'78 Sylvania "last gasp" 22" B&W console
 

Here is the March, '78 Sylvania solid state B&W console that I brought back from SC. At first, I thought I was going to have to replace some caps; but, it turns out the the vertical height and linearity controls only needed adjusting. As you can see from the pictures, the inside is very clean and the paperwork is still attached to the back of the set. Most likely, the only use this set has seen was while it was on display. The cabinet needs to be cleaned and it does have some nicks and scratches; but, it's nothing that I can't live with. I've seen (and owned) much worse. This set also has lighted channel dials, which I find unusual for a late run B&W console. The only other late run B&W consoles that I've seen were by Zenith and Truetone (Admiral built) and they were about as basic as you could get and the cabinets were not much to look at, either. Of course, I would still grab one of these if one came along.

We were discussing "last gasp" B&W TV's with the owner of the appliance store where this TV came from and he said there were a good many people, even as recent as the late '70's and early '80's, who would not have a color TV if they were offered one for free. He said that some people claimed that a color set was hard on their eyes, while other people believed what they heard about the increased radiation from a color TV causing eye damage. Then, there were just other people who didn't take to change very well. Heck, even as late as the mid '90's, there were still a few old ladies in my area who asked me to fix their 12", 17", and 19" B&W sets and these were the only sets they owned.

Even at that, I'm sure these large screen "late model" B&W sets are harder to find than some older tube type sets. I'm as proud to own this late '70's B&W set just as much as those two '60's color roundies that I brought back from SC. BTW, the chassis in this Sylvania was also used in the more common 19" portables.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...03sylB0005.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...03sylB0004.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...03sylB0003.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...03sylB0002.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...03sylB0001.jpg

That's the latest model b/w console I've ever even seen. Is that a 23" screen or larger? I've always wondered if anyone ever made a 25" or bigger rectangular b/w crt. I have sets with the 24" rectangular b/w tubes with rounder corners from the late 50's, and the more squared off 23" rectangular b/w crts from the 60s and 70s, but never found any larger than that.

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I missed the title of the thread, now I see it's 22", strangely it still looks bigger than my 23" sets.

Yep, brand new old stock. Those were some rare finds. I went through half of my consoles today and all the ones with the tags like that had CRTs that new.

Yep, that'd be a 22v size, which is the same as the old 23" B&W size that was introduced around 1960. Evidently the TV and CRT manufacturers didn't feel it worth bothering to change over to more 'squared off' looking tubes in "large screen" B&W sets, like they did with the 19v size that replaced the old 19"/18v size in the late 60's. [and in color, the 19v size got supplanted with the 20v size (having perfectly square corners) in the 1980's] Of course, the 23" B&W size replaced the even-more-rounded-off 21" size that was popular in the 1950's.

The tube face shape should be pretty close to that of a 23v color CRT though.

By the way, that really is a *clean* looking set on the inside! ...and you're right that it really is much nicer looking than the last-gasp Admiral B&W consoles from 1978, which were really very basic and didn't have such niceties like lighted channel numbers. Pretty cool!

How deep is that cabinet, BTW? Looks kinda deep for a late B&W (considering it still has a tube protector cap on the back) for some reason.

A pretty set indeed.

Believe it or not, I would have loved to get one of these in the mid-1970's, when I was quite young.

The only set in the house with UHF was the RCA color (CTC38/GL759WK) in the living room - my parents had first dibs on what to watch, then my oldest brother, then my older sister, than my other brother. It virtually never filtered down to me. Back then, most of the programs I wanted to watch were on the UHF channels. I had priced 22" B&W sets (about $200) and really wanted us to get one, Mom always said we did not have enough money (she really meant she did not want me to watch TV if she was not watching me!).

Adam, this 22" is actually the same size as the 23" B&Ws (with integral cover glass, that took the B&W console from about 1962 until its demise). The FTC cracked down on "inflated" picture sizes, and mandated "viewable" picture sizes, hence 23**P4 tubes became 22V**P4 (25*P22 went to 23v**P22 and 20*P4 to 19V**P4).

