The other week I discovered an item that at first glance looks quite unexciting but is actually a very significant object in the prehistory of Cinema. It is the eye cover (cowl) from the original US patent model for an optical toy called the Kinematoscope. Invented by a noted Philadelphia-based engineer named Coleman Sellers II...Read More

(All references have been included as links within the text.) When one mentions fax machines, it is natural to think of those 1980s and 90s machines we all proudly owned to send illegible hand scrawled messages to the distant family or boss. However few people realise that the first attempts at the fax machine really...Read More

95 years ago the Scottish Inventor John Logie Baird (known to his friends as JLB) became the first person in the world to create the first flickering images of what we would call television. His practical tests had taken just 2 years of intense dedication, had nearly electrocuted him on one occasion and had soaked...Read More

Perhaps more than any other medium, Television has always courted controversy and admiration at the same time. From the time we are old enough to watch the screen it is hammered into us that it is both a source of pleasure and guilt. Who amongst us does not remember our parents scaring us with phrases...Read More

If you are nerdy enough like me to have an interest in the history and development of the humble television remote controller, then (like me) you’ll know that the information out there on the internet is currently pretty one-sided. While every country of course created their own range of television products, the remote-control market was...Read More

Today video chatting is an integral part of most of our lives as business, family and friends spread themselves ever wider around the world. For many including myself such communication enabling services including Skype, Messenger, Whatsapp, Google chat, Viber and more are no longer considered mere luxuries, but necessities for social survival. But while such...Read More

    The days following Christmas are a time when everyone gets to put their feet up, turn on the Television and get lost in the inevitable re-runs of seasonal classics and wholesome family gameshows. It is a ritual we quietly revel in and is only made sweeter by the sparkling technicolour of the images...Read More

  When you think of space age design, it is usually the 1950s or 60s that will instantly spring to mind. Who can ignore those spindly atomic legs on a sideboard, bold geometric patterns on the curtains or Jetsons-style tailfins on the Cadillac. Indeed as the world geared up to watch the first rockets orbit...Read More

    (As published in West Country Life- April 2018)   If you wanted to wow your friends back in 1982, then few items would impress them as much as the Seiko T001 TV Watch. At first glance it looked much like any other stainless steel digital watch of the time and offered the same...Read More

As I sit and write my TV is in front of me. It is not on because our controller has recently died, and the thought of actually standing up to turn the TV on seems like too much of an effort right now! For those who blame the sofa for the laziness and obesity epidemics...Read More