The first TV in the USSR - mechanical, electronic and color

Today, TV is the prose of life, it's impossible for anyone to surprise them. Every family man knows that lying on the couch looking at his screen is the best way to anger any, most patient wife. And there were times when this electronic device was fascinating, surprising and inspiring the hope for the omnipotence of technological progress.

The first TV in the USSR was developed back in 1932. It was significantly different from the ones our contemporaries used to in the last half-century. Its main feature was the complete absence of much-needed, at first glance, details, like a kinescope.

The design was opto-electromechanical, and the image arose as a result of the rotation of a special disk, illuminated by a neon lamp. Naturally, the "picture" was cloudy and formed only 60 lines. The very concept was invented by the German engineer Nipkov, and the domestic receiver was created in Leningrad, Kozitsky. Based on the documented fact of the first video broadcast, held in the Soviet Union in 1931, it is believed that April 29 is the birthday of Soviet television.

Attempts to create a transmitting network of mass use were made in different countries, but the Second World War for a long time distracted the best minds of the planet from this issue, forcing them to engage in the invention of weapons. Before the war in the USSR, they managed to produce a small number of receivers of TK-1. This was the first television in the USSR equipped with an electron-beam tube.

People of the older generation often remember with nostalgia the lenses fixed in front of screens - "saucers", without which it was simply impossible to make out anything. Since 1948, regular video broadcasting has begun in Moscow, and in order for as many workers as possible to join a new type of propaganda, the first TV in the USSR, produced in mass printings, KVN-49, was put on the market. This name was deciphered not as a "cheerful and resourceful club", the abbreviation consisted of the first letters of the names of the engineers-developers: Koenigson, Warsaw and Nikolaevsky.

This was the first and last case in our country, when household appliances were named after its creators. The device was manufactured before 1962, then other brands of TVs appeared. The USSR became one of the largest producers of "blue screens" in the world, production facilities were put into operation at various enterprises, including those that specialized only previously on defense products.

In place of KVNu came the "Record" with its own unique scheme. This was the first TV in the USSR, the repair of which was simplified as much as possible due to the high degree of unification.

But progress does not stand still. At the forefront are qualitative indicators of receiving equipment. Among them - diagonal screen, reliability, beautiful appearance, user-friendliness and maintainability. But this is not enough, in the whole world the black and white image gradually goes down in history.

The first color television in the USSR was made in 1954, but the mass production of the "Rainbow" was mastered only by 1967, and then the broadcasts began in a new format borrowed from the French (SECAM). Until the mid-1970s, the possession of such a device was indicative of a high level of income, and cases when visitors came to look at this miracle of technology were not uncommon.

"Birches", "Horizons", "Rubies", "Electrons", "Shilyalis" were produced in the Soviet Union in large quantities and over time, despite considerable cost, became a scarce commodity. Ahead was the information-electronic revolution, the first "petrels" of which were those KVNs ...