orthiconn.
/ˈɔːθɪkɒn/, U.S. /ˈɔrθəˌkɑn/ Television. Now historical.
An early form of television camera tube similar to an iconoscope.An orthicon differs from an iconoscope in having a transparent target plate, so that the scanning beam can be made to strike normally the opposite side to that on which the image is projected, and in employing a low-velocity scanning beam, resulting in increased sensitivity and an absence of the spurious signals associated with the iconoscope.image orthicon: see image n. Compounds 1a.
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1939 Electronics July 11/1 On June 7th Albert Rose and Harley Iams of the RCA Manufacturing Company Research Laboratories at Harrison, revealed..the details of a new developmental television pick-up tube which..is one of the most significant advances in television electronics since the advent of the iconoscope itself. The new tube's formal name is ‘Orthiconoscope’ (‘Orthicon’ for short) from the Greek root ortho meaning ‘straight’ and iconoscope for ‘image-viewer’.
1955 G. M. Glasford Fund. Television Engin. iv. 98 The disadvantages of the orthicon have encouraged the search for better tubes in spite of the improvement over the iconoscope in the matter of increased sensitivity.
1968 Brit. Med. Bull. 24 261/2 Tubes such as..orthicons integrate the light energy incident upon each part of the tube over the entire frame-scanning interval.
1999 Newsday (Nexis) 21 July b31 There's always one bad actress in every show, but the repertory company in ‘Passions’ has to be the baddest since the invention of the orthicon tube.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2004; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1939