{"id":5617,"date":"2009-03-02T07:27:58","date_gmt":"2009-03-02T02:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2009-03-01T21:39:03","modified_gmt":"2009-03-02T02:39:03","slug":"wichitan-reveals-how-he-invented-closed-captioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/03\/02\/wichitan-reveals-how-he-invented-closed-captioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Wichitan reveals how he invented closed captioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wichitan reveals how he invented closed captioning<\/p>\n

Story Created: February 25, 2009<\/p>\n

WICHITA, Kansas \u2013 Wichita is home to some fascinating people \u2013
\nsome famous, some not. It\u2019s also home to a man little heard of, but
\nhis work has certainly been noticed by all.<\/p>\n

To say Bill Kastner loves electronics would be an understatement. His
\nbasement is filled with old radios and other gadgets that would look
\nmore at home in a museum. He likes his entertainment old school \u2013 no
\nFacebook or chat rooms. Bill does his social networking using a ham
\nradio and Morse code.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn high school I had a stammering problem, so I resorted to Morse
\ncode and that was a means of talking to people without having the
\nstammering problem,\u201d Kastner said.<\/p>\n

That childhood infatuation with radios led Kastner to pursue a career
\nin electronics and he eventually earned his masters degree in
\nelectrical engineering from K-State.<\/p>\n

After working on memory systems for the Minuteman Missile back in the
\n60\u2019s, Bill moved his family to Dallas where he started working for
\nTexas Instruments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty-two years have passed — I guess it’s time to come out and
\nsay I did something with my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What he did with his life some 32 years ago at Texas Instruments has
\nhad a profound effect on everyone\u2019s life. Bill is the guy who
\ndeveloped and built the very first decoder that makes closed
\ncaptioning on television possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI designed original closed captioning decoder, other than my
\nmanager there were only two people that really designed the original
\nclosed caption mediums scale logic,\u201d he said. \u201cI did the logic and
\nthe other guy was Joe Lynn, who did the interface to the television
\nset.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the mid 1970\u2019s Public Broadcasting contracted with Texas
\nInstruments to design a device that would allow the deaf to read what
\nwas being said on air. The test for the Texas Instruments team was to
\ndecode a message.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to decode that,\u201d Bill said. \u201cOne thing that happened
\nwas that PBS would not tell us on this tape they gave us what the
\nmessage was. For the first decoded information and it turns out when
\nwe go the decoder running, it was \u2018float like a butterfly, sting
\nlike a bee.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill\u2019s decoder worked perfectly, but what he didn\u2019t take into
\naccount was how widely popular closed captioning would become.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought in the beginning that there would be a decoder box that
\nwas sold at the time through Sears that would cost $250 and there
\nwould be a limited amount of those in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cWe
\nnever expected that FCC would declare in July of 1993 that all TV\u2019s
\n13 inches or larger would have a closed caption decoder built into
\nthem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, everywhere he looks his invention is looking back.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the interesting things is that I work out at the YMCA three
\ntimes a week and I can sit there and look at the TV\u2019s on the display
\nin front of me and think I did that, but yet I can’t turn to the
\nperson next to me and say, \u2018Hey, I did that,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cNo
\nway. They wouldn’t believe that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s really quite humble and shy even when asked about the role he
\nplayed in broadcasting. In fact, people who have known him for years
\ndidn\u2019t know that he helped create closed captioning.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s equally content knowing that his work has helped bring
\nwords to those who could only see pictures. <\/p>\n

Source:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ksn.com\/news\/local\/40310092.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wichitan reveals how he invented closed captioning Story Created: February 25, 2009 WICHITA, Kansas \u2013 Wichita is home to some fascinating people \u2013 some famous, some not. It\u2019s also home to a man little heard of, but his work has…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deaf-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p752R-1sB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2773,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/14\/captioned-radio-for-real\/","url_meta":{"origin":5617,"position":0},"title":"Captioned Radio – For Real?","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"January 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Harris Corp. joins effort to develop radio that is accessible for the hearing, vision impaired Etan Horowitz Sentinel Staff Writer LAS VEGAS Against a backdrop of cell phones that play live TV and computers that fit in the palm of your hard, the announcement that Harris Corp. of Melbourne made\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/category\/deaf-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6532,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/05\/20\/technical-working-group-on-captioning-and-video-description\/","url_meta":{"origin":5617,"position":1},"title":"Technical Working Group on Captioning and Video Description","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"May 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"First Meeting of Technical Working Group on Captioning and Video Description Part One By Cheryl Heppner 5\/19\/09 Yesterday I attended the first meeting of the new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Technical Working Group which is to conduct an assessment of closed captioning and video description technical issues associated with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/category\/deaf-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10908,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2010\/06\/21\/on-web-video-captions-are-coming-slowly\/","url_meta":{"origin":5617,"position":2},"title":"On Web Video, Captions Are Coming Slowly","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"June 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On Web Video, Captions Are Coming Slowly By BRIAN STELTER Published: June 20, 2010 The actress Marlee Matlin shimmied her way onto \u201cDancing With the Stars\u201d two years ago, memorably using sign language to tell viewers to \u201cread my hips.\u201d But when Ms. Matlin, who is deaf, went to ABC.com\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/category\/deaf-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7944,"url":"https:\/\/deafnetwork.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2009\/10\/02\/the-case-for-h-r-3101\/","url_meta":{"origin":5617,"position":3},"title":"The Case for H.R. 3101","author":"Grant Laird Jr","date":"October 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The Case for H.R. 3101 By Bradley Porche October 1, 2009 It is the year of 2020, you are walking with your friend who says, \u201cLook at the news, man\u2026can you believe that!?\u201d You suddenly become curious to know what is going on. 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