The impact of early color
 

In my lifetime I have witnessed many amazing things but not one of them compare to seeing a color television in the 50's! It was almost sirreal

I can't say that anything has even come close since then

and the kicker was for the most part, they got it right. witnesses by the fact that many of the early color sets restored produce a picture that rivals many of today's versions. (analog anyway)

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Consumers traded out the early color TVs mainly due to reliability issues. Even the best ones burned through horizontal output tubes, dampers, rectifiers, circuit breakers, convergence board coils, flybacks and vertical components on a regular basis. People watched them several hours every day so things overheated and boards got brittle. Eventually it was fix the TV again or buy a bigger boat. Few could afford both.

Those unreliable components were engineered out one by one. Each generation improved until the current generation of solid state TVs is sufficiently reliable that it required FCC regulations to mandate a trade out. That's what HDTV is all about.

I wonder why more was not done to improve the tube type color sets. I know about the problems as we used an RCA CTC-39 for 10 hrs or more a day when I was in high school. Bad solder joints, horizontal output tubes burned out etc. Parents had to buy new TV's when I moved out as the "TV technician" (ME) was not there to take care of the sets anymore. They do take a LOT more maintenance that solid states when they are used a lot. RCA seemed to be the worst with heat destruction of parts. The Zenith hand wired chassis seemed to be the best with regards to heat related problems.

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Manufacturing costs drove the migration to solid state. In consumer products, the driver is unit cost. Little else matters. Transistors enable simpler power supplies, no sockets, automatic insertation and low cost. Everything else follows. Cost! Cost! Cost!

Yes, this is absolutely true. I have witnessed the introducing of color television in my childhood. Our family had a b/w tv set, and we only knew television in back and white. When I saw the first color television set--it was in summer of 1969--in the house of an uncle, it was absolutely incredible. Bonanza was on the screen in full color. I only knew this tv show in black and white, and as a child, I thought it was originally in black and white. I could not image that it was in color. Later I saw Gunsmoke and Star Trek in color when school friends invited me to watch color television. But these were very rare moments. In 1977 we got our first color tv set at home. It was a Nordmende tube tv set with shunt regulator.
In total these late 1960s were very exciting times, it was the time of the moon landing, color television, The Beatles and so on. But with respect to media events, I think color television was the greatest revolution since introducing of television, and no other new media can keep up with it.

Eckhard

I can't remember the 1st time I saw color TV-I guess it might have been in my grandad's office, he had the Zenith roundie I have now- but I DO remember thinking as a kid that color TV was "the Berries"-as different from regular TV as lightning is from lightning bug. Eckhard, was "Bonanza" popular in Germany ?

Yes! Very popular. It was a real "Strassenfeger", as we say in German (= blockbuster? street cleaner). And a bone of contention between kids and parents. The kids want to see Bonanza and the parents said, it is a bad thing for bad kids. Kids start to cry and could see Bonanza, and parents enjoyed too, but not demonstrating that they enjoyed it also.
As far as I remember, in my aerea Bonanza was a political thing too. We lived near the East German border, and we could receive West German television and the sovjet infiltrated East German television. For the East Germans, such capitalistic bullshit was strongly forbidden. But most of the East Germans watched the "black channel" (the name for West German television) and Bonanza too. In an East German television report, scenes of Bonanza were shown together with actual scenes of crime and murder from the West German police departments to demonstrate that people which watch Bonanza become criminals and murders. But this could not the East Germans keep from watching Bonanza.

http://www.mdr.de/damals-in-der-ddr/...d-1601149.html

BTW: color television was introduced in 1969 in East Germany. I have seen there the "Raduga" (= rainbow) color tv receiver, a sovjet brand with a shunt reguator. High voltage regulation was incorrectly, and reached more than 45,000 volts in case of failures. So many of these sets burned. Therefore they were usually called the "fire bombs".

Today I know that the first Raduga was a roundie too:

http://www.telesputnik.ru/archive/all/n09/54.html

Eckhard

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That Soviet article is very interesting. Kinda ironic, too, because several of the "big Daddys" of TV's early development were ex-pat Russians- Vladimir Zworkin at RCA, David Sarnoff-who WAS RCA-Alexander Poniatoff-the guy behind Ampex, & William Paley, the big dog at CBS.

