The Iconoscope 1850

The Iconoscope, first made by RCA, is the earliest functional all-electronic TV camera tube, invented by Vladimir Zworykin in 1929, first presented in 1933, and patented in 1939.

Followed by the Super-Iconoscope which bears close similarities to the English made Super-Emitron (by EMI), it was mainly used in American Broadcasting stations as from 1936 and as late as 1946, but suffered from the need for strong illumination. It was superseded by the Image Orthicon tube in 1946.

Special models of this tube, somewhat smaller in size, were particularly developed and used in air-borne cameras in bombers during Worl War II.

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