As I attempt to write this text, my pal and I’ve six completely different screens hooked up to 3 kinds of units. We’re working in the identical room however on our personal initiatives—separate but collectively, a cushty companionship.
I had by no means actually considered the proliferation of screens as a peacekeeping software till I stumbled throughout one among Allen B. DuMont’s Fifties dual-screen tv units. DuMont’s thought was to let two folks in the identical room watch completely different applications. It jogged my memory of my early childhood and my household’s one TV set, and the countless arguments with my sisters and fogeys over what to look at. Dad at all times received, and his alternative was not often mine.
The DuMont Duoscopic Was 2 TVs in 1
Allen B. DuMont was a pioneer of economic tv in the US. His eponymous firm manufactured cathode-ray tubes and in 1938 launched one of many earliest digital TV units. He understood how human nature and a scarcity of TV screens might divide {couples}, siblings, and mates. Accordingly, he constructed not less than two prototype TVs that would play two exhibits directly.
Within the 1945 prototype proven at high, DuMont retrofitted a maple-finished cupboard that initially held a single 15-inch Plymouth TV receiver to deal with two black-and-white 12-inch receivers. Separate audio might be performed with or with out earpieces. Viewers used a 10-turn dial to tune into TV channel 1 (which went off the air in 1948) and VHF channels 2 by 13. As radio was nonetheless rather more fashionable than tv, the dial additionally included FM from 88 to 108 megahertz, plus just a few channels used for climate and aviation. The decrease left drawer held a phonograph. It was an all-in-one leisure middle.
To view their desired applications on the DuMont Duoscopic TV set, this household wore polarized glasses and listened by earpieces.Allen DuMont/Nationwide Museum of American Historical past/Smithsonian
In 1954, DuMont launched a unique strategy. With the DuMont Duoscopic, two completely different channels had been broadcast on a single display. To the bare eye, the photographs appeared superimposed on each other. However a viewer who wore polarized glasses or appeared on the display by a polarized panel noticed simply one of many pictures.
Duoscopic viewers might use an earpiece to hearken to the audio of their alternative. You may additionally use the TV set to look at a single program by deciding on just one channel and taking part in the audio by one speaker.
DuMont appeared dedicated to the concept that relations ought to spend time collectively, even when they had been engaged in several actions. A picture of the Duoscopic despatched out by the Related Press Wirephoto Service heralded “No extra lonely nights for the missus.” In line with the caption, she might be a part of “Hubby,” who was already enjoyable in his cozy armchair having fun with his favourite present, however now watch one thing of her personal selecting.
“Would you consider it?” a Duoscopic brochure asks. “Whereas HE sees and hears the fights, SHE sees and hears her play…. Separate viewing and solo sound permits your loved ones a alternative.”
The know-how to separate and isolate the photographs and audio was key. The Duoscopic had two CRTs, every with its personal feed, set at proper angles to one another. A half-silvered mirror superimposed the 2 pictures onto a single display, which might then be filtered with polarized glasses or screens.
TV pioneer Allen B. DuMont designed and manufactured cathode ray tubes and TV units and launched an early TV community.Science Historical past Pictures/Alamy
A separate field might be conveniently positioned close by to manage the quantity of every program. Customers might toggle between the 2 applications with the flick of a change. Every set got here with eight earpieces with lengthy cords. A brief be aware within the March 1954 concern of Electrical Engineering praises the engineers who crafted the sound system to get rid of sound bleed from the audio system. It notes {that a} viewer “very simply might watch one tv program and hearken to the audio content material of a second.”
Or, as a United Press piece printed within the Panama Metropolis Information Herald advised, a part of the household might use the earpieces to look at and hearken to the TV whereas others within the room might “learn, play bridge, or simply sit and brood.” I believe the brooders had been the youngsters who nonetheless didn’t get to look at their favourite present.
After all, alternative was a relative matter. Within the Fifties, many U.S. tv markets had been fortunate to have even two channels. Solely in main metropolitan areas had been there extra programming choices.
The one identified instance of DuMont’s side-by-side model resides on the South Carolina State Museum, in Columbia. However sources point out that DuMont deliberate to fabricate about 30 Duoscopics for demonstration functions, though it’s unclear what number of had been really made. (The Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of American Historical past has a Duoscopic in its collections.) Alas, neither model ever went into mainstream manufacturing. Maybe that’s as a result of the economics didn’t make sense: Even within the early Fifties, it will have been simpler and cheaper for households to easily buy two tv units and watch them in several rooms.
Who Was Early TV Pioneer Allen DuMont?
DuMont is an fascinating determine within the history of television as a result of he was actively engaged within the full spectrum of the business. Not solely did he develop and manufacture receivers, he additionally performed broadcasting experiments, published papers on transmission and reception, ran a tv community, and produced programming.
After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1924 with a level in electrical engineering, DuMont labored in a plant that manufactured vacuum tubes. 4 years later, he joined the De Forest Radio Co. as chief engineer. With Lee de Forest, DuMont helped design an experimental mechanical television station, however he was unconvinced by the know-how and advocated for all-electric TV for its crisper picture.