I have made a demonstration of tube b/w tv sets for teenage children. At first they became nervous because they had to wait more than a minute before the picture appeared on the screen. They said if they had to wait such a long time after switching on to see a picture they would probably loose the delight (lust?) of watching television.
Second they realized that the picture was in black and white. They watched their wellknow tv programme in black and white, and they could not understand why it is in black and white and not in color.
One of them found an explanation: "it must be an East German tv set". It was not an East German tv set, but his explanation depends on the fact, that East German programmes appeared in black and white on West German tv sets due to the different television norm.
In total they can't understand how it was to watch tv only in black and white and why it was possible that color broadcasts appear in black and white on a b/w tv set. I tried to explain it with the fact of compatibility, but they don't really understand.
I believe they keep me for an alien.

Eckhard

My parents bought a tube color set before I was born. I was just thinking, I don't recall ever seeing a great color picture on a GE tube set-but then, that old KE chassis I grew up with must have done okay. I guess I didn't have anything to compare it to. In the 70s I had one aunt with a similiar GE, an uncle with a late 60s Admiral-nobody I knew had a Zenith. Some friends of my parents had and early solid state RCA. To this kid, they all looked fine!

I can attest to the reliability issue. It seemed that the repairman was over to our house monthly. I recall once there was a giftwrapped package in the closet and I eagerly asked who it was for. My Mom told me "Bruce". Well, there was a (then) young guy working for my father by that name, but I thought it was for Bruce Meredith, the TV repairman. That I knew him by name, and was not surprised that he would be getting a gift from my parents, well, that speaks for how often he visited! When that set was retired for a solid state GE (post-modular chassis era) the visits stopped. I think they came by once when the set was very new and that was for something minor. In 1990 my grandfather bought a new 19" Sylvania (NAP/US built) and my father bought a new 19" GE (RCA, also US built). Both sets needed repair in their first year but have done fine since and are still going strong to this day.

If I can veer away from the issue of reliability and comment on the "impact," although I didn't arrive until a decade after color TV did, I remember asking as a kid about those early days of color and the very negative comments made about "green skin" and ISTR that either "terrible" or even "horrible" was the adjective which summed up an impression which was then about twenty years past.

This conversation was at a time when an aquaintance of my grandparents' still refused to buy a color TV, such was the impression left by early demonstrations.

On the other hand, I recall reading an article by critic John Crosby (not an easy man to please) which was published in one of the major magazines in January, 1955 in which he stated almost incidentally to the rest of the piece: "color television is already here and it is technically magnificent." There's no telling which set he was watching, though I guess going purely by the odds it was probably a CT-100. And he would be one who could afford--and would demand--meticulous setup of his receiver in every way with many, many more times the attention to every detail from antenna lead-in to convergence than would be given to the average set on the showroom floor.

So while beautiful living color was of course promised, and under the best circumstances was probably enjoyed, color TV's very slow acceptance can probably be attributed to its lack of impact upon many due to underwhelming results seen in many early demonstrations.

Their expectations are met - their life is now a year or two, and without repairs... cuz they cannot be fixed ; )

I remember things drifting out of whack on our early color set, like the convergence, and that annoying sound buzz when white lettering appeared on the screen. Things you would generally put up without calling for the service guy until it got horrible. I don't think our first color set was a roundie though, it might have been though... late 60's I think.

Be sure you have a good pop-up blocker if you are going to visit that site...

I only had one family member that had color tv before the mid 60's. It was always neat to watch at their house during christmas, and sometimes a few ballgames. They lived in Caruthersville Mo. and we lived in Memphis TN, so not much chance to watch. We got our first color set in 1966. It was a small screen set and set on top of our big Curtis Mathes console set. By the time we got color the thrill was gone. It was like everybody else has a color set can't we get one now? That set was not very reliable, and was dead by 1971. We didn't get another color set until 1976. It was a Philco roundie that I bought from one of the local tv shops for $10.00. I still have it and it still worked last time I powerfed it up. I bought a new Magnavox star system set in 1978. That was our first new reliable set, and by then everything was in color.
So I totally missed early color, but from the people that I have talked to it was a real thrill even with the reliability issues.
Bill R

I'm not questioning the relaibility issue
 

as a little kid , I could have cared less about the reliability issue, the fact that during the otherwise bland 50's something so marvelous as color television even existed was almost more than I could imagine. Some of those memories still remain with me today.

as a footnote, back then you scoured the TV guide looking for any of those little boxes up in the left hand corner of the program for the word "COLOR"

Yes, it was the same with us. Here is a TV guide from 1968:
http://www.tvprogramme.net/60/1968/19680214.htm
and the (F) for "Farbe" ( = color) marked the broadcasts in color. As you can see there are only the Olympic games in color and a circus show. All other broadcasts were in black and white.
Here is a copy of an advertisement for one of the first color tv sets in Germany:
http://bs.cyty.com/menschen/e-etzold...abaT2000ad.pps
On page 7 the color tv set was advertised with the words "News reports, actual magazines and crime thrillers will be in black and white forever. Therefore this set is able to receive black and white broadcasts..."