There were larger B&W consoles in the earlier days of TV. Early TV sets were criticized for being small, and a "race" toward larger and larger CRTs began, culminating with 30" B&W roundies like the DuMont Royal Sovereign. A new line of 90° "pregnant rectangle" tubes in the early-mid 1950's included related tubes in 17", 21", 24" and 27" sizes, and some 27" sets did hit the market on the 50's, but they were bulky and expensive. While 24" models survived, it was really the 21" TV that would rule for nearly a decade (even a 24" model tended to cost nearly twice as much as a 21).

I like it! It's about the only set of its time that would interest me today, simply because its so unusual and would have been considered old fashioned even when new. I had an aunt who swore off ever getting a color TV after seeing less than ideal demos in the 50s. She stuck to her guns long after everyone else in her circle of friends went color. She finally embraced color TV just about the time this set was made, so anybody who was still in the market for one of these was a real ultra b&w die-hard!

The set looks brand-new inside for being 32 years old, and kinda shocking to see the little-bitty main chassis lost in all of that space!

Yeah, it reminds me of consoles from the '80's and newer - with their tiny printed circuit board chassis and all of that open space. Quite a change from the time when a complete TV chassis and CRT took up the majority of space inside the cabinet.

Virtually all European SS B/W sets ran on 12v DC and had transformer type power supplies, but i can't see a power transformer in there, is this a hot chassis set?

Yes, this is a hot chassis set. Some of the operating voltages are developed from a DC source which is derived from the AC input and a couple of other voltages are scan derived from the flyback.

IN the last 20 years or so...I have sold ONE non--portable BW set. I somewhat remember it. IIRC, It was in 1991-1993. Some older person wanted a table--model BW set, and I had one from somewhere. It was a 19" Quasar solid state set, hot chassis, from the late 1977-79 or so. worked nice. They did NOT want a color set, and were PLEASED with the set!! IIRC, I got about $75 or so for it!!! At that time, 75 was good from a typical non--stereo, 19" COLOR set around here!!

I really like this set! That's unusual how it says "remove cover completely for servicing" like the tube-type sets with interlock would say, but also has the obligatory "no user-servicable parts inside" warning of solid state sets. The "remove cover completely" and "do not remove screws indicated by symbol" and the tube cap are exactly like the metal cabinet 22" Sylvania tube type table model B/W set which I got when I was in high school and is at my parents house (need to get it!)

I've always felt that there was some truth to the "color tv causes eye damage/other ailments" belief.

I see that you're using a Channel Master converter box. If you haven't already, you can easily modify it to just transmit B&W TV signals. Or just take the S-video signal on the back, and feed just the luma to an external TV channel modulator and feed that to the TV set.

I was going to re-use a drawing and picture detailing the above mod from a post I did last year, but it seems to have disappeared off the VK server. :thumbsdn:

Found it on my computer. You could make the box be color or B&W switchable:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1273091337
Or a simpler mod to make the box always be B&W:
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...2&d=1273091337
This will get rid of chroma dot crawl from the B&W TV set's screen. More noticeable on pre-color B&W sets from the late 40's and early 50's, as newer B&W sets rolled off the video response to suppress the chroma dot crawl.
A datasheet for an equivalent chip explaining how it works: http://www.fairchildsemi.com/ds/FM/FMS6406.pdf
And an app note: http://www.fairchildsemi.com/an/AN/AN-6024.pdf

Thanks for the information concerning modifying the DTV converter for older B&W sets. The only B&W TV that I have that was made before the days of color is a '49 Admiral 12" combo. And, I have not even started on it.

Speaking of "late" large screen B&W TV's, I seem to remember that someone on here mentioned that GE made some very basic B&W consolettes as recent as the late '80's. I think they were geared towards the commercial market and were usually found in cheap low end motels. It would be interesting to find one of those.

Here's my version of the above set - inside it looks the same, found a sticker that says "June 1978"

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...5/P1040107.jpg

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s...5/P1040106.jpg

I've posted a video of this set if anyone is interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChZrO5jhwwc