Zenith Radio Corporation

Other

Tektronix, Inc.

Zenith Electronics Corporation

Myt Works, Inc.

James W Schwartz

Allen P Blacker, Jr

Etienne Sauret

Melvin H Boldt

Leonard Dietch

Norman F Gioia

William A Rowe

Michael W Retsky

Richard L Hockenbrock

Valentijn B Bing

Peter E Loeffler

Franklyn P Gautier

John A Christensen

A track system on which a skater dolly can roll, comprising one or more pairs of rails and one or more rail clamps. Each rail clamp supports one or two pairs of rails. Rails held side-by-side are parallel to each other. Rail clamps can also secure two rails in end-to-end configuration. The distance between rails can be about 5/16 of an inch. The track system can include a skater dolly, the load-bearing wheels of which are angled 20-30 degrees away from vertical to provide clearance past the rail clamps. The skater also has stabilizing wheels that are approximately perpendicular to the load-bearing wheels, and which secure the skater to the rails when the skater is in a non-upright e.g. upside-down orientation. The system can include a motor pulley system that moves the skater along the rails.

Camera skater dolly, rail and clamp system

A high brightness panel display (20) includes a plurality of discrete gas discharge cells (24) sealed against a phosphor-carrying front panel section (26) and operable to produce a high brightness display. Gas discharges are ignited and extinguished in selected gas discharge cells (24) to excite or extinguish associated pixels P.sub.m,n that are formed in portions of phosphor strips (35) on the front panel section (26). The gas discharge cells (24) are controlled with electrodes that are common to several cells but driven so that a gas discharge can be ignited or extinguished in one cell without effecting any other cell. Consequently, the pixels may have a 100% per-frame duty cycle, thereby producing very high brightness.

High brightness panel display device

An ultra-compact projection television receiver is disclosed comprising cabinet means for enclosing the components of the receiver. The receiver has vertically arranged elevatable rear projection screen means selectively storable in the receiver. Means are included for elevating the screen means from a first receiver-inoperable position wherein the screen means is stored in the cabinet and the receiver is substantially as compact as a conventional large-screen console television receiver. In a second, elevated receiver-operable position, the screen means is emerged from the cabinet and is capable of displaying an image with an area greater than three times the image area on a conventional console television receiver.

Ultra-compact projection television receiver

Apparatus and method is disclosed for spot-knocking a cathode ray picture tube by beneficial arcing between selected electrodes of an electron gun sealed in the evacuated envelope of the tube. The invention is particularly useful in spot-knocking certain cathode ray picture tubes having a resistive arc-suppression means and static elimination system. The picture tube has an inherent capacitance that can store energy in an amount capable of inducing destructive arcing during spot-knocking. In one embodiment of the invention, a bipolar potential is applied across the electrodes to be spot-knocked, resulting in the amount of energy in the induced arcing, for a given applied potential, being very much less than would be the case if a unipolar potential were applied. Other embodiments include resistive means and spark gap means for discharging the voltage between lead-in pins before a destructive arc can occur therebetween.

Apparatus and method for spot-knocking television picture tube electron

This disclosure depicts a television picture tube subject to an undesired build-up of localized high-potential static charges and high-potential charge retention. The tube is characterized by a resistive coating deposited on at least one of the normally uncoated outer areas of the tube and in contact with the conductive coating to disperse any static charges by means of a flow of electrons through the resistive coating. The 'rush' of electrons which may cause an annoying crackling sound upon tube turn-on and turn-off is attenuated thereby to suppress the sound, and any residual high-potential charges remaining after turn-off are discharged to ground.

High potential static discharge means for television cathode ray tubes

This disclosure depicts a television cathode ray picture tube having a plural-beam electron gun for projecting in superimposition on the picture imaging screen of the tube at least two electron beam spots. The gun includes at least one aperture electrode having an aperture for passage therethrough of each of said beams. The beams are subject to a first-order aberration attributable to the aperture electrode resulting in the astigmatizing, and consequent distortion of, the beam spots. This astigmatizing is due to the coalescing of electric field vectors contiguous to each aperture with the vectors of at least one adjacent aperture. The improvement comprises shielding means interposed between the apertures comprising wall means. The wall means are effective to mutually shield the apertures and isolate the electric field vectors to ameliorate the first order aberration. The wall means introduces, however, higher-order aberrations due to a disordering of the electric field vectors resulting in forms of beam spot distortion other than astigmatic. The improvement further comprises a configuration of the wall means wherein a section of the wall means comprises a cut-out. The cut-out is shaped so as to be effective to re-order the vectors and ameliorate the effect of the higher order aberrations. As a result, the electron gun having aperture electrodes is enabled to project substantially undistorted beam spots.

