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I don't know where the author got his inspiration for creating what amounts to a big screen TV; each bulb in the display was like a pixel on a modern monitor screen. The telephotography screen was like a modern OLED display in that the "black pixels" were absolutely dark, with no illumination at all.

A few seconds later he appeared in the telephotography department. Electrical impulses were arriving here over a net of wires; impulses which had originally been light at the faraway starting point and which, through selenium cells had been transformed into impulses of varying strength according to the shape and brightness of the pictures in the distance. (Telephotography from 'The Cosmic Cloud' by Bruno H. Burgel) These wires led to a huge screen of frosted glass behind which burned thousand of tiny bulbs, operated by the current which came through the wires from far away with the speed of thought itself. Each one of these little lamps illuminated a tiny section of the white screen, glowing feebly, strongly or going out altogether according to the brightness of the picture at the starting point in Zanzibar or elsewhere. Thus a multitude of ever-changing, bright and dark little spots were reproduced on the screen, which occupied a whole wall in an enormous dark room. They reproduced the very picture which at the point of origin had been caught by the eye of the selenium transmitter. A motion picture camera photographed this screen incessantly. Picture after picture was produced and dispatched to the art department from whence it proceeded to the engraving department after a few moments, and in another hour or two it was printed and in the hands of the readers. At times the pictures were seen by distant readers before the citizens of the place where the events were transferring.

Technovelgy from The Cosmic Cloud, by Bruno H. Burgel. Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1931 Additional resources -

Compare to super-telescopic machines from The Heritage of the Earth (1932) by Harley S. Aldinger.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from The Cosmic Cloud
  More Ideas and Technology by Bruno H. Burgel
  Tech news articles related to The Cosmic Cloud
  Tech news articles related to works by Bruno H. Burgel

Telephotography-related news articles:
  - Outdoor Video Screens Can Be Arbitrarily Large

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