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116-485: In September 1971, RCA decided to exit the mainframe computer business after losing about half a billion dollars trying (and failing) to compete against IBM . They sold most of the assets of the computer division what was then Univac . This included RCA 's Spectra series of computers, various external hardware designs (such as video terminals, tape drives and punched card readers), and its operating system, Time Sharing Operating System (TSOS). TSOS may have been

232-478: A cursor which indicated that only text after the cursor was to be recognized. It also supported special scroll mode in a subset of the screen, or "window" in which, instead of the entire screen scrolling upward when the last line is displayed, it was possible to make the scroll area only the bottom half of the screen. A distinction was made between interactive (timesharing) terminals and transactional terminals. Where interactive terminals were controlled directly by

348-470: A "volume group". Owners could be defined in order to limit access to sensitive data. Once mounted and attached to an active task, the entire volume group could not be dismounted until all attached tasks either released it or terminated. Every disk available to the system was part of a volume group, even if there was only one volume in the group. Volume groups could be designated as removable or fixed. Fixed volume groups could not be removed at any time. This

464-560: A $ 490 million company loss. Sperry Rand 's UNIVAC division took over the RCA computer division in January 1972. Univac did not want the Spectra computers because they were similar to its own 9000 series; instead, they wanted RCA's computer customer base. On January 1, 1965, Robert Sarnoff succeeded his father as RCA's president, although the elder Sarnoff remained in control as chairman of

580-400: A 60%–40% ratio in output between the two companies. Although the patent cross-licensing agreements had been intended to give the participants domination of equipment sales, the tremendous growth of the market led to fierce competition, and in 1925 RCA fell behind Atwater Kent as the leader in receiver sales. RCA was particularly hamstrung by the need to coordinate its sales within the limits of

696-443: A better operating system from a user standpoint than any of IBM's, but at the time, operating systems were not considered something sold separately from the computer, the manufacturer included it free as part of the purchase price. Univac introduced some additional new features to TSOS, and renamed it VS/9. The name 'TSOS' however, remained as the username of the primary privileged (System Manager) account, which on Unix -type systems,

812-607: A commercial version of his prototype system could be produced in a relatively short time for $ 100,000. Following what would actually be many years of additional research and millions of dollars, RCA demonstrated an all-electronic black-and-white television system at the 1939 New York World's Fair . RCA began regular experimental television broadcasting from the NBC studios to the New York metropolitan area on April 30, 1939, via station W2XBS, channel 1 (which evolved into WNBC channel 4) from

928-535: A company whose holdings included motion picture theaters. The theaters in which RKO had an interest provided a potential market for the RCA Photophone sound systems. RCA ownership of RKO stock expanded from about one quarter in 1930 to about 61% in 1932. RKO encountered severe financial problems, going into receivership from early 1933 until 1940. RCA sold its holdings in the studio to raise funds for its basic operations. After years of industry complaints that

1044-406: A cross-licensing agreement, effective July 1, 1921, that included a concession that 40% of RCA's equipment purchases would be from Westinghouse. Following these transactions, GE owned 30.1% of RCA's stock, Westinghouse 20.6%, AT&T 10.3%, and United Fruit 4.1%, with the remaining 34.9% owned by individual shareholders. In 1930, RCA agreed to occupy the yet-to-be-constructed landmark skyscraper of

1160-417: A file could not have two consecutive periods. To access a file in another account, it was necessary for a user in that account to make the file public. If the file was public, it could be accessed by another user by prefixing the name of the file with the indicator that a file being referenced is in another account, which was the dollar sign ("$ "), followed by the account name, followed by a period. If there

1276-434: A fully independent company. As a result, GE and Westinghouse gave up their ownership interests in RCA, while RCA was allowed to keep its factories. To give RCA a chance to establish itself, GE and Westinghouse were required to refrain from competing in the radio business for the next two and one-half years. RCA began television development in early 1929, after an overly optimistic Vladimir K. Zworykin convinced Sarnoff that

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1392-859: A high-powered Alexanderson alternator , built by General Electric (GE), at the American Marconi transmitter site in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It proved to be superior for transatlantic transmissions to the Spark-gap transmitters that had been traditionally used by the Marconi companies. Marconi officials were so impressed by the capabilities of the Alexanderson alternators that they began making preparations to adopt them as their standard transmitters for international communication. A tentative plan made with General Electric proposed that over

1508-522: A joint new company, RCA initially had little true interest in the phonograph record business. The management of RCA was interested essentially in Victor's superior sales capabilities through the record company's large network of authorized distributors and dealers, as well as the extensive, efficient manufacturing facilities in Camden, New Jersey . Immediately following the purchase of Victor, RCA began planning

1624-471: A limited market of amateur radio enthusiasts. By 1922, the rise of broadcasting had dramatically increased the demand for radio equipment by the general public, and this development was reflected in the title of RCA's June 1, 1922, catalog, "Radio Enters the Home". RCA began selling receivers under the "Radiola" name, marketing equipment produced by GE and Westinghouse under the production agreement that allocated

