William Sommerwerck wrote:
I don't know. Why don't you list the ones you DO remember, then go
here http://www.tvhistory.tv/1950-59-ALL-USA.htm to fill in the
blanks? FYI: They list 104 TV manufacturers for the years 1950-1959,
running from A (Admiral) to Z (Zenith).


Thanks for the ref. At least 20% of the names were unfamiliar.

The most-interesting was "Natalie Kalmus", the woman whose name appears as
"Technicolor consultant" on pre-1950 films. She was the once-wife of Herbert
Kalmus, the principal developer of Technicolor.



My first job out of grad school in 1958 was with an R&D company,
Comstock and Wescott, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Before WWII ("The big
one") the company's name was Kalmus, Comstock and Wescott, and I came to
know them as the developers of the Technicolor color movie process
through that association.

When I joined them one of the products they had already developed and
were trying to make a market for was a combination household
refrigerator and domestic water heater. The heater tank was on top of an
upright refrigerator and served as the condenser for the refrigeration
system, recovering the heat removed from the refrigerator. They had
named it "Stator".

AFAIK that product never made it to market, possibly because it was too
tall for the reduced ceiling heights prevalent after the war.

While I was working there they were also developing household heating
systems based on using off peak electrical energy to melt some kind of
salt with a high latent heat of fusion stored in multiple narrow
containers inside a "furnace plenum." The stored heat warmed air blown
over those containers and was used to provide forced air heating.

That one didn't take off back then either, but in the past year I've
seen reference to something under development (again) which sounded similar.

Thanks for the mammaries,

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
The speed of light is 1.8*10e12 furlongs per fortnight.