The Cathode Ray Tube site
150 years of CRT evolution
The Dutch collection
Last update 21-2-2026
CRT
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Geissler
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Crookes
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Induction
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The Cathode Ray Tube site is one of the most extensive website regarding the discovery, development and history of CRT techniques and producing and trading of these instrument. This private collection presents antique Geissler, Crookes, X-ray, Braun tubes and related instruments from the 19'th century and all it's spin-offs until the last produced CRT in Europe. The collection is gathered for over more than 20 years. It's a trip through time when most of our modern electronic techniques were invented. Many collectors, students, Museums and Universities visit this website as a reference and use content for lectures, books or presentations. Please look at the copyright page about content use. For the geeks, yes it's a basic website design, no fancy stuff but all for the content without disturbing ads or cookies :) enjoy!
It all started with a small near vacuum tube around 1857 which Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Geissler developed into a practical usable near vacuum glass vessel as a further development of the electric egg from the 18'th century. Geissler used his own invented mercury air pump which was quickly adopted by the scientific community worldwide. When connected to a high voltage source like a Wimshurst machine or Ruhmkorff coil the internal residual gas ignites into a bright colored light which attracted many people. This was the beginning of many new discoveries which you can find on these pages.
Soon after Geissler's work on electricity through gasses William Crookes developed a much better airpump. With this new pump he was able to make a near vacuum and did new discoveries. In 1879 He developed different "Crookes tubes". These tubes had almost a near vacuum with many new scientific results which stood at the base of developments like X-ray tubes and the start of radio and TV technology. Many researchers followed with even more different tube models. Some of them are highly attractive like the tubes demonstrating the effect from cathode rays on fluorescent and phosphorescent materials.
1895 was the start of X-rays discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. While he was working on Crookes tubes he noticed a glowing plate of barium-platino cyanide six feet away, experiments with a photographic plate showed the penetrating force of the new rays. This was the start of X-rays as we know it. Six weeks later December 28th 1895 Röntgen published "on a new kind of rays" The news spread quickly, many institutions used their Crookes tubes for experiments. The development of new and better X-ray tubes followed quick with German, British and French scientific glassblowers. In the first quarter of the 20'th century companies like CHF Müller dominated the European X-ray market.
Another big development was the cathode ray tube known as CRT. It started with Karl Ferdinand Braun in 1897 when he invented an electron beam indicator tube based on the Crookes deflection tube. Soon this Braun tube found it's use in oscilloscopes. In 1908 Campbell Swindon came with the first ideas to use it as a television display tube as an upgrade from the mechanical TV systems. Development went fast, from the 1930's into WWII big steps were made for the first radar inventions and television broadcast including the first electronic camera tubes. Television was born!