An Interview with Dr. Malcolm J. Norwood

In December of 1979, as a project at the University of Maryland, Karen Brickett interviewed Dr. Malcolm (Mac) J. Norwood, the Father of Closed Captioning. Dr. Norwood relates how 10% of the general population would not accept captions on their TV screens, which necessitated the development of a closed-captioning system. He discusses the postponement of decoder sales until March of 1980, estimates of the number of potential viewers of closed-captioned TV, predicts 22 to 22½ hours of captioned programs will be available by the end of 1980, discusses the development of two captioning centers on the East Coast and West Coast, and addresses other exciting developments. This 25-minute production is the only known video of Dr. Norwood. Thanks to Karen Brickett Russell for sharing this record of captioning history.

**Note: This video is presented for historical archive purposes, and does not have an accompanying description track.**

A lesson guide with helpful links to other resources by Dr. Norwood and others can be downloaded from the following URL: http://www.dcmp.org/guides/12205.pdf

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• captioning
• closed captioning
• captioning history
• interview
• mac norwood
• dr. norwood
• malcolm j norwood
• deaf
• hard of hearing

[MinaICCS]

I enjoyed it. Thank you for putting this up and captioning it. I am always hoping for more captioning online and on TV. Do they still make captioning boxes? If so, could they also be hooked up to a computer?