1740-534: A major producer of vacuum tubes, which were branded Radiotron in the United States. Especially after the rise of broadcasting, they were a major profit source for the company. RCA's strong patent position meant that the company effectively set the selling prices for vacuum tubes in the U.S., which were significantly higher than in Europe, where Lee de Forest had allowed a key patent issued to him to lapse. RCA

1856-406: A major proponent of the 8-track tape cartridge , which it launched in 1965. Initially, the 8-track made a huge and profitable impact on consumers of recorded music. Sales of the 8-track tape format began to decline during the late 1970s when consumers increasingly favored the 4-track compact cassette tape format developed by Philips . RCA was one of a number of companies in the 1960s that entered

1972-454: A port was designated an interactive port, it was controlled by the timesharing services integrated into the VMOS or VS/9 operating system. Transactional ports, on the other hand, were controlled by COS. All terminals connected to these ports became the "property" of the respective controlling host software. Timesharing was used for program development allowing much faster program development than

2088-439: A remote batch device consisted of a card reader and a printer connected to a communication line which interfaced with the remote batch services in the operating system. Like a local batch job, operators could receive requests for tape or disk mounts/dismounts and program prompts for responses to questions. VS/9 managed tasks by task type. Task types could be either executing programs or queues of pending tasks. The following were

2204-475: A short distance from the match site, and operating under the call letters WJY . For the broadcast White and Sarnoff telephoned commentary from ringside, which was typed up and then read over the air by J. Owen Smith. The demonstration was a technical success, with a claimed audience of 300,000 listeners throughout the northeast. RCA quickly moved to expand its broadcasting activities. In the fall of 1921, it set up its first full-time broadcasting station, WDY , at

2320-547: A similar agreement with China in 1932. RCA claimed this was breach of contract on the grounds that its 1928 agreement had given it exclusive rights. The dispute went to arbitration, and in 1935 a decision, issued in Radio Corporation of America v China , concluded the Mackay concession was valid, because the earlier RCA concession had not granted exclusive rights. The introduction of organized radio broadcasting in

2436-776: A simple receiver using a curtain rod as an antenna, matching, at a small fraction of the cost, the performance of the massive alternator transmitters. In 1926, Harold H. Beverage further reported that a shortwave signal, transmitted on a 15-meter wavelength (approximately 20 MHz), was received in South America more readily during the daytime than the 200-kilowatt alternator transmissions. The Alexanderson alternators, control of which had led to RCA's formation, were now considered obsolete, and international radio communication would be primarily conducted using vacuum tube transmitters operating on shortwave bands. RCA would continue to operate international telecommunications services for

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2552-612: A station's normal transmission frequency – Westinghouse's Frank Conrad unexpectedly found that in some cases the harmonics could be heard farther than the primary signal, something previously thought impossible, as high-frequency shortwave signals, which had poor groundwave coverage, were thought to have a very limited transmission range. In 1924, Conrad demonstrated to Sarnoff that a low-powered shortwave station in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania could be readily received in London by

2668-447: A transmission rate of a billion or more bits of information a second ... Eventually, a global communications network handling voice, data and facsimile will instantly link man to machine—or machine to machine—by land, air, underwater, and space circuits. [The computer] will affect man's ways of thinking, his means of education, his relationship to his physical and social environment, and it will alter his ways of living. ... [Before

2784-401: A two-year period the Marconi companies would purchase most of GE's alternator production. However, the U.S. Navy objected to the plan, fearing British domination in international radio communications and the national security concerns this raised. The Navy, claiming support from U.S. President Woodrow Wilson , looked for an alternative that would result in an "all-American" company taking over

2900-443: Is called 'root'. RCA also sold TSOS to what would become Fujitsu , and it is the basis for Fujitsu's BS2000 operating system on its mainframes of the same name. Interactive use of VS/9 was done through terminals connected to a terminal concentrator unit, which passed control signals to and from the terminals, in a manner similar to the way IBM would provide with its IBM 3270 -style terminals. This provided, in general, for input to

3016-510: The EDT editor program, one would issue the command to run a program, EXEC, followed by the name of the file, which was called EDT. So, if the user had not created a file named EDT, they could execute the EDT editor by typing and pressing the transmit key. If they had, for some reason, created a program of the same name, to use the system editor, they would have to type or they could explicitly type in

3132-897: The Rockefeller Center complex, 30 Rockefeller Plaza , which in 1933 became known as the RCA Building (renamed the GE Building in 1988 and currently known as the Comcast Building after Comcast acquired NBC). This lease was critical for enabling the massive project to proceed as a commercially viable venture—David Rockefeller cited RCA's action as being responsible for "the salvation of the project". RCA's primary business objectives at its founding were to provide equipment and services for seagoing vessels, and "worldwide wireless" communication in competition with existing international undersea telegraph cables. To provide

3248-509: The cathode ray-tube (CRT) picture tube itself. The rapid rise of radio broadcasting during the early 1920s, which provided unlimited free entertainment in the home, had a detrimental effect on the American phonograph record industry. The Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey , was then the world's largest manufacturer of records and phonographs , including its popular showcase "Victrola" line. In January 1929, RCA purchased

