Telechrome Special Effects Generator

This is an interesting video effects system from 59, to put it into context quad video was only developed in the mid 50s, colour quad became available in 58, Telerecording/Kinescope film recording systems were still in use by the broadcast networks and the earliest machines to be discussed as "video synthesizers" were still a few years off.

Whats interesting about this system is it's relatively open modular nature, something that became less common as the technology became more advanced. The Telechrome system (not to be confused with Baird's early colour tube experiments) contains a waveform generator, a switching amplifier and a control unit for selecting effects. The waveform generator would be used to generate electronic mattes analogous to film mattes and the switching amplifier would place two distinct video sources either side of the geometric form.

Here is the control panel

 you can see each of the systems modules here

And here is the advertisement in full.

I also dug up a later system with a similarly modular aproach.

Sources here:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-BC/BC-1959/1959-10-05-BC.pdf
http://saltofamerica.com/contents/displayArticle.aspx?19_393