[drh4683]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Our set was a TOTL set, with a Drexel Early American/Georgian cabinet that hugged the floor. We got it in January, 1970. Dad worked nights for a Motorola/RCA dealer, Snug Harbor TV, and Ralph, the owner, wanted the set gone - it was the last of his first batch of Quasars, and had gone unsold. Dad paid 60 dollars a week out of his pay to pay for the set. The only problem we ever had was once in 1971 - a lightning storm took out our Quasar (power supply diodes) and also took out an aquarium heater and a clock radio of our neighbors - dunno what dad did to fix that. The CRT blue gun went in 1980, and we junked it for panels. Our caddy of panels was missing a few...

Motorola had to hyphenate the Insta-matic to avoid a trademark held by Kodak on "imaging and photographic products" - so Galvin and Co. created the hyphenated name, and never trademarked it. Somewhere in Dad's stash of stuff is a LP record with highlights of a 1970 Motorola shareholder's gala in Chicago where the head of Consumer Electronics told the story. Kodak agreed on paper to let them hyphenate it and pronounce it the same as their trademark, but only if Motorola didn't seek trademark protection.

I noticed one of the bolts holding down the power supply is half removed- did you do that, or was it some earlier repair? Dusty threads, so someone might have been into the power supply.

Very interesting, so you had a set from January, 1970 with Insta-matic? I never saw or heard of one that early. Not trying to say no such thing existed. I got my info about December, 1970 being the announcement date for Insta-Matic per a 1970 Motorola annual report.

(seen here on page 11: https://www.motorolasolutions.com/co...-5p48mb-28.pdf )


Thanks for the detail on the use of the Insta-Matic name. I kinda figured there would have been an issue with Kodak regarding it and how the two got away with using the "same" name.

That screw appears to have been like that for YEARS. I don't even see any contact or rub marks on the metal from where the screw touched it. Perhaps it was hand started and never fully fastened from the factory?