<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">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.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">I've corrected spellings. typos and formatting and added photos as available. Otherwise, it's as Al sent it.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Ted</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; ">------------</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; "><b>Visual/Allen and the Bosch connection</b></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">I’ll try to do a chronology of Allen/Visual/Fernseh (Bosch) association from the period of 1965-1970. </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">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:</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><ul class="MailOutline"><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">A manually operated adjustable delay line that went in the channel amps before the switcher. This was the first quadrature corrector. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">A very early manual Amtec.This was a time in electronic state of the art when transistors were first being used in video design. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">They built a solid state switcher, and </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">An improved limiter low band demod. This was about the time of the VR-1000B. </span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Their next project was to replace the tube servo.</span></li></ul><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">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. </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Steve had friends at Ampex, and learned of a problem<span> </span>that it was difficult to obtain quality variable delay lines for Amtecs. It was very difficult matching the varicaps and<span> </span>holding tolerance on<span> </span>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.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Simultaneously, Visual Electronics was a primarily a rep company for broadcast TV equipment. </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Jim Tharpe—Visual's president—was involved in TV all the way back to the <st1:place w:st="on">DuMont</st1:place> days. One of his coups was to become the sole <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> importer for the Philips Plumbicon<span> </span>cameras. This was about the time when color hit so they were the “only show in town.” Among<span> </span>products Visual sold were the accessories from Allen Electronics.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">In 1964 when the VR-2000 was introduced. High Band became the standard for broadcasters. </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">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. </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">The problem turned out to much harder to solve than Visual was led to believe. Among the problems were:</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Number 1: Understanding Charlie Ginsburg's high band patent, and </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Number 2. Designing a high band signal system that didn’t infringe the Ampex patent. </div></blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">Along with Clarence Boice and Steve Allen , Visual brought in engineers from <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>, and <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state> 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”.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">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.</div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">That's me with my "AJ squared away" crew cut. The pix is at Visual Sunnyvale, CA, (Circa 1968), </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; ">in front of Visual/Allen VA-1000 " </div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 16px; "></div></body></html>