and then what happened later maycom acquired linkabeth. at that juncture jacobs and andrew lift -- well, they left after and general instrument acquired maycon and he became my boss, that's when the whole digital tv thing started. if you think about san diego as a digital communication center, you have jacobs starting and then jerry staying with gi but essentially being the visionary behind television. >> we're talking about the 25th anniversary of digital tv. when did it really become in use in the u.s.? >> the initial customers were in the early '90s so the 25th anniversary was back to when it was a secret project within gi labs here, and then in june of 1990, almost exactly 20 years ago cbs for the next generation broadcast standard. we weren't quite sure we wanted to do that because we were cable and satellite guys, but we ended up doing that. all of a sudden on june 1990 our cover was blown, what we were doing. at first everyone said it was impossible what we were claiming, but sure enough a year or so later all of our competitors wer