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By the 1950s many American families owned television sets. During television's first 20 years, deaf people missed most of the fun. They could not hear what was being said and had to guess.

Deafpeople who watched television liked sports and action shows, but they were disappointed with other programs. If there was a lot of dialogue, deaf viewers couldn't follow the plot. Even the most skilledlip readers could only catch part of the talking. This frustrated many deaf people.

In the late 1960s, a man started experimenting. Malcolm Norwood thought that deaf people could enjoy televisionprograms, too. He wanted to develop captions for the programs. Norwood worked for the federal government's Media Services and Captioned Films Division at the Bureau of Education of the Handicapped.Norwood surveyed many hearing Americans. He wanted to see how they felt about seeing captions on the television screen. Too many people were against the idea. Norwood realized he had to developanother way of captioning - one that would not bother hearing people.

In October of 1971, Norwood's office signed a contract with WGBH-TV, a public television station in Boston. WGBH was hired toexperiment with captions. They agreed to make a captioned television program for Norwood. That program was made. It was shown on television and at a special convention.

The type of captions made byWGBH could be seen on any television. No special equipment was needed. These were called "open captions."

Later, a new machine was invented. This device was made to send signals on a special partof the television picture. The signals could be captions. If a family had another kind of machine in their home or in their TV set, then the captions (or signals) would appear on their televisionscreen. Without the machine, no captions would be seen. That special machine is called a decoder. It receives the signals transmitted from the television station. Captions that require a decoder are...