Philo Taylor Farnsworth, the American inventor of all-electronic television in September 1927, contributed to this in an important way. Farnsworth refined a version of his picture tube (cathode ray tube, or CRT) and called it an "Iatron;" generically known as a storage tube. It could store an image for milliseconds to minutes and even hours. One version that kept an image alive about a second before fading proved to be useful for radar. This slow-to-fade display tube was used by air traffic controllers from the very beginning of radar usage.