When the Radio Company of America acquired De Forest Radio in 1931, DuMont began his personal laboratory in his basement, the place he labored on bettering cathode ray tubes. In 1932 he invented the “magic eye,” a vacuum tube that was a visible tuning assist in radio receivers. He offered the rights to RCA.
In 1935, DuMont moved the operation to a former pickle manufacturing facility in Passaic, N.J., and included it because the Allen B. DuMont Laboratories. The corporate produced cathode ray oscilloscopes, which helped finance his experiments with tv. He debuted the all-electronic DuMont 180 TV set in June 1938. It price US $395, or nearly $9,000 right this moment—so not precisely an on a regular basis buy for most individuals. Though DuMont was fast to market, RCA and the Tv Corp. of America had been proper on his tail.
After all, if corporations had been going to promote televisions, customers needed to have applications to look at. So in 1939, DuMont launched his personal tv community, beginning with station W2XWV, broadcasting from Passaic. The Federal Communications Fee licensed W2XWV as an experimental station for tv analysis. DuMont acquired a business license and adjusted its name signal to WABD on 2 Could 1944, three years after NBC’s and CBS’s business stations went into operation in New York Metropolis.
Resulting from wartime restrictions and debates over business requirements, tv remained principally experimental throughout World Conflict II. As of September 1944, there have been solely six stations working—three in New York Metropolis and one every in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. There have been roughly 7,000 TV units in private use.
The DuMont Tv Community’s selection present hosted by Jackie Gleason [left, hands raised] featured a recurring skit that later gave rise to “The Honeymooners.”Left: CBS/Getty Pictures; Proper: Garry Winogrand/Image Submit/Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures
Whereas different networks targeted on sports activities, motion pictures, or distant broadcasts, the DuMont Tv Community made its mark with reside studio broadcasts. In April 1946, WABD moved its studios to the Wanamaker Division Retailer in Manhattan. DuMont transformed the 14,200-cubic-meter (500,000-cubic-foot) auditorium into the world’s largest tv studio. The community’s notable programming included “The Original Amateur Hour,” which began as a radio program; “The Johns Hopkins Science Assessment,” which had a surprisingly progressive tackle girls’s well being; “Life Is Worth Living,” a devotional present hosted by Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen (that garnered DuMont’s solely Emmy Award); “Cavalcade of Stars,” a range present hosted by Jackie Gleason that birthed “The Honeymooners”; and “Captain Video and His Video Rangers,” a kids’s science fiction collection, the primary of its style. My grandmother, who cherished ballroom dancing, was a giant fan of “The Arthur Murray Party,” a dance present hosted by Arthur’s spouse, Kathryn; my mother fondly remembers Kathryn’s twirling skirts.
Whereas NBC, CBS, and the opposite main tv gamers constructed their TV networks on their present radio networks, DuMont was beginning recent. To lift capital for his broadcast station, he offered a half-interest in his firm to Paramount Footage in 1938. The partnership was contentious from the beginning. There have been disputes over cash, the route of the enterprise, and inventory. However maybe the most important battle was when Paramount and a few of its subsidiaries started making use of for FCC licenses in the identical markets as Dumont’s. This ate into the DuMont community’s promoting and income and its plans to broaden. In August 1955, Paramount gained full management over the DuMont community and proceeded to close it down.
DuMont continued to fabricate tv receivers till 1958, when he offered the enterprise to the Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp. Two years later, the rest of DuMont Labs merged with the Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. (whose founder, Sherman Fairchild, had in 1957 helped a bunch of formidable younger scientists and engineers generally known as the “Traitorous Eight” arrange Fairchild Semiconductor). Allen DuMont served as normal supervisor of the DuMont division for a yr after which turned a technical advisor to Fairchild. He died in 1965.
One Factor Allen DuMont Missed
My household finally obtained a second after which a 3rd tv, however my dad at all times had precedence. He watched the most important set from his recliner within the household room, whereas my mother made do with the smaller units within the kitchen and bed room. He was enjoyable, whereas she was often doing chores. As a household, we might watch completely different exhibits in separate locations.
An advert for the DuMont Duoscopic touted it as a tool for family concord: “Whereas HE sees and hears the fights, SHE sees and hears her play.” Nationwide Museum of American Historical past/Smithsonian
Lately, with so many screens on so many units and so many programming choices, we could have lastly achieved DuMont’s imaginative and prescient of separate however collectively. Whereas I used to be penning this piece, my pal was watching the French Open on the primary TV, muted so she didn’t disturb me. She streamed the identical channel on her pill and routed the audio to her headset. We each labored on our respective laptops and procrastinated by checking messages on our telephones.
However there’s one side of human nature that DuMont’s prototypes and promotional supplies failed to handle—that second when somebody sees one thing so thrilling that they only must share it. Sarah and I had been barely getting any work accomplished on this separate-but-together setting as a result of we stored interrupting one another with questions, feedback, and the occasional tennis replace. We’ve been mates too lengthy; we will’t assist however chitchat.
The one means for me to truly end this text can be to go to a room on my own with no different screens or folks to distract me.
A part of a continuing series taking a look at historic artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of know-how.
An abridged model of this text seems within the July 2025 print concern as “The two-in-1 TV.”
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