Alexander Matveevich Poniatoff (russian: Александр Матвеевич Понятов, tr. ''Aleksándr Matvéjevič Ponjatóv''; 25 March 1892 – 24 October 1980) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. Poniatoff was born in 1892 in Russkaya Aysha, Kazansky District,

Kazan Governorate The Kazan Governorate (russian: Каза́нская губе́рния; tt-Cyrl, Казан губернасы; cv, Хусан кӗперниӗ; mhr, Озаҥ губерний), or the Government of Kazan, was a governorate (a '' guberniya'') ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

. He emigrated from Russia to China, where he worked for the Shanghai Power Company, until he emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in 1927. He would subsequently work for General Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric and Dalmo-Victor.History of The Early Days of Ampex Corporation As recalled by JOHN LESLIE and ROSS SNYDER, AES Historical Paper, Dec 17, 2010
/ref> In 1944 he founded

Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

, using his initials A.M.P. plus "ex" for "excellence" to create the name. The high-frequency bias technique, which made quality recording possible, was invented by

Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the ''Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company'). The name "Telefunken" ap ...

engineers and put into practical use by Poniatoff. Danish engineer

Valdemar Poulsen Valdemar Poulsen (23 November 1869 – 23 July 1942) was a Danish engineer who made significant contributions to early radio technology. He developed a magnetic wire recorder called the telegraphone in 1898 and the first continuous wave rad ...

's original magnetic recorder was previously only usable for telephony recording. In 1956, Ampex engineers created the world's first rotary head recorder, the VR-1000

videotape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were us ...

. Poniatoff served as president of Ampex until 1955, when he was elected chairman of the board. He died in 1980.

References

External links

*
About Poniatoff at the 20th Century American Leaders Database
*Нехамкин Э. АЛЕКСАНДР ПОНЯТО�

1892 births 1980 deaths 20th-century American engineers American people of Russian descent Emigrants from the Russian Empire to China Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States Russian engineers Russian inventors 20th-century American inventors {{US-inventor-stub