l was carried via radio between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. RCA acquired the rights to most of Jenkin's inventions when the Great Depression, in 1930, claimed Jenkins Television Corporation as one of its many casualties. Across the ocean, a Scot, John Logie Baird, was also experimenting with television. In April 1925, he exhibited a working prototype that produced a decidedly low- definition picture with eight lines of resolution. The demonstration featured two images: a wooden ventriloquist's dummy named Bill (who did little but sit quietly for the event), and the live moving head of His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII. As with Jenkins' television, Baird's system relied on Nipkow's disc to produce electro-mechanical images. What it lacked in electronic sophistication, it compensated for with results. Unlike Zworykin's transmissions that were crude outlines of a scanned object, Baird's system transmitted images complete with gradations of light and shade. Thus began the race for television. Baird was often at the head of the pack. In 1926, he offered the first formal public broadcast of his television system. Viewers could clearly see the head of Bill the dummy, back on the set for another go. The History and Technology of Analog Video It was a higher-definition Bill; Baird's screen now boasted 30 resolvable lines. Moreover, having just secured a radio license from the Post Office (which was also in charge of broadcasts), Baird was transmitting from his own experimental television station, 2TV, in Harrow, England. Signal plate Cesium silver droplets Lens forms optical image on array of droplets Scene in studio Picture current appears here Electron beam Deflection coils Electron gun Figure 5-3. Iconoscope (Michel Bayard) With the help of an investment firm (that apparently promoted the misconception that Baird had a monopoly on television), Baird formally launched the Baird Television Development Company, in 1927. Meanwhile, in America, researchers at Bell Labs developed an e