Re: IBM TV network--a history twist


akjack@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Why do you assume the TV broadcasts would have been available to the
> general public? It may have been intended for corporate communication
> between the referenced cities.

Not really assuming anything, rather speculating.

Note that AT&T developed radio equipment for use in the telephone
network. As things evolved, it found itself operating a public radio
broadcasting station and an atmosphere in the studio far removed from
the telephone business. Eventually this was sold off to the radio
concerns with agreements to protect AT&T patents in radio and to have
access to patents and technology developed by others in radio.

It's entirely possible IBM would have developed an experimental TV
station and network as a test bed for new technologies and ending up as
a broadcaster just as AT&T once was. If successful, there was nothing
stopping IBM from going into that business. By the way, originally IBM
was a combination of various businesses.

There is a major convenience store in my area that has its corproate
roots as an iron and steel supplier. Clearly switching from selling
steel to milk is a big change, but the company is doing very well
today. Many long standing companies have evolved into businesses very
different than their past. I think one major aerospace company has
roots in a gravel pit and another in a bicycle shop. A shopping mall
operator used to be a railroad.



> IIRC, IBM has used an internal private phone system for many years.
> The "internal use only" intrastate/interstate phone system was
> referred to as "tie lines".

Many large companies had such private internal telephone and telegraph
networks. A telephone would have two numbers on it--one for outside
callers, one for inside callers.

Indeed, it was often said that the old Bell System was a monopoly
without competition. That wasn't totally true. Many companies and
governments, large and small, owned and operated private telephone
networks for internal use. They maintained their own physical lines
between locations. In the 1970s the cost of maintaining such networks,
especially if they were old, became prohibitive and they converted over
to Bell System services. But into the 1960s it wasn't uncommon to see
two telephones on someone's desk, one for Bell, one (usually an older
style) for a private internal network.

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