Very cool Zenith item on eBay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Unique-vintage-1982-ZENITH-TV-history-drink-cup_W0QQitemZ260161098723QQihZ016QQcategoryZ3638QQ ssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Too bad it was designed by a clod. Zenith sure was behind the times with color TV, they didn't even have a 15" prototype until 1961!

Yeah, 1961 sure looks a lot like my avatar

I have a slightly different one of those cups, and the explanation about the wrong date... Zenith didn't want to admit about the 43M20 due to the lawsuit with RCA, so they just put '61 on the cup to avoid any Mafia-esque trouble from RCA.

That cup shows the Panorama Chromacolor II, and the Erector projection set! I think I need to bid :)

Charles

What Lawsuit? Did Sarnoff beat up on Zenith also? Is that in the AK archives where i can look that up?

Since I have a few of those sets in my house, I had to bid.

How many of those prototype color sets were built?

43 tubes!!!

Didn't CBS-Columbia sets have 44 tubes? Westinghouse sets have, coincidentally, the same number of tubes or close to it.

The use of 5U4Gs in these sets instead of selenium is the single biggest factor in inflating the tube count. Even the CT-100 would use 40 tubes if four of them were LV rectifiers!