1931..... was it ahead of its time?

[Babybearjs]

  I was looking at BSP C24.191 and it was mentioning the various types of line usage.... it mentioned "Picture Transmission" and I remember watching you tube videos about television history.... were they actually able to transmit television over the phone lines back then? or was it sometrhing they were planning on.... I found this kind of odd, as TV really didn't take off until after WW2... what does anyone think of this?

[paul-f]

I suspect it referred to sending individual still photos or images. See for example this Bell System Technical Journal article:

https://archive.org/details/bstj4-2-187

[Babybearjs]

of course, the FAX Machine.... they were trying to invent the FAX Machine... now I understand....

[Jim Stettler]

My father was born in 1922.
In Highschool they had an assembly to show off TV technology.   This was live  silent cable TV in the auditorium. Camera at one end, TV at the other, strung together with multiple large cables.

I had a WW2 era  landlord that was signal corp. He said he met his commander  thru a TV booth , basically early TV in a phone-type booth.
Same technology  with a talk circuit.

I have also seen several early tech  TV's at an estate sell. They were cool, expensive and fragile.
Jim

[Babybearjs]

the precurser to Cable TV.... fun!

[19and41]

The fax even predated that.  This episode shows old french facsimile units from the 1860's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaCfs5Xb-EI&t=1284s