3364-545: The American Marconi assets. In April 1919, two naval officers, Admiral H. G. Bullard and Commander S. C. Hooper , met with GE president, Owen D. Young and requested a suspension of the pending alternator sales to the Marconi companies. This would leave General Electric without a buyer for its transmitters, so the officers proposed that GE purchase American Marconi, and use the assets to form its own radio communications subsidiary. Young consented to this proposal, which, effective November 20, 1919, transformed American Marconi into

3480-501: The F1 key on a Univac VDT) or had used the LOAD command instead of EXEC, one would be in "break mode" in which the program was suspended to allow the user to be at command mode. They could issue the above commands as well the following: File names could be up to 56 characters in length. A file could consist of letters, numbers, dashes, and digits. A file name of all digits was permissible, but

3596-590: The FCC adopted a standard for color television that had been promoted by CBS, but the effort soon failed, primarily because the color broadcasts could not be received by existing black-and-white sets. As the result of a major research push, RCA engineers developed a method of "compatible" color transmissions that, through the use of interlacing, simultaneously broadcast color and black-and-white images, which could be picked up by both color and existing black-and-white sets. In 1953, RCA's all-electronic color television technology

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3712-425: The FCC stepped in to limit its broadcasts. Following the adoption of National Television System Committee (NTSC) recommended standards, the FCC authorized the start of commercial television broadcasts on July 1, 1941. The entry of the United States into World War II a few months later greatly slowed its deployment, but RCA resumed selling television receivers almost immediately after the war ended in 1945. In 1950,

3828-655: The GE/Westinghouse production quotas, and often had difficulty keeping up with industry trends. However, the company made a key advance in early 1924 when it began selling the first superheterodyne receivers, whose high level of performance increased the brand's reputation and popularity. RCA was the exclusive manufacturer of superheterodyne radio sets until 1930. All RCA receivers were battery powered until late 1927 when plug-in AC sets were introduced, providing another boost in sales. RCA inherited American Marconi's status as

3944-527: The MCC running in emulation mode were "dumb" hardware interfaces. That is, all the network protocol intelligence, including terminal polling, error recovery, and message construction resided in the mainframe, while the CCM and MCC simply acted as conduits between the mainframe and the phone lines. It was not until the MCC was used as a true front end processor that much of this overhead (such as polling and error recovery)

4060-536: The NBC name and remained under RCA ownership until 1986. For two decades the NBC radio network's roster of stars provided ratings consistently surpassing those of its main competitor, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). But in 1948, as the transition from radio to television was beginning, NBC's leadership came under attack due to what became known as the "Paley raids", named after the president of CBS, William S. Paley . After World War II

4176-565: The RCA brand name and trademarks to several other companies, including Voxx International , Curtis International, AVC Multimedia, TCL Corporation and Express LUCK International, Ltd. for their various products. RCA originated as a reorganization of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America (commonly called "American Marconi"). In 1897, the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company, Limited,

4292-493: The Radio Corporation of America. The decision to form the new company was promoted as a patriotic gesture. The corporate officers were required to be citizens of the United States, with a majority of the company stock to be held by U.S. citizens. Upon its founding, RCA was the largest radio communications firm in the United States. Most of the former American Marconi staff continued to work for RCA. Owen Young became

4408-656: The Roselle Park, New Jersey company plant. By 1923, RCA was operating three stations—WJZ (now WABC ) and WJY in New York City, and WRC (now WTEM ) in Washington, D.C. A restriction imposed by AT&T's interpretation of the patent cross-licensing agreements required that the RCA stations remain commercial free, and they were financed by profits from radio equipment sales. Beginning in 1922, AT&T became heavily involved in radio broadcasting, and soon became

4524-490: The U.S. entered the war in December 1941. During World War II, RCA was involved in radar and radio development in support of the war effort, and ranked 43rd among United States corporations in the value of wartime military production contracts. One such contract was to outfit the battleship USS Texas with a 400-megahertz pulse radar set, using technology developed by RCA acoustics scientist, Irving Wolff . During and after

4640-651: The United States entered World War II, the cornerstone was laid for a research and development facility in Princeton, New Jersey called RCA Laboratories. Led for many years by Elmer Engstrom , it was used to develop many innovations, including color television , the electron microscope , CMOS -based technology, heterojunction physics, optoelectronic emitting devices , liquid crystal displays (LCDs), videocassette recorders , direct broadcast television, direct broadcast satellite systems and high-definition television . RCA plants switched to war production shortly after

4756-480: The United States; JVC retained the 'Victor' and "His Master's Voice" trademarks for use in Japan only. In 1955, RCA sold its Estate brand of large appliance operations to Whirlpool Corporation . As part of this transaction, Whirlpool was given the right to market "RCA Whirlpool" appliances through the mid-1960s. RCA manufactured equipment for repairing radios, such as oscilloscopes. RCA Graphic Systems Division (GSD)

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4872-582: The Univac standard terminal (from RCA) renamed to the Uniscope Video Display Terminal or VDT, as well as ordinary ASCII dumb terminals . Univac's Uniscope VDT provided sophisticated (for the time) editing capability including the ability to edit text on screen and make changes a line at a time or a page at a time, then transmit the text back to the computer. The VDT also supported direct cursor positioning and input protection through

