Reviewed by:

• The TVs of Tomorrow: How RCA's Flat-screen Dreams Led to the First LCDs by Benjamin Gross
• Michael Aaron Dennis (bio)

We live surrounded by LCD (liquid crystal display) screens; Ben Gross's volume explains the origins of this technology at RCA and how the iconic American firm failed to deliver it to the world. This fascinating story of industrial research, corporate politics, and technological change blends science, technology, and business histories. Gross locates the emergence, efflorescence, and decline of LCD screens at the intersection of three distinct axes—the material logic of LCDs, that is their physical chemistry and often recalcitrant behavior plus the infrastructure for their creation and use; RCA's strategic goals as well as the Sarnoff Laboratory's role in fulfilling them; and the interactions among researchers, their managers, and other RCA divisions. One of the many interesting things readers learn is that the technology dominating our lives received so little support from RCA management. Indeed, they ultimately seemed to value LCD patents more than developing televisions based on this novel display technology. Noteworthy are Gross's discussions about the problem of finding the sources needed to write the history of late twentieth-century corporate R&D.

RCA's quest for a follow-up to its color television came in 1951, with legendary founder David Sarnoff's challenge to develop a light amplifier. Efforts ensued to find alternatives to the standard display technology, the CRT (cathode ray tube). RCA pioneered the mass production of these glass bubbles, and it proved hard to break from this anchoring technology. Only after it became clear that CRTs could not be flattened in order to hang from walls and display a quality picture did researchers and management explore and develop alternatives. By 1964, the company's research included liquid crystals and their chemistry; however, as Gross points out, it was never really a large research group. Compared to the well-studied RCA video disc, called a "Manhattan Project," RCA's work on LCDs was a modest effort. Although [End Page 1240] public relations people hyped the research and its potential, this was never a corporate moon shot. Gross rightly highlights the problems in manufacturing the new technology once researchers overcame problems at the bench. Using laboratory notebooks, he delineates how researchers solved the issue of LCDs working at room temperature. Building bridges with RCA's manufacturing divisions became as vital as laboratory research to keep LCD work alive, while management paid more attention to a struggling computer effort and the firm's traditional color television business. Even once the multiple manufacturing problems were solved, the LCDs produced by RCA were for watch displays, not the wall-hanging televisions of the future. The initial secrecy surrounding LCD research demonstrated how highly it was valued, yet RCA soon viewed patents as the real source of value compared to physical products, given the costs and difficulties of profitably manufacturing LCDs in America. Gross's interviews and archival work display the full range of skills required to move lab products to the factory, including individuals with the requisite social skills to borrow resources from other groups. This social aspect of intra-laboratory relations is especially well portrayed.

Gross plays with Clayton Christensen's ideas of disruptive innovation in explaining why RCA failed to capitalize on its role as a pioneer in LCD research. He follows LCD researchers at RCA to a new start-up, Optel that fails to take advantage of new LCD chemistry, instead sticking to RCA-based technologies. Small size did not prevent an aversion to change. In his final eloquent chapter, Gross explains that it was only once LCD technology had left RCA that it really grew and developed—as multiple firms, first on the West Coast and then in Japan, invested in significant R&D with specific products in mind. Seiko developed a watch-sized LCD television more advanced than Dick Tracy's, while Sharp demonstrated a fourteen-inch color display in 1988. Ironically, Sharp had approached RCA in 1970 about...

审核人：

• 明天的电视：本杰明·格罗斯如何将RCA的纯平梦想带入首批LCD
• 迈克尔·亚伦·丹尼斯（生物）

我们生活在被LCD（液晶显示器）屏幕包围的地方；本·格罗斯（Ben Gross）的著作解释了RCA中这项技术的起源以及这家标志性的美国公司如何未能将其推向世界。这个关于工业研究，公司政治和技术变革的迷人故事融合了科学，技术和商业历史。Gross将LCD屏幕的出现，风化和下降定位在三个不同的轴的交点处-LCD的物质逻辑，即它们的物理化学性质，经常是顽强的行为，以及它们创建和使用的基础结构；RCA的战略目标以及Sarnoff实验室在实现这些目标中的作用；以及研究人员，他们的经理和其他RCA部门之间的互动。读者学到的许多有趣的事情之一是，支配我们生活的技术很少受到RCA管理的支持。实际上，他们最终似乎更看重LCD专利，而不是基于这种新颖的显示技术开发电视。值得注意的是，格罗斯（Gross）的讨论是关于寻找写20世纪晚期企业研发历史所需的资源的问题。

RCA寻求其彩电的后续产品是在1951年，传奇的创始人David Sarnoff面临开发光放大器的挑战。随后努力寻找替代标准显示技术的CRT（阴极射线管）。RCA率先批量生产了这些玻璃气泡，事实证明，这种锚固技术很难打破。研究人员和管理人员只有在明确无法将CRT展平以悬挂在墙上并展示高质量图片后，才研究和开发替代方案。到1964年，该公司的研究领域包括液晶及其化学。但是，正如格罗斯指出的那样，它从来不是一个真正的大型研究小组。与经过深入研究的RCA视频光盘（称为“曼哈顿计划”）相比，RCA在LCD上的工作是不大的努力。虽然[结束页1240]公共关系人士大肆宣传这项研究及其潜力，这绝不是公司的月球。一旦研究人员克服了板凳问题，格罗斯正确地强调了制造新技术的问题。他使用实验室笔记本描述了研究人员如何解决室温下液晶显示器的问题。与RCA的制造部门架起桥梁对于保持LCD正常运行与实验室研究同样重要，而管理层则更加关注努力的计算机工作和该公司的传统彩色电视业务。即使解决了多种制造问题，RCA生产的LCD仍用于手表显示器，而不是将来的壁挂电视。关于LCD研究的最初秘密表明了它的价值，然而，考虑到在美国生产LCD的成本和困难，RCA很快将专利视为与物理产品相比的真正价值来源。格罗斯的采访和档案工作展示了将实验室产品运往工厂所需的全部技能，包括具备从其他团体借来资源所需的社交技能的个人。实验室内部关系的这一社会方面得到了很好的描绘。

格罗斯与克莱顿·克里斯滕森（Clayton Christensen）的颠覆性创新思想相结合，解释了为什么RCA无法利用其作为LCD研究先驱者的作用。他跟随RCA的LCD研究人员来到一家新的初创公司Optel，后者未能利用新的LCD化学技术，而是坚持使用基于RCA的技术。小尺寸并不能阻止人们改变。Gross在最后一句雄辩的书中解释说，只有LCD技术离开RCA才真正得以发展和发展，因为多家公司先是在西海岸，然后在日本，都在考虑特定产品的基础上进行了大量的研发。精工（Seiko）开发了一款比迪克·特雷西（Dick Tracy）更先进的手表尺寸的液晶电视，而夏普（Sharp）在1988年展示了一款14英寸彩色显示器。具有讽刺意味的是，夏普（Sharp）在1970年接触RCA ...