This article in Today’s Science section of the New York Times might be the most prominent, mainstream mention of the Farnsworth Fusor that I have seen in the more than 30 years since I first learned of the device myself on a hillside in Santa Cruz, California. Money quotes:
Other researchers already have working desktop fusion devices, including ones that are descendants of the Farnsworth Fusor invented four decades ago by Philo T. Farnsworth, the television pioneer.
Robert W. Bussard, an independent scientist, advocates a return to the Farnsworth Fusor, otherwise known as inertial confinement fusion. Farnsworth and Robert L. Hirsch, who later ran the Office of Fusion Energy for the Atomic Energy Commission, developed a fusor consisting of two electrically charged concentric spherical grids. They accelerated charged atoms, or ions, to the center.
“It’s like the electron guns in your TV tube,” Dr. Bussard said.
Well, yes, I suppose… if you still have electron guns in your TV tube. Mine has a mega-mirrored micro chip and a spinning color wheel. Don’t anybody tell John Logie Baird…