4988-767: The Victor Talking Machine Company; this acquisition became known as the RCA Victor Division of the Radio Corporation of America, and included ownership of Victor's Japanese subsidiary, the Victor Company of Japan (JVC), formed in 1927 and controlling interest in The Gramophone Company Ltd. (later EMI Records ) in England. RCA's acquisition of the Victor company included the western hemisphere rights to

5104-619: The acting president of the National Amateur Wireless Association (NAWA), an organization originally formed by American Marconi which had been inherited by RCA. White agreed to recruit the NAWA membership for volunteers to provide assistance at the listening sites, and also enlisted David Sarnoff for financial and technical support. RCA was authorized to set up a temporary longwave radio station, located in Hoboken

5220-437: The area of vacuum tube technology and GE needed access to additional patents before its new subsidiary could be fully competitive. During this time American Marconi had been steadily falling behind others in the industry. The two companies entered into negotiations which resulted in a series of mutually beneficial cross-licensing agreements between themselves and various other companies in the industry. On July 1, 1920, an agreement

5336-549: The attic or basement. RCA Victor began selling the first all-electric Victrola in 1930 and in 1931 the company attempted to revitalize record sales with the introduction of 33 1 ⁄ 3 revolutions-per-minute (rpm) long play records, which were a commercial failure during the Great Depression, partly because the Victrolas with two speed turntables required to play them were exorbitantly expensive, and also because

5452-399: The audio performance of the new records was generally poor; the new format used the same groove size as existing 78 rpm records, and it would require the smaller-radius stylus of the later microgroove systems to achieve acceptable slower-speed performance. Additionally, the new long-play records were pressed in a pliable, vinyl-based material called "Victrolac" which wore out rapidly under

5568-471: The board. The younger Sarnoff sought to modernize RCA's image with the introduction in late 1968 of what was then a futuristic-looking new logo (the letters 'RCA' in block, modernized form), replacing the original lightning bolt logo, and the virtual retirement of both the Victor and Nipper/"His Master's Voice" trademarks. The RCA Victor Division was renamed RCA Records; the 'Victor' and 'Victrola' trademarks were no longer used on RCA consumer electronics. 'Victor'

5684-596: The capability to physically remove the actual disk from the device and replace it with another. Customers thus had the ability to store many times the capacity of their disk drives, albeit they could not necessarily be used simultaneously unless there were enough free disk drives. Limited disk storage space also presented users with another problem. Very often files would be larger than could be contained on one disk. Volume groups helped mitigate this technological problem by allowing files to span multiple disks. Volumes (disks) that had to be mounted simultaneously were designated

5800-429: The chairman of the board of the new company. Former American Marconi vice president and general manager E. J. Nally become RCA's first president. Nally was succeeded by Major General James G. Harbord , who served from 1922 until January 3, 1930, when Harbord replaced Owen Young as chairman of the board. David Sarnoff, who was RCA's founding general manager, became its third president on the same day. RCA worked closely with

5916-501: The company was rebounding by the mid-1980s, RCA never regained its former eminence and was reacquired by General Electric in 1986. This was during the Jack Welch era of GE and Welch began selling off or liquidating most of RCA's assets, retaining only NBC and government services. Today, RCA exists as a brand name only; the various RCA trademarks are currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment and Vantiva , which in turn license

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6032-445: The company's existence, RCA was closely identified with the leadership of David Sarnoff . He became general manager at the company's founding, served as president from 1930 to 1965, and remained active as chairman of the board until the end of 1969. During the 1970s, RCA's seemingly impregnable stature as a leader in technology, innovation and home entertainment began to weaken as the company attempted to expand beyond its main focus of

6148-675: The costs of providing programming threatened to exceed the funds available from equipment profits. The problem was resolved in 1926 when AT&T unexpectedly decided to exit the radio broadcasting field. RCA purchased, for $ 1,000,000, AT&Ts two radio stations, WEAF and WCAP in Washington, D.C., as well as its network operations. These assets formed the basis for the creation of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), with ownership divided between RCA (50%), General Electric (30%), and Westinghouse (20%) until 1930, when RCA assumed 100% ownership. This purchase also included

6264-524: The cross-licensing agreements between RCA, GE, and Westinghouse had in effect created illegal monopolies, the U.S. Department of Justice brought antitrust charges against the three companies in May 1930. After much negotiation, in 1932 the Justice Department accepted a consent agreement that removed the restrictions established by the cross-licensing agreements, and also provided that RCA would become

6380-475: The development and marketing of consumer electronics and communications into a diversified multinational conglomerate. Additionally, RCA began to face increasing domestic competition from international electronics firms such as Sony , Philips , Matsushita and Mitsubishi . RCA suffered enormous financial losses in the mainframe computer industry and other failed projects including the CED videodisc system. Although

6496-523: The directory S0103 and thus, they could not create files with the same name. Note that if there was an account name of, say, PA5, if there was a user named Pat, their identifier would be PA5, PAT and would be completely unrelated to any other user named Pat. Accounts could be given restrictions such as requiring a password to use, limits on amount of files, amount of usage, time of permitted usage (such as only allowing logons after 5 p.m. or before 8 a.m.) and CPU limits. A user could also issue commands to have

