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  #31  
Old 02-03-2014, 06:32 PM
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That MIGHT have been it...Think it prolly was, come to think about it... Seems like I remember thinkin' "Huh ?!? That's pretty much a Sony Trinitron tube, but back in the Fifties..."
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  #32  
Old 02-07-2014, 12:37 PM
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how come zenith never made a color porthole
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  #33  
Old 02-07-2014, 01:02 PM
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Portholes are for ships, and that ship sailed years before color came along.
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  #34  
Old 02-07-2014, 02:46 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kramden66 View Post
how come zenith never made a color porthole
There is an interesting point here... Zenith was only 1-2 years removed from marketing its "giant circle screen" sets. If they really thought a circle was the shape of television (which I doubt); how odd that they would undertake not only color, but rectangular tri-color tubes by early 1954 .

Small screen size was the knock on the CT-100, and more "useable" sq. In. was the portholes's gimmick. I don't think they really believed it, but kinda funny.
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  #35  
Old 02-07-2014, 03:52 PM
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The 15GP22 had no viewable area on the upper and lower sections, so there would be no additional picture area to show in a circular mask. Plus, there were probably no B&W roundies in production by 1954, the hot trend being rectangular tubes and bezels. Zenith did not release a 21-inch color set until much later...
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  #36  
Old 02-07-2014, 03:52 PM
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Small screen was only one part of the reason CT-100s didn't sell. They were expensive ($1000 at a time when you could get an excellent 21 inch black and white set for around $200), poor performance, complicated so they broke down frequently, very little programming in color. It would be the late 60s before these deficiencies were cured. 1970 was the first year that more color sets were sold than black and white.
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  #37  
Old 02-07-2014, 05:32 PM
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Gentlemen,

Understand that I see a multitude of reasons why Zenith didn't make a color porthole (or any color set for the public until the '62 MY).

My comment was only meant to provoke the thought that Zenith engineers would have been working on a color rectangular tube concurrently with the company marketing the "superiority" of its porthole B&W sets.

It makes you wonder if there was ever a discussion of producing a color porthole in the very early stages of color development at Zenith, circa 1949-51. The cons would outweigh the pros, but I could picture an argument being made by the "porthole camp". While I understand they were building color wheel sets at that time, they must have also been working on electronic color to be ready with their own tube in 1953.
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Last edited by Carmine; 02-07-2014 at 05:36 PM.
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  #38  
Old 02-07-2014, 09:51 PM
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Zenith was a little slow to adopt rectangular tubes but once they did they went all in and never looked back. The porthole was never anything but a gimmick ("umpteen percent bigger image than their sets!") albeit a very successful one.
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Last edited by David Roper; 02-07-2014 at 09:55 PM. Reason: typo
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  #39  
Old 02-08-2014, 08:12 AM
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I've often wondered if the CT-100 was in reality, little more than a "Lab Special" that somehow got put in production.. It was, after all, too small, too complicated, too expensive, too unreliable, the only thing it had going for it was it WAS a color set, & it DID have a superior picture-At least for the next 15 minutes before somethin' Went South in 'em... It seems that RCA started "Backpedalling" almost immediately after introducing them, indeed, the much more "Developed" 21" tubes were well on their way when the CT-100s were announced, & after what, 6 months or so, the CT-100s were unceremoniously dumped, & RCA never looked back..
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  #40  
Old 02-08-2014, 01:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve McVoy View Post
Small screen was only one part of the reason CT-100s didn't sell. They were expensive ($1000 at a time when you could get an excellent 21 inch black and white set for around $200), poor performance, complicated so they broke down frequently, very little programming in color. It would be the late 60s before these deficiencies were cured. 1970 was the first year that more color sets were sold than black and white.
Nothings changed. The few working CT-100's still break down frequently! Sarnoff, after all the money & time invested, wasn't about to let other manufacturers offer color sets before RCA. Although Westinghouse, at least, beat them to the marketplace by a month or so.

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  #41  
Old 02-08-2014, 02:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G View Post
little more than a "Lab Special" that somehow got put in production.
It's not quite accurate to think that RCA "dumped" the CT-100 and replaced it with completely different TVs. The 21" models that immediately succeeded it did have a bigger CRT and a somewhat simpler (and cheaper) color decoding section. But in other ways they were much the same TV. If you compare schematics for the CTC-2, CTC-4, and so on, you see a gradual evolutionary process. Sure, they substituted a bigger picture tube as soon as it was available; similar upgrades were made in the early days of B/W TV, and that change in itself didn't require big changes in the electronics.

RCA gradually made their color sets more affordable and reliable during the years when they were waiting for the chicken-and-egg problem to resolve (i.e., for enough color programming to become available to create strong consumer demand). I think it's hard to fault their strategy in releasing the CT-100 when they did. It helped RCA establish early leadership in color TV. That led to a pretty strong market position by the time that selling color TVs -- finally! -- became a money-making activity.

Just my $0.02.

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  #42  
Old 02-08-2014, 04:16 PM
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Yeah, you're prolly RIGHT Phil. I know little or NOTHING of the "Innards" of these guys... Seems like I read prolly here that the 1st really reliable color set was the CTC-7 series...
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  #43  
Old 02-08-2014, 04:31 PM
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The CTC-7 is a nice TV -- very watchable -- and I have no hesitation playing mine as often and as long as I like. My CT-100 also seems stable, as far as that goes, but I honestly don't play it much, not wanting to put a bunch of miles on the unobtanium CRT.

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  #44  
Old 02-08-2014, 09:09 PM
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I wonder what my 64 Zenith 21" with a metal cabinet cost new. Just throwing it out there as the point of cost to the average consumer being really high closer to the beginning. I was thinking that by 1964 that the color sets were becoming more affordable.
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  #45  
Old 02-09-2014, 12:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tubejunke View Post
I wonder what my 64 Zenith 21" with a metal cabinet cost new. Just throwing it out there as the point of cost to the average consumer being really high closer to the beginning. I was thinking that by 1964 that the color sets were becoming more affordable.
This ad from May 1964 shows most price leader 21" color sets sold for under $400.00. That would include your metal cabinet Zenith.

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Last edited by Steve D.; 02-01-2017 at 03:52 PM.
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