[QuadList] Videotape Pioneer Charles E. Anderson passes--

[Ted Langdell]

(Reno, Nevada, Friday, July 13, 2012)—Videotape Pioneer Charles E. Anderson passed away yesterday in the Sparks, Nevada skilled nursing facility where he'd been since mid-March.   He turned 88 at the end of April.

While employed at Ampex Corporation in the mid 1950's, Anderson was one six engineers who developed the first successful videotape recorder.

Anderson persuaded project supervisor Charles Ginsburg to utilize frequency modulation for recording the video signal onto tape, and designed the first FM modulator for the task.

This method solved a number of issues and became a patented method of recording video on tape. The method is still used in new analog and digital video recorders, more than 57 years later. 

Anderson designed the packaging for the Mark VI version of the Quad VTR that was shown in April, 1956 at the National Association of (Radio and Television) Broadcasters.  He was also involved in Ampex's first Helical Scan VTR efforts.

Anderson spent 30 years with Ampex.

Ampex honored Anderson with the very first annual Alexander M.Poniatoff Gold Medal for Technical Excellence (cash and a gold medal) for proposing in late 1954 and creating in January, 1955, the original FM video recording system used in development of the Quad video recorder.

He was honored with the award again in 1986.

Over the course of his career, Anderson played an active role in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

A member since 1957, Anderson was an elected Fellow, and became President of the society after four terms as a regional governor. An original member of the Society's Video Tape Recording Committee, Anderson chaired the Standards Committee between 1974 and 1977.

After Ampex, Anderson joined the management of a San Francisco film lab at the beginning of the digital era. 

He later had an interest in a Carson City, Nevada production company, and did video tape recorder maintenance  and transmitter engineering at Reno's PBS member station, KNPB.  In September, 2000, He turned on the station's digital transmissions, and pushed the "Off" button to end analog transmissions in February, 2009.  His retirement party was the following day.

Anderson had been hospitalized in March for what is considered relatively routine abdominal surgery and complications occurred.  He was moved to the skilled nursing facility shortly after. 

Friend and former KNPB co-worker Tim Stoffel had been visiting over time, and said Charlie was at his best just after NAB.  He had been in what Stoffel called "a dreamlike state" for much of the time, with some reports of improvement from time to time.

He says Anderson suffered a stroke Thursday morning. Treatment efforts were not successful, and he died about 2:30 yesterday afternoon.

No plans for Memorial Services have been announced yet. 

Stoffel anticipates there will be one in Reno, and near his home in West Point, a small town near Sonora, California.

We will keep you advised as we learn any details.

There are now three of the six Quad VTR engineers still living: 
Fred Pfost still lives in the Bay Area
Shelby Henderson is 92 and was reported wheelchair-bound and living near Salem, Oregon at this time last year.
Ray Dolby, now 79, later founded Dolby Labs and lives in San Francisco.

VTR group leader Charles Ginsburg passed away on April 9, 1992 at age 71.
Alex Maxey left Ampex to pursue development of Helical Scan recorders, and passed away in 2004 at age 82.

While Ampex received an Emmy Award for the VR-1000 in 1957, all six men were honored in 2005 when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave them the very first Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award in the area of Technology and Engineering.  

Anderson, Pfost, and Dolby attended the event in Princeton, New Jersey. Alex Maxey's daughter Valerie Shirey accepted her father's statue.

Merlin Engineering Works principal John Streets worked at Ampex in the 1960's with several of the original Quad groups.  He shares patents with Maxey on several items, and had a long friendship with Anderson.

"Charlie and Ed Seaman hired me and I came to Redwood City from Montreal in the spring of 59," Streets said. 
"
I worked for Charlie, we were neighbors and friends. He was a tremendous supporter to me thru all my career. A true mentor."

"One aspect of his life is his wide range of interests apart from the video world," Streets recalled.

"He and his first wife Marylyn were avid aviation experts. They were both practicing pilots. Charlie restored an Aeronca plane from the frame up, including new fabric covering."

Streets says the restoration job took up a lot more than time.  "His garage was too small so he used spare space at my house, so I was able to see at first hand the skill and dedication he brought to the task."

Anderson had what Streets described as "an encyclopedic knowledge of all things aero," which could surprise aviators.

"When boarding a (Boeing) 727 at SFO, he checks the serial # as he enters, and tells the surprised crew that Boing made a first class job of rehabbing the plane.  He knew that It was the same plane which had been ditched when it landed 'short 'at  SFO about 2 years earlier!"

"Charlie never missed an item!"


I'm happy to gather recollections you'd like to share as part of an article for the QuadList and the QuadVideotapeGroup.com website.

Please e-mail to ted at quadvideotapegroup.com.  We'll also make sure they're shared with his wife M'liegh.

Ted

Ted Langdell
(530) 301-2931
ted at quadvideotapegroup.com
Secretary for the  QuadVideotapeGroup.com: 
Preserving Tape, Equipment and the Knowledge to use them, in conjunction with the Library of Congress

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