6612-478: The dominant radio communications company in the United States. When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the federal government took control of most civilian radio stations to use them for the war effort. Although the government planned to restore civilian ownership of the radio stations once the war ended, many United States Navy officials hoped to retain a monopoly on radio communication even after

6728-450: The early 1920s resulted in a dramatic reorientation and expansion of RCA's business activities. The development of vacuum tube radio transmitters made audio transmissions practical, in contrast with the earlier transmitters which were limited to sending the dits-and-dahs of Morse code . Since at least 1916, when he was still at American Marconi, David Sarnoff had proposed establishing broadcasting stations, but his memos to management promoting

6844-534: The early 1920s, RCA was at the forefront of the mushrooming radio industry as a major manufacturer of radio receivers , and the exclusive manufacturer of the first superheterodyne sets. The company also created the first nationwide American radio network, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). RCA was also a pioneer in the introduction and development of television, both black and white and especially color television . Throughout most of

6960-418: The end of that same year, David Sarnoff, after being incapacitated by a long-term illness, was removed as the company's chairman of the board. He died in December 1971. RCA's exit from the mainframe computer market in 1971 marked a milestone in its transition from electronics and technology toward Robert Sarnoff's goal to diversify RCA as a multinational business conglomerate . During the late 1960s and 1970s,

7076-701: The end of this century, these forces] will coalesce into what unquestionably will become the greatest adventure of the human mind." RCA marketed a Spectra 70 computer line that was hardware, but not software, compatible with IBM's System/360 series. It also produced the RCA Series, which competed against the IBM System/370 . This technology was leased to the English Electric company, which used it for their System 4 series, which were essentially RCA Spectra 70 clones. RCA's TSOS operating system

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7192-467: The federal government and felt it deserved to maintain its predominant role in U.S. radio communications. At the company's recommendation, President Wilson appointed Rear Admiral Bullard "to attend the stockholders' and director's meetings... in order that he may present and discuss informally the Government's views and interests". The radio industry had been making technical advances, particularly in

7308-455: The file simply as "A" or could reference it with a fully qualified file name by including a dollar sign and their own account name, followed by a period and the name. Public files in the special account TSOS could be accessed by using $ alone as the first character of the file, unless the file began with a name that was identical to an account number, in which case the explicit account reference $ TSOS . would be required. Also, $ TSOS .

7424-454: The first of five RCA plants to produce Madame X vacuum tubes, which included a proximity fuse used to electronically detonate its payload when it was in range of its target, as opposed to relying on a direct hit. James V. Forrestal, former secretary of the Navy said, "The proximity fuse had helped blaze the trail to Japan. Without the protection this ingenious device has given the surface ships of

7540-425: The fleet, our westward push could not have been so swift and the cost in men and ships would have been immeasurably greater." Greatly miniaturized Nuvistor tubes were a last major vacuum tube innovation, along with General Electric's Compactron , and were meant to compete with the newly introduced transistor. By 1975, RCA had completely switched from tubes to solid-state devices in their television sets, except for

7656-550: The heavy tonearms then in use. In 1934, following the debacle of its long-play record, RCA Victor introduced the Duo Jr., an inexpensive, small, basic electric turntable designed to be plugged into radio sets. The Duo Jr. was sold at cost, but was practically given away with the purchase of a certain number of Victor records. The Duo Jr.'s rock-bottom price helped to overcome the national apathy to phonographs, and record sales gradually began to recover. Around 1935, RCA began marketing

7772-405: The iconic Nipper /" His Master's Voice " trademark. RCA Victor popularized combined radio receiver-phonographs, and also created RCA Photophone , a movie sound-on-film system that competed with William Fox 's sound-on-film Movietone and Warner Bros. ' sound-on-disc Vitaphone . Although early announcements of the RCA and Victor merger stressed that the two firms were linking equally to form

7888-745: The idea for sales of a "Radio Music Box" had not been followed up at the time. Around 1920, a small number of broadcasting stations began operating, and soon interest in the innovation was spreading nationwide. In the summer of 1921, a Madison Square Garden employee, Julius Hopp, devised a plan to raise charitable funds by broadcasting, from ringside, the July 2, 1921 Dempsey-Carpentier heavyweight championship fight to be held in Jersey City, New Jersey. Hopp recruited theaters and halls as listening locations that would charge admission fees to be used as charitable donations. He also contacted RCA's J. Andrew White,

8004-653: The industry, in 1941 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) promulgated a rule designed to force NBC to divest one of them. This order was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, and on October 12, 1943, the NBC-Blue network was sold to candy magnate Edward J. Noble for $ 8,000,000, and renamed "The Blue Network, Inc." In 1946 the name was changed to the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The "Red" network retained

8120-419: The international service, the company soon undertook a massive project to build a "Radio Central" communications hub at Rocky Point, Long Island , New York, designed to achieve "the realization of the vision of communication engineers to transmit messages to all points of the world from a single centrally located source". Construction began in July 1920, and the site was dedicated on November 5, 1921, after two of

8236-454: The letter X followed by a quote and the 8-character hexadecimal value of their password. So if the account S0103 had the password (in hexadecimal) A0B0C0 and a space, then user LESLIE would logon to the system by typing If their credentials were incorrect, either because the account name, user name or password were incorrect, they would get the message, and would be given a / prompt to logon again. If their credentials were correct, then if

