Perspective: Hide That Thing

Ever since the first TV debuted 73 years ago, TV brands have been trying to make it disappear

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When Americans got their initial look at the first commercially available television set at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, the eerie, bluish screen glowing before them measured 5 ¾ x 7 ¾ inches. Nevertheless, the set—the General Electric HM-225—was the size of a refrigerator. There’d really been no choice on that front. GE designers knew that no self-respecting housewife in America would permit a contraption consisting of a cathode-ray picture screen, 22 vacuum tubes, a 12-inch speaker and untold resistors, capacitors and wires into her living room.

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