The history of the Sony Corporation and of television manufacturing overlaps in many aspects. In 1946, Tokyo Communication Industry Ltd., Sony's antecedents, was established, and developed Japan's first tape recorder, the Type G, in 1950, which used magnetic paper tapes that were later applied to VTRs. The company then started the development of a transistor radio as a consumer product. At that time, applying transistors with narrow bandwidth to audio products was thought to be impossible. But after acquiring the patent from the US-based Western Electric Manufacturing Company, whose R&D department, the Bell Telephone Laboratories, invented the transistor in 1948, and carrying out its own research, Sony introduced the TR-55, a portable radio, into the market. Subsequently, transistor technology was developed further and then applied to television. As far as direct-view television is concerned, in 1959, Sony sold the world's first portable transistor television, the TV6-301. In 1965, Sony started to sell the Chromatron color television, and then introduced the Trinitron television with its KV-1310-model in 1968. Previous television screens were curved in all the dimensions, but with the Chromatron and the Trinitron, they became flatter, and the Trinitron also used a new cathode ray system with a three-beam aperture grille In the 1990s, screens finally became flat. Sony quickly developed the Super Trinitron tube (1992) and the full flat FD Trinitron tube (1996), increasing the products in the field of domestic high definition and wide screen TV. Television was required and developed as a "window on the world." If so, should the shape of a TV be a "window"? In contrast to the TV8-301, which was miniaturized for portability, the <BRAVIA ZX1> is wide, bright and provides undistorted information-a design that certainly is reminiscent of a big window. The battle between the brands for "flatness and wideness" will probably go on, but I would like to record that the <BRAVIA ZX1> is an examplary product that realized a "window." |