Television picture tubes having an electron gun with aperture electrode

A color television receiver system has a cathode ray picture tube including an imaging faceplate having deposits of multi-color phosphor targets thereon. The tube includes a three-beam electron gun and a color selection aperture mask having apertures in registration with the targets. A beam-current-control signal is derived from the scansion circuit means of the receiver system; the amplitude of the signal varies monotonically as a function of the distance of the beams from the center of the faceplate. Means are provided for receiving the beam-current-control signal for modulating the receiver system luminance signal with the beam-current-control signal, which has such characteristics that the modulation causes a predetermined gradational reduction in beam current as a function of the distance of the beam from the center of the faceplate. The benefits include enhanced color purity and improved resolution, and energy savings.

Television picture tube having enhanced resolution and color purity

This disclosure depicts an electron gun especially for use in a color cathode ray tube of the small-neck, shadow-mask type. The gun design is also applicable to other television cathode ray tube displays that require a gun that provides small, symmetrical spots of uniform cross-section, such as guns used in monochrome television and beam index tubes. The gun is comprised essentially of a four-element tetrode section and a main focus lens section. The tetrode section generates at least one electron beam and a cross-over that is imaged on the screen of the tube focused by the main focus lens. The tetrode section is characterized by having a strong prefocus; that is, a prefocus in which the electron trajectories are substantially refracted, or bent, before exiting the tetrode section. The tetrode section has two associated grid means whose dimensions, configurations, and relative spacings, in combination with a strong electrostatic prefocusing field produced between said grids, forms in the grid interspace an electrostatic field which includes in the region of the beam strongly bent, preferably substantially hyperboloidal equipotential lines which help to suppress spherical aberration commonly associated with a highly refractive tetrode section design.

Tetrode section for a unitized, three-beam electron gun having an

This disclosure depicts an image display panel partitioned into two distinct sections comprising a high voltage front section and a low voltage rear section. An electron source means located in the low-voltage rear section is disposed along a row-wise edge of the panel for generating a supply of electrons. A plurality of low-energy electron beams drawn from the electron source means are formed, shaped and modulated. Each beam is directed into a beam guide-isolator responsive to relatively low applied beam control voltages. The beams are further directed by the plurality of beam guide-isolators perpendicular to said edge and parallel to the image display panel faceplate, and are repetitively, and preferably substantially periodically, focused and refocused to constrain the electrons from leaving the beam guide-isolators. Beam diverting means responsive to the application of relatively low applied beam diverting voltages sharply divert the beams through apertures in the beam guide-isolators from selected precise positions opposite the faceplate. The electrons of each beam are accelerated to a high energy in the high voltage front section to activate cathodoluminescent phosphor targets.

Electron beam cathodoluminescent panel display

An improved internal voltage divider for use in a television cathode ray tube is disclosed that provides one or more temperature-invariant voltages. The tube is subject to internal spatial temperature patterns fixed or varying with time which are incidental to tube warm-up and operation. The voltage divider according to the invention is comprised of at least two electrically series connected resistive sections having like temperature coefficients, and having resistive values of the same order of magnitude. Each section is so positioned and arranged relative to the aforesaid temperature patterns as to have similar average temperature experiences. The voltage divider is connected between a relatively high anode voltage and a suitable low-voltage terminal for receiving a relatively low voltage through the base of the tube. Means are provided for tapping off at least one temperature-invariant intermediate voltage. Due to the similiarity of the spatial average temperature experiences of the resistive sections comprising the voltage divider, the ratio of the resistive values of the resistive sections, and thus the ratio of voltage drops thereacross does not change despite variations in the temperature patterns. An associated method provides for positioning and arranging the discrete sections comprising the voltage divider.

