Article about Chromatron Tube

[old_tv_nut]

Radio-TV Experimenter December 1964 / January 1965 -
Seven-page article on the Lawrence Chromatron color tube.

http://www.bretl.com/tvarticles/rtve1264/rtve1264.pdf

Reminder: a large assortment of TV-related articles are posted at:
http://www.bretl.com/tvarticles/tvarticles.htm

[NewVista]

Chromatron showed great promise but have never seen one.

Could be because research funding was sponsored by "Paramount Pictures"

Yeah, Paramount would really want this to succeed & empty more theater seats to TV.

Like when General Motors started "magnanimously" buying Electric Trolley routes
and guess what happened next.

[jr_tech]

I have read that Sony secured a license in 1962 and produced about 13,000 17 inch Chromatron sets, using vacuum tubes in 1964... It was a disaster! (would love to have one of those in my collection, however)
Later, much the same target/mask structure plus the inline gun structure from GE plus an innovative focus structure yielded the Trinitron, so I guess that the Chromatron design was not really a dead end.
jr

[andy]

...

[NewVista]

Says it nearly sent Sony broke!

"The production problems were never solved, and led to increasing tension between Ibuka and Morita. In November 1966 Kazuo Iwama told Susumu Yoshida that the company was close to ruin..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromat...ny.27s_attempt

[Einar72]

Hollywood had a hand in writing a later chapter in this saga as well. Sony received an Academy Award for the Trinitron some years later. It's kind of ironic, since Hollywood had lined its pockets with the hard-earned money of people in the radio/television industry for decades. It was both a slap in the face and a push down the road to oblivion for a proud and vital segment of our economy.

[jr_tech]

I found this Picture of Ibuka and his 1973 Emmy... did Sony get an Oscar as well?
jr

[Einar72]

No, my mistake. it was an Emmy. Read the info at their website:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/Corpora...tory/2-14.html

Quite an honor nonetheless, for hard work and dedication to an ideal. It's a shame few know that RCA had also won the Emmy for the three-gun CRT (1956) and a videotape cartridge design (1974). Remember, it was Americans who prepared the media onslaught, along with government apathy, that delivered the one-two punch ending thousands of manufacturing jobs we still haven't replaced today.

Even fewer people know of this amazing (for its time) device:

http://www.rcaselectron.com/

[electroking]

A few words about the Chromatron can be found in the biography of E.O. Lawrence
entitled 'An American Genius'. Lawrence (1900-1958) was a talented applied
physicist, and he was involved with a number of other people in the development
of that picture tube. His early death, along with electromagnetic compatibility
problems, may have hampered the commercial succes of the Chromatron. Sorry
I don't remember the author's name, I believe the book was published in 1968.

[NewVista]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Sony ..produced about 13,000 17 inch Chromatron sets, )

Some collectible this set would be!

[NewVista]

Patent very complex, intricate. The work of a genius in 1951
http://www.google.com/patents?id=7n9fAAAAEBAJ

But almost impossible to implement..

But one aspect did work very well - the hype
http://www.bretl.com/tvarticles/rtve1264/rtve1264.pdf
This was a great journalism -
Must've got Sony excited !

[oldtvman]

Just another idea that the Japanese took and ran with Just like the early consumer video recorder developed by Ampex who went bK and sold the rights to JVC.

[akent36]

I used to work for a guy who was sent to Chromatic Labs in the 50's by his employer (Thomas Electronics) to learn to build the Chromatron tube. His comment to me was, "I was there two #$@%!%$ weeks and didn't see one $#@%$## good tube."

[etype2]

Saw this thread while Google searching the Chromatron.

Sony actually marketed a 61/2 inch color hybrid Chromatron for approximately 3 months starting July, 1968 and quickly replaced it with the first Trinitron in the US. In October, 1968.

The Chromatron was model KV 7010U and the Trintron was the model KV 7010UA.

The KV 7010U used a 3 gun inline system like the Trinitron, but instead of the Aperture grill, they used a fine wire color selection grid similar to the Original Chromatron with post acceleration, two high voltage power supplies with 3 connections to the CRT bell. Inside the set there is a label attached to the CRT, it recites "Sony Chromatron licensed under Patents of Paramount Pictures Corporation.

So the Chromatron did not die in Japan, it made it to our shores for a brief period in time with very low production numbers.

[earlyfilm]

Originally Posted by NewVista

Chromatron showed great promise but have never seen one.

Could be because research funding was sponsored by "Paramount Pictures"

Yeah, Paramount would really want this to succeed & empty more theater seats to TV.

Like when General Motors started "magnanimously" buying Electric Trolley routes
and guess what happened next.

Not quite so . . . .

OK youngsters, lets review history a bit.

At the time the ABC Network was owned by Paramount Theaters and was in the process of switching to color and managed to get more shows on the air in Color than CBS did.

Officially Paramount Theaters and Paramount Pictures were separate, but unofficially both were intertwined.

Funding from Paramount brought ABC from a distant third place, to barking at CBS's heels in ratings, but not in number of stations.

Jas.