8352-408: The mainframe computer field to challenge the market leader International Business Machines (IBM). Although at this time computers were almost universally used for routine data processing and scientific research, in 1964 Sarnoff, who prided himself as a visionary, predicted that "The computer will become the hub of a vast network of remote data stations and information banks feeding into the machine at

8468-674: The majority of its stock was in foreign hands, and the British already largely controlled the international undersea telegraph cables. This concern was increased by the announcement in late 1918 of the formation of the Pan-American Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Company, a joint venture between American Marconi and the Federal Telegraph Company , with plans to set up service between the United States and South America. The Navy had installed

8584-528: The manufacture of radio sets and components on Victor's Camden assembly lines, while decreasing the production of Victrolas and records. The entire phonograph record industry in America nearly foundered after the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Great Depression . During the nadir of the record business in the early 1930s, the manufacture of phonographs and records all but ceased; extant older phonographs were now obsolete and many had been relegated to

8700-538: The modernistic RCA Victor M Special, a polished aluminum portable record player designed by John Vassos that has become an icon of 1930s American industrial design. In 1949, RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm "single" records, as a response to Columbia Records successful introduction of its microgroove 33 1 ⁄ 3  rpm " LP " format in 1948. As RCA Victor adopted Columbia's 33 1 ⁄ 3  rpm LP records in 1950, Columbia then adopted RCA Victor's 45 rpm records. RCA also made investments in

8816-586: The movie industry, but they performed poorly. In April 1928, RCA Photophone, Inc., was organized by a group of companies including RCA to develop sound-movie technology. In the fall of 1927, RCA had purchased stock in Film Booking Office (FBO), and on October 25, 1928, with the help of Joseph P. Kennedy , the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation (RKO) studio was formed by merging FBO with Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation (KAO),

8932-519: The new Empire State Building transmitter on top of the structure. Around this time, RCA began selling its first television set models, including the TRK-5 and TRK-9, in various New York stores. However, the FCC had not approved the start of commercial television operations, because technical standards had not yet been finalized. Concerned that RCA's broadcasts were an attempt to flood the market with sets that would force it to adopt RCA's current technology,

9048-464: The new industry's most important participant. From the beginning, AT&T's policy was to finance stations by commercial sponsorship of the programs. The company also created the first radio network, centered on its New York City station WEAF (now WFAN ), using its long-distance telephone lines to interconnect stations. This allowed them to economize by having multiple stations carry the same program. RCA and its partners soon faced an economic crisis, as

9164-432: The operating system, transactional terminals were controlled from a batch program. Initially, this batch program, known as MCP for Multichannel Communications Program, was developed for the RCA and Sperry batch-oriented operating systems, TDOS (Tape-Disk Operating System) and DOS (Disk Operating System). Once it became clear that they would be phased out in favor of the much more robust interactive operating system, VMOS, MCP

9280-437: The output hopper. If the card deck consisted of a valid login, it would process the card deck as a job to execute. VS/9 was controlled by a computer operator at the central site. Computer operators interacted with the system through a system console. Initially, this console was a teletype device, but was later upgraded to a video display device with an attached system console printer. All system console messages were logged to

9396-423: The performers, while Sarnoff professed his indifference to the defections, stating at an annual meeting that "Leadership built over the years on a foundation of solid service cannot be snatched overnight by buying a few high-priced comedians. Leadership is not a laughing matter." RCA acted as the sales agent for a small line of Westinghouse and GE branded receivers and parts used by home constructors, originally for

9512-497: The proposed twelve antenna spokes had been completed, and two of the 200-kilowatt alternators installed. The debut transmissions received replies from stations in 17 countries. Although the initial installation would remain in operation, the additional antenna spokes and alternator installations would not be completed, due to a major discovery about radio signal propagation. While investigating transmitter "harmonics" – unwanted additional radio signals produced at higher frequencies than

9628-525: The remainder of its existence, through its subsidiary RCA Communications, Inc., and later the RCA Global Communications Company. In 1975, the company formed RCA American Communications , which operated its Satcom series of geostationary communications satellites . International shortwave links were in turn largely supplanted by communications satellites, especially for distributing network radio and television programming. At

9744-665: The right to begin commercial operations. NBC formed two radio networks that eventually expanded nationwide: the NBC-Red Network , with flagship station WEAF, and NBC-Blue , centered on WJZ. Although NBC was originally promoted as expecting to just break even economically, it soon became extremely profitable, which would be an important factor in helping RCA survive the economic pressures of the Great Depression that began in late 1929. Concerned that NBC's control of two national radio networks gave it too much power over

9860-537: The system account When Unisys discontinued sales of the 9000 series mainframes in favor of the EXEC 8 series computers (probably because they were no longer cost effective, and the market for mainframes had shrank), VS/9 was effectively abandoned by the company. RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America . It

9976-446: The system console printer. Unsolicited messages originating in the operating system were also logged to the system console printer. Computer operators had a number of responsibilities: One of the more useful enhancements late in the life of VS/9 was volume groups. Disk technology at the time provided limited storage space on each disk. Since disk drives were comparatively large and quite expensive, manufacturers of disk drives provided

