The RCA Selectron -- The people of the Radio Corporation of America


RCA logo, A.K.A., The Meatball. The letters R C A connected together by ligatures on the bases and the A shoots a jagged representation of a lightning bolt back to the left, underlining the letters. All enclosed by a circular border.
RCA logotype, sort of an italic Helvetica font.

RCA was involved in both the development of the Selectron tube and with the design and delivery of a "turnkey" memory system based upon the Selectron. Development of the tube was primarily at the Princeton Laboratories, while tube production was the task of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania facility.

RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey is a collection of buildings that have been added on to the original T shaped building. The top of the T faces the highway -- set back at least a quarter mile -- and the stem of the T (containing the machine shop and prototyping facilities extends away from the road. The campus is centered on a large grassy and wooded site
In 1941 construction began in Princeton, New Jersey, for the Research Laboratories of the Radio Corporation of America, which was subsequently re-named the David Sarnoff Research Center in honor of the principal driving force in RCA. In 1967 the David Sarnoff Library was dedicated at the facility. After the purchase of RCA by General Electric in 1984 the DSRC was divested and became the Sarnoff Corporation, a unit of SRI, International. In 2009 Sarnoff Corporation requested that the David Sarnoff Library vacate the facility, effectively ending its forty-year educational mission. Subsequently, Sarnoff was subsumed (engulfed?) by SRI ending its identity and appropriating its heritage and historical achievements. Artifacts have been relocated to The College of New Jersey in Ewing Township (Trenton) New Jersey and the records to Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware. SRI continues to do business at the original 201 Washington Road, Princeton, New Jersey site.



RCA Electron Tube Division, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The facility is, in the most polite of terms, a huge jumble of massive defense production buildings.
RCA Lancaster was built, and operated by RCA, as a production facility of electron tubes for the military needs of World War II. After the war, the sprawling site was purchased from the government and became part of the RCA Electron Tube Division. For nearly four decades, the facility grew eventually exceeding 1,300,000 square feet of factory and office floor space remaining the primary development and production facility for power and cathode ray devices. Subsequent to a management buyout forced by the General Electric takeover, RCA Lancaster became the headquarters of Burle Industries, named for Dr. Erich Burlefinger formerly with RCA. It is still located at the New Holland Avenue site in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, doing business as PHOTONIS USA Pennsylvania, Inc., part of the France based PHOTONIS Group.
The site is now managed as Burle Business Park, LLC. and houses many diverse tenants.



Jan A. Rajchman
Jan A. Rajchman, PhD, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey 1935 - 1976
IEEE History Center Biography
IEEE History Center Oral History, 1975
National Academies Press, Memorial Tribute, 1992


Richard L. Snyder
Richard L. Snyder, Jr., Electrical Engineer,
RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
1937 - 1945



George W. Brown, smoking his familiar tobacco pipe
George W. Brown, PhD, Mathematician, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey; 1944 - 1946
The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s
The Computer Museum, Johnniac Lecture, 1998, Comments
Memoriam


George A. Morton
George A. Morton, Electrical Engineer / Physicist, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



Leslie E. Flory
Leslie E. Flory, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
Les Flory
Early Television History


Igor E. Grosdoff
Igor E. Grosdoff, Senior Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



Sorry, a photo of Mr. Rosenberg from the project era has not yet been located
Milton Rosenberg, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



1939 photo of Dr. Rudnick, Archival Photographic Files, apf6-00043r, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, http://photofiles.lib.uchicago.edu/db.xqy?show=Yerkes.xml|67
Paul Rudnick, Physicist, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
University of Chicago memoriam



Erik Stemme
Erik Stemme, Visiting International Intern, The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Sweden
Early Computers in Scandinavia
The BESK Boys
BESK
DataSaab


1950 photo of Mr. Forgue
Stan Forgue, Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



Sorry, an a photo of Mr. Endres from the project era has not yet been located
Richard O. Endres, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
The CK722 Museum



Vladimir K. Zworykin
Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, PhD, Scientist, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
IEEE History Center Oral History, 1975
National Academies Press, Memorial Tribute, 1984



Clarence D. Tuska
Clarence D. Tuska, Director of Patents, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
American Radio Relay League



1950 photo of Mr. Herkart
Paul G. Herkart, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
Obituary



1965 photo of Mr. Messner
Max H. Messner, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



Dietrich A. Jenny
Dietrich A. Jenny, Physical Chemist, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey



Alan. M. Glover
Alan. M. Glover, PhD, RCA Tube Division, Lancaster, Pennsylvania



1938 photo of Charles J. Young
Charles J. Young, Electrical Engineer, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
Obituary



Elmer W. Engstrom
Elmer W. Engstrom, Electrical Engineer, Director (1943), RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey
Obituary



W. Widmaier, RCA Tube Division, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

J. A. Briggs, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey

J. E. Dilley, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey

A. S. Jensen

J. P. Smith

Per Hals, Visiting International Intern, The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, Sweden

H. E. McCandless, RCA Laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey

Arnold A. Cohen, RCA Tube Division, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Histories, 1983, 1987

John Vassos
John Vassos, Industrial Designer / Artist, RCA Functional Design Department, Camden, New Jersey
The Artwork of John Vassos
The Papers of John Vassos