John Logie Baird

By the mid 1920s there were several experimenters around the world all busy experimenting with their own flavour of mechanically-scanned television. First with a demonstration of 'true' television (by reflected light rather than back-lit silhouettes) was a Scotsman, John Logie Baird.

The years from 1927 to 1929 were Baird's most innovative. He experimented with all aspects of this new form of communications. These experiments made him a legend in his own lifetime. His mechanical approach allowed him to try out ideas that would not be possible in the electronic systems for many years to come. In fact, colour television, stereoscopic television and television by infra-red light were all demonstrated by Baird before 1930. His transmission of the image of a face across the Atlantic in 1928 was epoch-breaking, but as it was never repeated or developed further, it was merely a demonstration.

Like his contemporaries, his equipment contained no new major developments that could be attributed to him directly. Baird took Nipkow's scanning disc idea and the latest in electronics and developed this into the first demonstration of 'true' television in London, January 1926.