10092-573: The system interrupt a program if the current session used more than a certain amount of wall-clock or cpu time. A user at a terminal that was not logged on, who wanted to start a session would press the red Transmit key on a Univac VDT, or use Control + C on an ASCII terminal. VS/9 would issue the following response: Followed by a slash ("/"), and in the case of the Univac VDT, the prompt character, which looked like an inverse color greater than sign (">"). The user would logon by typing

10208-418: The system manager (the owner of account $ TSOS ) had posted a system message, it would display at this time. The user would be at command mode, and a standard / prompt would appear where they could type various commands. The user would finish their session by typing LOGOFF and pressing transmit on the Univac VDT or Control + C on an ascii terminal. Univac's VDT terminal had four function keys at

10324-425: The task types used by VS/9: MCP and COS were always type 2 tasks. The computer operator would see a count of the number of tasks within each queue on the system console. A complete list of the task queues was available from any interactive terminal with administrator access via a field-written program known as "Stat200". This program would scan the task queues every few seconds and display a rolling list of tasks on

10440-434: The tax rate for annual incomes above $ 70,000 was 77%, while capital gains were taxed at 25%. Paley worked out an accounting technique whereby individual performers could set up corporations that allowed their earnings to be taxed at the significantly lower rate. Instead of NBC responding with a similar package, Sarnoff decided that this accounting method was legally and ethically wrong. NBC's performers did not agree, and most of

10556-442: The terminal screen until it was interrupted or terminated. While not an officially released product, it became the de facto standard for task monitoring. VS/9 controlled access through the use of an account name and a user name. The account name was a 1 to 7 character identifier, and the user name was also a 1 to 8 character identifier. Identifiers for account names and user names could only be letters and numbers. The account name

10672-656: The terminal to be sent in response to an enter key, as opposed to the practice on PCs of taking input one character at a time. The concentrator unit was originally known as the Communications Control Module, or CCM. However, RCA had sold the patents and designs for its CCM terminal controller to Singer Corporation , so Univac developed an emulator device for the CCM which was known as the Multiterminal Connection Controller model 16, or MCC-16. The MCC-16 supported both

10788-508: The time RCA was founded in 1919, all radio and telegraphic communication between China and the US, including official messages, were sent through either German radio or British cable links. The U.S. Navy lobbied RCA to seek a concession for a radio link to China, however the company was reluctant because its other concessions were already operating at a loss. This link began operation in 1928. The Mackay Radio and Telegraph Company of California signed

10904-428: The top stars, including Amos and Andy , Jack Benny , Red Skelton , Edgar Bergen , Burns and Allen , Ed Wynn , Fred Waring , Al Jolson , Groucho Marx and Frank Sinatra moved from NBC to CBS. As a result, CBS boasted of having sixteen of the twenty top-rated programs in 1949. The consequences would carry over to television, where CBS maintained its newfound dominance for decades. Paley had personally worked to woo

11020-471: The top, and VS/9 specifically recognized them. VS/9 accepted commands by typing the command and any options. Commands issued in a batch stream either as cards or as a batch file required that they be preceded by a slash; commands entered at a terminal did not require use of the slash. Commands included the following: If one had issued a break to a running program (through the Break key on an ASCII terminal or

11136-457: The traditional batch process which was state of the art at the time. Each timesharing user was a task by itself and could execute programs, create files, and request system resources as needed. What made much of this possible was the operating system's ability to manage "virtual memory", or temporarily save pages of memory (including executing programs) to disk or drum while not in use and then retrieve them later as needed. Virtual memory page size

11252-479: The upper dozen or so top-rated programs" and "The popular programs, to put the matter bluntly, have very little appeal for him." RCA professional video cameras and studio gear, particularly of the TK-40/41 series, became standard equipment at many American television network affiliates, as RCA CT-100 ("RCA Merrill" to dealers) television sets introduced color television to the public. In 1941, shortly before

11368-519: The war, RCA set up several new divisions for defense, space exploration and other activities. The RCA Service Corporation provided large numbers of staff for the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line . RCA units won five Army–Navy "E" Awards for Excellence in production. Due to the hostilities between Japan and the United States during World War II , the Victor Company of Japan became an independent company after seceding from RCA Victor in

11484-470: The war. Contrary to instructions it had received, the Navy began purchasing large numbers of radio stations. When the war ended, Congress rejected the Navy's efforts to have peacetime control of the radio industry and instructed that the Navy return the stations it had taken control of to the original owners. Due to national security considerations, the Navy was particularly concerned about returning high-powered international stations to American Marconi, since

11600-446: The word ' logon followed by their identifier, e.g. their account name, a comma, and their user name. If they had a password on their account, they would type a comma followed by their password, which could be from 1 to 4 characters. If it contained one or more spaces (other than trailing spaces, which could be omitted), it had to be typed in single quotes. If it contained non-printable or binary characters, it had to by typed in by using

11716-427: Was a file named "A" in account S0103, and a user in account PA5 wanted to access the file in account S0103, first, the file would have to be marked as public, and second, it would have to be referenced by account name and the name of the file. So a user in account PA5 who wanted to access file A in account S0103, if the file was public, would reference it as $ S0103.A . Note that a user in account S0103 could reference

