Color adaptable Admiral goes in 14 hours
 

I think this would be a great set to preserve.
eBay:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA%3AIT&rd=1

Nice lookin set. Too far from me though.

Pickup available
 

Butler is just a hoot and a holler up the road. Anyone wants to bid on it, I could pick it up for you and hold it until next year's Early Television Convention.

--Dave Sica

So what is meant by 'color adaptable' on this set?

The sync, video, and power connections required to operate a color wheel appeared on a socket at the rear of the chassis where you would plug in your color adaptor.

Nostalgia I guess...
 

Won the Admiral for a few bucks. Back in '51 a family member bought a Sears table model that had that magic 'color' word next to a socket on the rear panel. Couldn't pass on this one. Thanks for the heads up.

Pete

Good to know a responsible person got it.
 

That crt frame looks like the only one like it. I guess it works with the color wheel.
Does anybody have a factory made color wheel?

I don't altho I do have a Westinghouse table-top set with the same option. I have seen a CBS color wheel set in operation and the picture was FANTASTIC. So much better than one could imagine.

I was just gonna ask if anyone had ever seen a color wheel in operation.I would think it would be one of those gizmos that can be made to work in a lab, but not so well in the "real world".

A color wheel running on the CBS standard, such as this set was intended to adapt to, works very well, with "imperceptible" flicker--that is, most people's persistence of vision is such that the rate of 72 color fields per second making 24 complete color frames is too rapid to flicker. I can see the flicker in a CBS color picture. To my eyes, it's almost subliminal . . . but not quite. NTSC-to-field sequential color wheels from ca. 1956, like the Colortel, can work well and reliably, but they flicker like a motherf***er due to the low frame rate. Whereas an ordinary color receiver displays 30 complete color frames per second, with a color wheel displaying NTSC, the color signal has to be chopped up into 30 fields per second. 10 fps for any type of motion-picture is going to flicker like mad. If you don't mind that, then they work fine.

A short while ago
 

a man bought a beautiful handmade color wheel system and I think he spoke of using a 10" Tv with it. I wonder if he ever did it. There is a thread on it here somewhere.
Apparently there were never factory made color wheel systems sold to the public?

About 10 years ago, I witnessed a home-brew color-wheel adapter demo at my local antique radio club meet. I think it was built from plans in a magazine. It consisted of a chassis in an open-back box, a motor and a color wheel, with a plunger on a cable / motor brake as a coarse sync adjustment. It was set up with the motor and tri-gel-wheel perched on top of a small RCA B&W (think it was a 721TS). The operator tuned in a channel with rabbit ears, cranked up the motor and started pushing the plunger until it was roughly in sync. Then he'd adjust a few controls on the extra chassis - which kept him fiddling as the sync was sorta drifty, but in a way like a motion-picture framing adjustment. Ironically, I recignized the project had been built on a sawed-down-to-fit CTC-11 chassis.

It was actually an exciting experience, and the color gamut was really not too shabby, just somehow different. I don't remember who he was, or if the eldely gentleman is still alive.

I have an Admiral that looks very similiar but with a plain bakelite front where this one is colored. Mine has a metal crt but this one looks like glass. I had never noticed anything about color on the back, now I'll have to go double check. I don't think I would have missed something like that, though! It is a good performer.

I'm hoping to...
 

either reproduce or restore one of the kits originally designed for these 'color' ready '51 sets. Not the color wheel. Just the modification that was to allow b&w sets to receive CBS color broadcasts in b&w. Who knows. Ya gotta wonder if it was ever actually done back in '51 for other than engineering purposes.

I wonder if the builders knew they would never use the color wheel system but knew it would be a real cheap extra to sell the consumer at a high profit. If there was never a color wheel system available for the consumer I think that would support such a scenario.

I've heard first-hand stories about all the sales gimmicks used back in the day, and these "features" were well hyped. "Oh sure Mr. So and So, step up to this set here, in a year or two when color is popular you'll be glad you bought a color-ready set."

I've also heard stories that some folks thought their picture would suddenly be in living color with the addition of an external adapter plugged right in the back. Some sets didn't even have any connections to that rear jack. Others have a plug with a jumper that completes the B+ to the set.

Reminds me of the Phonevision jack on the back of one of my Zeniths:
http://www.chicagotelevision.com/pay.htm

see
http://www.earlytelevision.org/cbs_color_converter.html

and
http://www.earlytelevision.org/crosley_converter.html
plus much more on CBS color on the ETF site

A few years ago, there was a small thread talking about seeing color on black and white screens... just for a moment. I had remembered seeing a color star on a set from when I was a kid.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5388

Got the Admiral today...
 

Thanks to Dave Sica who picked up the Admiral and handed it to me today at the Sarnoff Library in Princeton. Sure enough, it has that magic 1951 'color' connector on the rear.

Questions: Did they use a dual CBS-color/NTSC flyback? Was the connector there to add a color wheel? Was it there to convert an NTSC b&w set to display CBS color in b&w?

