IN AUGUST 1940, AS AN INDUSTRY COMmittee wrestled with transmission standards for television, a young, accented voice momentarily disrupted the rush toward commercial broadcasting. The voice belonged to Peter Goldmark, CBS’s Hungarian-born Wunderkind, who had emigrated to the United States only seven years before. As a panel chairman on the National Television System Committee (NTSC), he had squirmed in his seat for weeks listening to debates over the merits of the various black-and-white systems available at the time. Finally he stood and addressed his older colleagues.

You’re beating a dead horse, he said. I’ve already perfected color television.

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