Alexander M. Poniatoff

Alexander Matveevich Ponjatow ( Russian Александр Матвеевич Понятов ; born March 25, 1892 in Aischa near Selenodolsk , Kazan Governorate ; † October 24, 1980 in Palo Alto , California ) was a Russian-American electrical engineer.

At the age of seven, Alexander saw his first locomotive, which made him want to build such locomotives later. Alexander's father, a forest worker in Kazan, sent Ponyatov to study at the Technical University in Karlsruhe . Ponyatov had planned to set up a turbine factory in Russia, but was unable to return immediately due to the outbreak of World War I. When he returned home, he joined the army and completed pilot training. When the civil war broke out, he fled to China, where he worked for the Shanghai Power Company . In 1927 he emigrated to the USA, where he initially worked for General Electric . During the Second World War, he moved to Dalmo Victor in 1942 , who built radar systems.

1944 Alexander M. Ponjatoff founded in California's San Carlos the company Ampex ( portmanteau word from A lexander M . P oniatoff Ex cellence). After the Second World War he became aware of the AC bias developed by Hans-Joachim von Braunmühl ; a US officer had discovered two tape recorders at Radio Frankfurt and sent them to the USA as spoils of war. Until 1955, Alexander Ponjatoff was president of the company based in Redwood City , after which he was chairman of the board and from 1970 chairman emeritus .

By 1955, DuPont had developed Mylar . In 1956, his engineers developed the rotary transformer with helical tracking for the first VR-1000 video recorder , which was presented in 1956 in Chicago at the National Association of Broadcasters conference. The era of live-only television was over.

Web links

• Alexander M. Ponjatow: Image and sound non-stop , biography in German. (Accessed September 19, 2015)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tonbandmuseum.info: Ampex - the people: Alexander M. Poniatoff .
2. ↑ Biography ( Memento of June 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
3. ↑ Audio Engineering Society: In memoriam Alexander M. Poniatoff ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; English). (Accessed September 19, 2015) 
4. ^ Albert Abramson: The history of television . 1942 to 2000. McFarland, 1987, ISBN 0-7864-1220-8 , pp. 21 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed June 19, 2019]).
5. ^ John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said. How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry . Penguin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-14-303676-9 , pp. 20-25 .