Here's what I found in this page just added to my site.

http://home.att.net/~pldexnis/potpou...e_Admiral.html

Pete:

I can not answer your questions about the color adaptor to your set but I attached a scan from an Admiral brochure explaining the addition of color to their line of 1951 (I believe) sets. I have a 51 motorola with a color socket but at least that one is hooked up on the inside! I think it has a connection to the video, vertical sync pulse and b+.

Steve

Oops, here's the scan.

Interesting reading... I bet your findings were a MAJOR disappointment!

More amused than ticked I guess at finding the empty connector: hardware of the day actually seemed to support the historic record. And the lesson only cost fifteen bucks.


Interesting bit of copy, Steve. It first encouraged potential buyers NOT to delay a set purchase because 1951 Admiral TV converted to color gave you a "Bigger picture" would be "Lower Cost" was "...a revolutionary achievement by Admiral engineers", and had "Freedom from Obsolescence."

I found the last dozen or so words on the page to be the most interesting: Admiral copywriters referred to the CBS Color system throughout, until they added "...color can be added regardless of what system of telecasting is ultimately adopted."

Talk about CYA. Either CBS or NTSC color from an Admiral. It just depended on the electronics behind the spinning wheel.

Actually they were right. CBS had a companion-type adapter in the works. Colordapter and Col-R-Tel for NTSC color were a reality five years or so years later.

Update: SteveD just provided a nice ad showing my set stuffed in a console. It's been added to the bottom of the page.

That's hillarious! I wonder if any Admirals or others had wires connected to the color receptacle? I guess there never was an Admiral CA100 to plug in the dummy plug?

Out of curiousity, I looked up "CA100" on the Sams website... and it turned up nothing.

I'm at work on the ship right now, so I can't look in my old Sams index. If anyone has an old index, take a peek and see if it might be listed in there. Sometimes I've found old models listed in the paper index that aren't listed in the online index.

Perhaps the CA-100 was something that was "in the works" when the set came out, but never quite made it. Admiral might have decided to ditch the idea and concentrate more on an actual color receiver.

---

Pete look at it this way, you have something even more rare than a color compatible set, you've got an Admiral with the plastic control door still intact! :lmao:

Pete,

What is the model/chassis number for the Admiral? The SAMS might have some clues as to how to hook up the color adapter. The SAMS for my 1951 Stromburg-Carlson (chassis 119M5A) has the connections drawn up for a color wheel/adapter.

polaraman

Today that set could be converted to color very easily. You know the drill: Remove old chassis. Throw it out. Go to WalMart and buy some POS made in China with the same sized screen. Hack install it in the old cabinet. Hot melt glue the old knobs crudely to fake it. .... ... :no: :thumbsdn: :sigh: :tears:

Of course if you wanted this set to last, you'd restore the old chassis. It would last about ten times longer than the Chinese color TV chassis....

The model is 17K12 and there's an 'N' stamped near the model. Am not home so don't now know the chassis number.

55 years old and all it needed were a few adjustments and contact cleaner to get a decent picture. Beautiful copper chassis.

Anyone hear of this? The internal speaker was disconnected. A 'SPKR' outlet on the rear chassis was clearly used as it was still shiny. Maybe a table model TV that slips into a console?

Pete,

You have a genuine piece of history there: early analog vaporware!

--Dave

Pete:

I just looked in Wallace's Admiral book and it states in there that on very late production runs the wiring to the color sockets were omitted. Early runs supplied B+ and AC to the converter and a plug was needed to complete the B+ circuit if a color converter was not connected.

Steve

Well I guess that's it then...

Built after it was clear CBS Color flopped.

Did Wallace perchance have data on the CA100?

The SAMS is 135-2. It shows the socket but not how to hook it up. It also says that the "N" has no service significance.

Do any of the connectors on the Colo-r-tel or CBS color wheel systems match the socket on the back of the Admiral?

SAMS does not list a CA100


polaraman

Pete:

Wallace's has no info on a CA100.

glad did not bid, wanted tv with adapter eventually. FCC hearings probaly made color wheel obsolete quickly. Does bidder have CBS wheel info? must be same or similiar to other CBS sets? A good project, albeit a very specialized one. If someone gets this whole thing going, pics please!!

The perceived color over B&W TV was an invention of James Butterfield. There is an article about it in the October, 1968, issue of Popular Electronics. I remember seeing
a B&W commercial with the 7 UP logo flashing in color at the end for several seconds.

I was working as a cameraman at a local TV station at the time and Engineering would warn the receptionist every time the spot was going to play because the phones would ring off the hook for 10 minutes from people calling to find out why they were seeing color on their B&W sets!
Cliff

How would that work? Im very intrigued right now. :thmbsp:

Keefla:

It is called subjective color. It is psychological phenomenon that is typically demonstrated by spinning a white disk with black concentric circles printed on it. When viewing the spinning disk one typically perceives various colors. It is not really understood how it works. One theory is that by triggering the cones in the retina at a certain rate it fools the brain into perceiving color.

Steve