Show us your vintage color sets!

[rcaman]

picture after horizontal output replaced.

[Steve D.]

Hey RCA Man,
Those are really nice sets. Wasn't it great when tv's were furniture instead of high tech plastic boxes?

[Steve Hoffman]

I'll second that, pal!

[Steve D.]

Hi Steve,
It begs the question. Does any manufacturer like RCA or Zenith still list a wood bodied console in their product lineup? Does anyone out there have a current catalog? Do these companies still print up catalogs?

[Steve Hoffman]

I doubt wood is offered anymore. Not even the fake kind that Sony offered in the 1980's.

If sets start looking like this again, let me know, I'll buy 'em all! (Scroll down to second and third picture):

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...&threadid=4274

[jshorva65]

Wasn't it great when tv's were furniture instead of high tech plastic boxes?

I also agree that things were better back then. I think the manufacturers' goal in developing tomorrow's tv's is for them to be like picture frames. The idea behind the high tech plastic boxes of recent years is that most of us are putting them on a shelf in an entertainment center. I seem to remember a set that NAP (Sylvania/Philco/Magnavox) offered in the early 80's that was supposed to be installed in the hollowed-out shell of an older tv (if I remember correctly what the salesman told my parents at the time). They didn't buy the "25-inch table-model" and opted instead for another Sylvania console to replace the '74 GE that had just cooked its flyback.

It's ironic that Sylvania tv sets have also become plastic boxes (considering that the name itself means "woods") I'm in the process of designing some "vintage replica" tv's with wooden cabinets and hope to market the first model by mid-2005. Stay tuned.

[rcaman]

yes rca still makes consoles. 3 27" consoles 1 32" console 1 36" console. i used to sell a ton of consoles. i also used to sell them while they were on the repair bench getting fixed. { used ones of course}. i have 4 used ones sitting on the floor that has been there a long time priced cheap. monkey see monkey do. as the saying goes. everybody wants an entertainment center with a portable in it. most of the entertainment centers look like crap. but hey our neighbor has one so i have to have the same thing. also the big screens are looking like pure crap. they also used to have nice cabinets on them. if you push one of them the wrong way you are lucky if the cabinet dont fall apart.

[Steve D.]

Thanks rcaman,
I appreciate the reply and the information.

Well, it doesn't have a round CRT, but this set is quite unusual. It is a Mitsubishi 6CT-338 from 1964-65. It uses three colored 6" CRTs and several mirrors to produce the color picture. It's unusual to see a color picture without the phosphor dots or stripes of a normal TV. Sometime I'll replace the troublesome paper/oil capacitors and get this thing working like it should.

[Charlie]

Wow... that's unique! The cabinet must be quite large to house three different 6" CRTs! I wonder what Mistsubihi's idea was behind that design?

[Rob]

Erich,

That is a most unusual find! Some of the early color video projection sets used exactly that technolgy and they just placed a single refractive projection lens after the dichroic mirror combiner. The very first experimental RCA color (NTSC type) prototype circa 1950 is built like your Mitsubishi, but has 10" CRT's I think and was all vacuum tubes of course so it has a cabinet as large as a chest freezer.

How about posting some interior pictures of the guts?

Rob

Here are some interior shots. You can see the three deflection yokes in the one side view. I placed a 17" GE B&W portable next to the set to give an idea of size. I lucked out with some spare parts for this set as well. I have spare green and blue CRTs, some extra PC boards, deflection yokes, and most of all, a vertical output transformer. I had to replace the transformer because it had a shorted secondary and the convergence adjustments would not work correctly. I also have the operation manual and schematic, but it's all in Japanese. This set is finicky right now; the tuner has a fair amount of drift and you need to keep readjusting the fine tuning to maintain a good picture. Except for recapping the vertical oscillator/output circuits, it's in "as found" condition right now.

[Steve Hoffman]

Wow. Very trippy!

[Rob]

Erich,

Yup, definitely a collectible piece from a technological/historical point of view. It would be interesting to dig up some history on this item.

Rob

[Charlie]

Is the final viewing picture six inches, or does it get blown up some by the time you see it? I know the Japanese could come up with some cool ideas and made some sturdy electronics, but it sure seems as if there is a lot involved here to make a six inch color picture.

In any case, it is an interesting set, and definately a rare find! I would think that it was probably expensive to buy new back then!