Postwar Television

Lucitron 34B Prototype Flat Screen Display

The Lucitron was developed in the late 70s by a group of engineers in the Chicago area. It was one of the first flat screen displays. The goal was to eventually make a color version, though the company never progressed to that point. The prototypes they made had relatively low resolution, and were expensive and complicated. Though they sold a few samples to the military, commerical production never happened.

 

From a Lucitron sales brochure:

Lucitron sales brochure

This panel was donated to the museum by Bob Mitchell, an electronic engineer and technical writer at Lucitron.

Comments from James Hawes, who was part of the team that created the Lucitron:

I'm happy to see that the museum has now received Bob Mitchell's Lucitron panel. This plasma panel is certainly worth collecting. It may be the last of its type in the world. Most people have no idea that a U.S. firm pursued trailblazing research that led to flat-panel television. But there we were in the 1980s, hand-building large, flat, glass windows... Baking them in our giant oven... Evacuating them in our pump-down room... And watching television on them in our little R&D shop at Northbrook, Illinois.

I notice that you describe Bob as "an electronic engineer and technical writer at Lucitron." Actually, that's closer to my role at Lucitron. For Bob, perhaps a more accurate description is this: Bob was the mechanical engineer who managed and led the team in our tube design and assembly lab. His was an eclectic group. How Bob coordinated them, I have no idea. Yet they played together like a symphony orchestra of virtuosos, which they were. Bottom line: Without Bob, I can't imagine Lucitron building our groundbreaking panel.

Bob is a personable, distinguished, and versatile talent. He and his team innovated many of the technologies and methods that Lucitron used to build and improve our panels. He coordinated with our other engineering groups, including:

• Norm Zuefle in the color lab
• Cary Stone in our electronics shop
• Adolph 'Schmitty' Schmitt in our water conductivity lab
• Bill Irvin and the crew in our machine shop

Bob's supervisor was Michael DeJule, a brilliant, soft-spoken, and somewhat enigmatic inventor. Michael probably holds more patents than anybody from Lucitron. And how fascinating that they answer needs in fields that seem to be unrelated! Examples:

On the "tech writer": Our vice president and later president Alan Sobel wrote many of our documents. (Including the bulletin that you have, with Sobel's picture on the cover.) Alan also knew a writer at Popular Science who would occasionally report on Lucitron.

My main job was as an electrical engineer, designing power supplies, oscillators, level shifters, and amplifiers. I also serviced equipment and built and tested prototypes. Since I had a tech writing and advertising background, I convinced Alan to let me write and produce one brochure.

By the way, Alan Sobel and Michael DeJule were two of the trio that founded Lucitron. The third founder was Joe Markin. He was our president when I joined Lucitron in 1984. These three illustrious engineers began their research on plasma flat-panel displays at Zenith. Joe died in 1987. Alan succeeded him as president.

I had Bob check my note, and he says it’s okay. I have more of Bob’s kernels of wisdom (including testing the tube’s vacuum integrity). But they’ll have to wait awhile before I can edit and post them. Our former electrical engineer Kevin Gilmore also commented. I’ve only met Kevin online, but Bob knew him well. I worked for Kevin’s successor, the late Cary Stone. I wish that Cary had survived to see possibly the last Lucitron 34B tube go to the museum.

Incidentally, none of us technical guys seems to have details on the sweep circuits. I do have some very old sweep boards, but they probably aren’t for the 34B, and the set isn’t complete. Also, I long ago stripped off many of the nice MJE340 and MJE350 high-voltage, Moto transistors! (These are very desirable and well-behaved parts.)  Lucitron was tossing the obsolete boards, so I salvaged them from the junk.

Bob was my main source for my Lucitron Web pages, starting at this one.

James T. Hawes

Technology Historian

Technical Writer

 

Early Television Museum

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