11832-403: Was adopted as the standard for the United States. At that time, Sarnoff predicted annual color television sales would reach 1.78 million in 1956, but the receivers were expensive and difficult to adjust, and there was initially a lack of color programming, so sales lagged badly and the actual 1956 total would only be 120,000. RCA's ownership of NBC proved to be a major benefit, as that network

11948-682: Was an early supplier of electronics designed for the printing and publishing industries. It contracted with German company Rudolf Hell to market adaptations of the Digiset photocomposition system as the Videocomp, and a Laser Color Scanner. The Videocomp was supported by a Spectra computer that ran the Page-1 and, later the Page-II and FileComp composition systems. RCA later sold the Videocomp rights to Information International Inc. RCA Victor became

12064-461: Was fixed at 4096 bytes. This allowed many more tasks to be running simultaneously than would otherwise be constrained by limited and expensive main memory space. Transactional users, on the other hand, were all controlled by a single program and their view of the environment was limited to that which was presented to them. They were not identified as individual tasks and did not have the ability to run programs or request system resources. The CCM and

12180-412: Was founded in London to promote the radio (then known as "wireless telegraphy") inventions of Guglielmo Marconi . As part of worldwide expansion, in 1899 American Marconi was organized as a subsidiary company, holding the rights to use the Marconi patents in the United States and Cuba. In 1912 it took over the assets of the bankrupt United Wireless Telegraph Company , and from that point forward it became

12296-438: Was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse , AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Company . In 1932, RCA became an independent company after the partners were required to divest their ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit. An innovative and progressive company, RCA was the dominant electronics and communications firm in the United States for over five decades. In

12412-497: Was instructed to promote its color program offerings; even so, it was not until 1968 that color television sales in the United States surpassed those of black-and-white sets. While lauding the technical prowess of his RCA engineers who had developed color television, David Sarnoff, in marked contrast to William Paley, president of CBS, did not disguise his dislike for popular television programs. His authorized biography even boasted that "no one has yet caught him in communion with one of

12528-842: Was made with the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), which purchased 500,000 shares of RCA, although it would divest these shares in early 1923. The United Fruit Company held a small portfolio of radio patents and signed two agreements in 1921. GE's traditional electric company rival, the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Corporation , had also purchased rights to some critical patents, including one for heterodyne receiving originally issued to Reginald Fessenden , plus regenerative circuit and superheterodyne receiver patents issued to Edwin Armstrong . Westinghouse used this position to negotiate

12644-457: Was necessary for disks that housed the operating system and the files that supported the transactional terminals. Remote Batch Processing (RBP) was a capability that existed in VS/9, although it was never completely exploited, probably due to limited demand. RBP allowed remote users to submit batch jobs for execution on the mainframe and receive the results back at their offsite printer. Typically,

12760-516: Was now restricted to the labels and album covers of RCA's regular popular record releases, while the Nipper/"His Master's Voice" trademark was seen only on the album covers of Red Seal records. In 1969, the company name was officially changed from Radio Corporation of America to the RCA Corporation , to reflect its broader range of corporate activities and expansion into other countries. At

12876-399: Was offloaded from the mainframe, thus freeing up computer time for running application programs. This did not occur until the VS/9 era. VS/9 supported one or more card readers, which were connected to the computer and activated by the user placing a card deck in the hopper and pressing the "Start" button. Presumably, the computer would read the source deck, and place all of the cards read in

12992-488: Was ported to run on VMOS. VMOS (Virtual Memory Operating System) became the new moniker for TSOS on RCA Spectra 70 models 46, 61, 3, and 7 computers, and then initially on Univac Series 70 (formerly RCA) computers. Eventually, MCP was enhanced to support Sperry Univac terminals and its name was changed to COS (Communication Operating System). Ports in the CCM and later in the MCC running in emulation mode could be designated either interactive or transactional, but not both. If

13108-513: Was responsible for creating a series of innovative products, ranging from octal base metal tubes co-developed with General Electric before World War II, to miniaturized Nuvistor tubes used in the tuners of the New Vista series of television receivers. The company began work on a secret project for the U.S. Navy called Madame X in September 1942. The Bloomington, Indiana, plant was one of

13224-413: Was the equivalent of a directory name under Unix-style user accounts, with the note that the user name indicated which person sharing that account was the party using it. Thus, for example, if there was an account name of S0103, if there were two users, whose name were Pat and Leslie in that account, they would have a complete identifier of S0103, PAT and S0103, LESLIE. All of their files would be stored in

13340-506: Was the first mainframe, demand paging, virtual memory operating system on the market. By 1971, despite a significant investment, RCA had only a 4% market share, and it was estimated that it would cost around $ 500 million over the next five years to remain competitive with the IBM/370 series. On September 17, 1971, the RCA board of directors announced its decision to close its computer systems division (RCA-CSD), which would be written off as

13456-451: Was what would be called the path name for missing files referenced by name which were not found in the user's account. For example, if there was a file called S0103.XYZZY in account $ TSOS , and there was an account on that system named S0103, any user wanting to access it would have to access it as $ TSOS.S0103.XYZZY . TSOS was also the "default" account for a file that was referenced that did not exist locally. For example, to execute

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