Television cathode ray tube having a voltage divider providing

This disclosure depicts an image display panel partitioned into two distinct sections comprising a high voltage front section and a low voltage rear section. An electron source means located in the low-voltage rear section is disposed along a row-wise edge of the panel for generating a supply of electrons. A plurality of low-energy electron beams drawn from the electron source means are formed, shaped and modulated. Each beam is directed into a beam guide-isolator responsive to relatively low applied beam control voltages. The beams are further directed by the plurality of beam guide-isolators perpendicular to said edge and parallel to the image display panel faceplate, and are repetitively, and preferably substantially periodically, focused and refocused to constrain the electrons from leaving the beam guide-isolators. Beam diverting means responsive to the application of relatively low applied beam diverting voltages sharply divert the beams through apertures in the beam guide-isolators from selected precise positions opposite the faceplate. The electrons of each beam are accelerated to a high energy in the high voltage front section to activate cathodoluminescent phosphor targets. Means are disclosed for confining the upward travel of the beam and for diverting the beam towards a faceplate; the means comprise pairs of opposed parallel walls having deposited thereon at least two electrode patterns each electrically linked to a substantially mirror-image electrode pattern deposited on the opposed parallel wall.

This disclosure depicts a television cathode ray tube including an evacuated glass envelope having on an external surface of a funnel portion thereof an outer conductive coating and on an internal surface thereof an inner conductive coating for receiving a high voltage charge. The tube has an electron gun located in a neck of the funnel. The tube is characterized by having an arc-suppression and static-elimination system comprising a discrete, non-distributed arc suppression resistor having a relatively low stray capacitance and having a dynamic impedance value in the range of a few kilohms to tens of megohms, and means for electrically and mechanically coupling said arc suppression resistor between said inner conductive coating and said electron gun, and in electrically parallel combination with said arc suppression resistor, an antistatic coating deposited on an inner surface of the neck around the beam egress from said gun and having a dynamic impedance value which is greater than that of said arc suppression resistor such that said resistor carries the major part of any arc currents flowing through said system, whereby effective arc suppression and static elimination are achieved with high dynamic impedance and with an insubstantial likelihood of said system being by-passed as a result of stray capacitance in the neck region of the tube.

Arc suppression and static elimination system for a television CRT

Arc-inhibiting means for a television picture tube having an electron gun with a main focus lens section of the extended field type. The lens establishes an extended, axially continuously active focusing field which is substantially shielded from external field disturbances. There exist widely disparate potentials with a potential difference in the range of tens of kilovolts across the gap between a grid means of an electron source means and an initial end electrode of the main focus lens. The potential difference is sufficient to introduce a tendency toward destructive arcing between the grid means and the initial end electrode. The electron gun according to the invention is characterized by having at least one arc-inhibiting electrode disposed between the grid means and the initial end electrode, and having a potential thereon that is intermediate to the disparate potentials to provide an arc-inhibiting voltage gradient between the grid means and the initial end electrode.

Electron gun having an arc-inhibiting electrode

This disclosure depicts a method useful in the manufacture of a color cathode ray tube of the type having a phosphor screen and spaced therefrom a tensed color selection electrode. The method is a method of installing the electrode such that under normal tube operating conditions, the electrode is held by a holder in a hypertensed state and is thus capable of withstanding an unusually high electron beam bombardment before relaxing. In a preferred execution the method comprises selecting for the electrode a material which has a significantly higher coefficient of thermal expansion than that of the holder. The electrode and the holder are externally heated together, as by an oven, while the electrode is tensed. Simultaneously therewith, a selective auxiliary heating of the electrode is expected, as by passing an electrical current through the electrode, or by RF heating, such that the holder is heated to a predetermined first elevated temperature significantly greater than the first temperature, the holder and electrode thus being caused to thermally expand, but the electrode by a greater amount. The electrode is affixed to the holder. Finally, the electrode and holder are cooled to room temperature so as to hypertense the electrode due to the greater coefficient of thermal expansion and temperature fall of the electrode than the holder.

Growing community of inventors

Deerfield, IL, United States of America

James W Schwartz