View Full Version : "Color simulator"


Captain Video
06-12-2017, 03:20 PM
This is my 1959 GE with the attachment of the unbeliavable "color simulator screen" that was sold here in my country between the 1950's and 70's. This is probably the most ridiculous TV accessory I have ever seen.

N2IXK
06-12-2017, 07:41 PM
I've seen a "deluxe model" that had 3 strips, blue across the top for sky, the red/orange across the middle for those Trump-like fleshtones, and green across the bottom for grass, I guess.

kf4rca
06-13-2017, 06:49 AM
I remember seeing the deluxe version on a set back in the 60's at the shop where I worked in SC. Believe it was on a Silvertone 21".

old_tv_nut
06-13-2017, 10:26 AM
Here's the one at the Early Television Museum

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2910/14047895990_153dca16af_b.jpg

Electronic M
06-13-2017, 11:04 AM
A hilariously cheap gimmick.

What I'd be interested in, is to see is how this performed. http://earlytelevision.org/pdf/pop_elect_10-68.pdf
http://earlytelevision.org/butterfield.html
If the effect is real, with today's cheap electronics it probably would not be hard to demodulate a color signal to RGB, re-matrix to YMC gate which one is shown each frame and re-modulate it as perceptual color 'monochrome' video. If I manage to un-bury myself in repairs, that project is high up on my "I want to build this" list......If it does work and I can build the circuit I'm thinking of, I know which set to test it on...One night about 6 years ago I dreamed my 19" monochrome Zenith Space Command was producing a color picture, unmodified (it'd be neat to see that).

old_tv_nut
06-13-2017, 01:47 PM
A hilariously cheap gimmick.

What I'd be interested in, is to see is how this performed. http://earlytelevision.org/pdf/pop_elect_10-68.pdf
http://earlytelevision.org/butterfield.html
If the effect is real, with today's cheap electronics it probably would not be hard to demodulate a color signal to RGB, re-matrix to YMC gate which one is shown each frame and re-modulate it as perceptual color 'monochrome' video. If I manage to un-bury myself in repairs, that project is high up on my "I want to build this" list......If it does work and I can build the circuit I'm thinking of, I know which set to test it on...One night about 6 years ago I dreamed my 19" monochrome Zenith Space Command was producing a color picture, unmodified (it'd be neat to see that).

This was actually used by Pepsi or Coke to produce some color sensation on monochrome sets in a TV commercial, if I remember correctly. The problem with doing this with a TV is that you don't get a choice of flash rates (30 Hz or submultiples thereof in the US), so it's very sub-optimum. Plus, some choices of frequency would be banned today because of the possibility of triggering epileptic seizures in some people.

TVTim
06-15-2017, 09:27 PM
I remember my parents getting one of those. We didn't even use it for one day.

David Roper
06-19-2017, 11:56 PM
This was actually used by Pepsi or Coke to produce some color sensation on monochrome sets in a TV commercial

I thought it was 7-Up or Sprite, because, a flashing green bottle is the example I recall hearing about.

old_tv_nut
06-20-2017, 09:59 AM
I thought it was 7-Up or Sprite, because, a flashing green bottle is the example I recall hearing about.

You may be right. I haven't found a reference yet. In the case of Pepsi or Coke, I may be thinking of some commercials that used the Pulfrich effect to produce 3D. (One eye with a dark lens, the other with none.)