[QuadList] Visual/Allen--The story as related by Al Sturm

[Ted Langdell]

What follows is the background on Visual/Allen as related in June 2009  
over several e-mails by Al Sturm, a principal in Merlin Engineering  
Works, which succeeded the Visual/Allen enterprise.

I've corrected spellings. typos and formatting and added photos as  
available. Otherwise, it's as Al sent it.

Ted

------------
Visual/Allen and the Bosch connection
I’ll try to do a chronology of Allen/Visual/Fernseh (Bosch)  
association from the period of 1965-1970.

Steve Allen was a sharp video entrepreneur who from the early days of  
Quad was able to come up with accessories to improve the operation of  
the Quad machines. Among some of the products were:

A manually operated adjustable delay line that went in the channel  
amps before the switcher. This was the first quadrature corrector.
A very early manual Amtec.This was a time in electronic state of the  
art when transistors were first being used in video design.
They built a solid state switcher, and
An improved limiter low band demod. This was about the time of the  
VR-1000B.
Their next project was to replace the tube servo.

Steve had two sharp engineers working with him, Clarence Boice (ex  
Philco), and Dick Silver (Stanford student.) who were the “power  
behind the throne.”  They were very innovative for the time.

Steve had friends at Ampex, and learned of a problem that it was  
difficult to obtain quality variable delay lines for Amtecs. It was  
very difficult matching the varicaps and holding tolerance on  the  
wound inductors. They then started building and selling them to Ampex.  
They also built balanced output filters for the VR-1000C demod, which  
Ampex used.

Simultaneously, Visual Electronics was a primarily a rep company for  
broadcast TV equipment.

Jim Tharpe—Visual's president—was involved in TV all the way back to  
the DuMont days. One of his coups was to become the sole US importer  
for the Philips Plumbicon cameras. This was about the time when color  
hit so they were the “only show in town.” Among products Visual sold  
were the accessories from Allen Electronics.

In 1964 when the VR-2000 was introduced. High Band became the standard  
for broadcasters.

Jim Tharpe was intrigued with Allen and thought they could build a  
competing high band system due to their experience with signal  
systems. He then bought Steve Allen out.

The problem turned out to much harder to solve than Visual was led to  
believe. Among the problems were:

Number 1: Understanding Charlie Ginsburg's high band patent, and
Number 2. Designing a high band signal system that didn’t infringe the  
Ampex patent.

Along with Clarence Boice and Steve Allen , Visual brought in  
engineers from France, Germany, and New York to solve the problems.  
This is when I went to work for Visual because of my field engineering  
background with Ampex. My job title was “Jack of all trades” trying to  
be a go between with Visual, Allen, and customers. I ended up being  
somewhat of a “fire fighter”.

They had some success. As a result Visual put together a VTR using the  
VR-1000 console and monitor rack with a solid state H-locked servo,  
signal system utilizing the MK10 head, Amtec, and Colortec. Because of  
the buyout of all the Ampex equipment, Ampex wasn’t too concerned with  
the competition.

That's me with my "AJ squared away" crew cut. The pix is at Visual  
Sunnyvale, CA, (Circa 1968),
in front of  Visual/Allen VA-1000 "


A number of the “Allenized” machines were sold by Visual Electronics.  
Some customers were: Corinthian Broadcasting (then a subsidiary of Dun  
and Bradstreet,) NBC New York for their time delay, and a number of  
educational and religious broadcasters.

(TL notes that in 1977, an Allenized VR-1000 was still in use at KXTV,  
10, Sacramento, often recording the first feed of CBS Evening News  
with Walter Cronkite for "cherry-picking" stories, and other feed  
duties.)

The Visual/Allen machine at KXTV was from a purchase made by George  
Jacobs, Director of Engineering for the Corinthian stations. KOTV  
Tulsa was another. The president of Visual Electronics Jim Tharpe and  
George were good friend from their past DuMont days.

The next step by Visual was to build their own VTR. Tharpe had  
contacts in Germany with Fernseh who had a monochrome VTR with their  
own air bearing heads.

(Bosch Fernseh BM-20 Monochrome Tube Type Quadrupled VTR--Deutsches  
Fernsehmuseum Wiesbaden website)



An association was formed between Fernseh and Visual. Fernseh supplied  
frame, transport, and heads to Visual who built a high band signal  
system, motor controls, and servo from the Allen electronics to  
compete with Ampex.  I was in Darmstadt, Germany many times during the  
development and know quite a bit about their products.

The Fernsh head was very good. It had some good features, one of which  
was linear bearings for the guide. It was very repeatable and positive.

(Fersnseh head from Al Sturm collection-Al Sturm photo)


Visual then made and marketed a machine called the VA50.

(Engineer Bruce Braun monitors a VA-50 at Rev. Gene Scott's KHOF-TV,  
30, San Bernadino, California—Bruce Braun collection)


(Pair of VA-50's, likely at KHOF, from former KHOF-TV Asst. CE, (now  
Meredith Local Media VP of Engineering) Joe Snelson via Bruce Braun)



  The VA-50 was a striped down version of the VA-100. I frankly can't  
remember what was left off. Pricing was around  $45,000.00 for the  
VA-50 and $55,000.00 for the VA-100.

(April 1966 (NAB?) Visual/Allen Quad VTR Catalog from Don Norwood  
Collection)



It had limited success. The problem was with all the design  
engineering, field engineering, and buyout items from Ampex and  
Fernseh costs profit margins were very slim.

Visual was having other financial problems so they shut the VTR  
project down.

This is when John Streets and I  started Merlin by buying out all the  
excess inventory from Visual. We then started refurbishing and  
reselling VR-2000’s , VR-1200's, building our own high band signal  
system and offered  high band kits for older machines.

This is the story to the best of my recollection.

Al Sturm


Ted Langdell
Secretary
Skype: 	TedLangdell
e-mail:	ted at quadvideotapegroup.com

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