a decade or so. They invented the LCD display, owned the first Patents, (1967) but they did not have the vision to see the potential. They did not want them to compete with their CRT's. They were drunk with years of success with their CRT sets and had no interest in investing more R&D. They had a team of engineers on the LCD project all begging the top brass at RCA to go further to no avail.

Sounds like the same combination of shortsightedness and hubris that killed Eastman Kodak.

They essentially invented digital photography, back in the 1970s, but the management didn't want it to cannibalize their bread and butter film sales. So they sat on the patents and basically did nothing with them. Once the patents expired, it was too late for Kodak to dominate the industry, and the technology took off and killed the film market anyway. A great video presentation by former Kodak engineer Steve Sasson is available here:

http://vimeo.com/31404047

, which goes into the technical details of the invention, and touches on the piss-poor business decisions that eventually killed the company.

Quote:

Originally Posted by N2IXK (Post 3072833)

Another reason for the digital 'replacement' of film would be the quality of the laboratory work on the 35mm film went to pot. Towards the end of film in my theatre, I could see the image on the screen bouncing up and down like crazy, and I knew for a fact that it was not a defect in my machines. The film printers were being run so fast that there was no way for the image to stablize as the transfer was being made to the film stock.

Kodak Vision Premier film is probably the best color stock they ever made.

But no, Hollywood spread the word about the flicker free image on digital and acted like film was so old school, even though they had made quality prints for 100 years that won technical awards for the industry.

I'm still watching Kodak die. I truly hate seeing this.

Kodak was always destined for disaster with the digital revolution.

From the very beginning it was "You snap the shutter, we do the rest". In
other words, they were a photofinishing company. They did it, and sold
supplies for others to do it. Film (i.e. camera film) was secondary. They
were never seriously in the camera business. True, they sold cameras, but
except for a peak in the 1930s they never sold many non-toy cameras.
Starting in the 60s they intentionally started making crappy tiny-frame cameras!
Some of the 30s cameras were excellent, but they never tried to sell them
in large numbers. Look around in any tourist site today ... you will see lots and
lots of expensive Nikon and Canon cameras. If there's a strange bird around
you will see lots of big white $3000-7000 lenses too! Today the money is in
cameras and the computers people look at the pictures on, at least mostly.
Hard copies are less common, and many are inkjet.

Today cameraphones are the modern equivalent of the old Instamatics. And few pictures actually get printed as Kodak photos, or on inkjets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wa2ise (Post 3072741)

there was talk of RCA getting into home computers... RCA abandoned the idea when they realized that they would do little more than say "Me too".

Probably a good decision. Remember how well Mattel did with their computer.

And Zenith tried to get into computer too and failed. And so did Magnavox, and Coleco, and Timex, and Panasonic, and Atari, etc.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by egrand (Post 3073135)

And Zenith tried to get into computer too and failed. And so did Magnavox, and Coleco, and Timex, and Panasonic, and Atari, etc.....

IIRC, Philco was an early player, as well.
They were building some computer equipment for the government in the late 50's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wa2ise (Post 3072303)

I was there....

I was at RCA in Indianapolis