Eckhard

An example of our |COLOR| boxes, same era.

Does anybody know exactly when the switch occurred from designating color broadcasts to designating B&W? I was reading TV Guide by 1971 and it had already happened by then.

There is a good little contest there somewhere-post a page from TV Guide and have people try to guess what part of the country it is from!

Did Russia clone CRTs like they cloned most other components or did they import them?

I've seen some very strange (to me) Russian valves and semiconductors, but never a Russian CRT.

On another note I was reading an article in a recent issue of Silicon Chip magazine about the 50th anniversary of TV in Australia the other day. It seems there were at least a few round sets B&W sets in Australia. AWA built some experimental sets in 1948 with round CRTs. According to the article the CRTs were locally made based on RCA designs. I don't know if any of these experimental sets survived. Certainly by the time TV actually started in 1956 rectangular CRTs were in use (well, they weren't as square as modern CRTs, but I wouldn't describe them as round).

Off topic, but on a sad note: Today a silver piece of crap karaoke system came through here bearing the Normende brand name. I remember some of their interesting, but rare (at least around here) TVs and Radios. I can't remember the last time I saw one though.

Thread: You had to be there
 

Hello,

we had discussed this topic already in the thread "The impact of early color". I think it would be best to continue this older thread than starting a new one.

Color television was one of the greatest milestone in human communication technology, and the amazing and overwhelming feelings when watching color television the first time can only be compared with the emotions accompanied by the next coming milestone of this dimension. This would be levitating and beaming people from one place to another like Scotty did in Star trek - not in science fiction but in reality.

Eckhard

My first Color TV show
 

That would be Howdy Doody at the TV station in Jackson, MS on the 17"
RCA . The station had two of these sets in a viewing room that would seat about 30 people. I was hooked. My first Color TV was a used CTC-5 out of a bar in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

My first color tv...
 

Hi, this is my first color tv. My parents bought it in 1969. It was very uncommon seeing color televisions here in Italy until regular color broadcasting started in 1977. The interesting thing is this is a genuine handcrafted Zenith tv made for Pal B/G tv system (you may notice it completely lacks hue control). It still works quite well for its age!

Hi, this is really interesting! which channels do you watch in color before 1977?

Was this a commercial PAL set, U.S. export, or did somebody modified a NTSC set for PAL broadcasts?

Eckhard

The romance with color
 

Early on people put up with the reliability issues as a trade-off for the magnificent color images beamed right into their living rooms. As color became more wide-spread I think we lost our love affair with the color set.

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Hello everybody! Yes the Zenith I have is an almost all tubes set. Despite the fact that it does not have the common "chromacolor" logo on it,it is equipped with a black matrix tube. It also has the common handwired metal chassis. Not many color pograms to watch at the time. I think my parents bought it because at that time there were rumors of incoming color broadcast. I remember watching experimental color tests at that time as well as the olympic games but nothing more. It is not a modified set, it is all original as manufactured by Zenith. I will try to make photos of the inside. I had another Zenith color tv (chassis 24MC32). It was a round tube set modified to be used with our tv standard. I recall it was bought by my grandfather during the sixties. Zenith was a very popular brand here in Florence during sixties and early seventies as there was an importer who used to import them directly from the production line and then modify them. I remember not many years ago I contacted that man and he brought me to a warehouse where there were many round tube color tvs still in the box together with chasses of equally old sets pehaps used to pick up spare parts and many many other old bw and color Zenith tvs!!! All that has been trashed not more than two years ago...What a shame!!!

That is fascinating! Thanks for providing the "missing piece" of your story... I work with a guy from Rome, who came to America in the early 70s. (Off-topic... It's funny that we have so many Italians building the Viper, an American sports car, lol)

Anyways... His father used to make many trips back/forth between Italy and the US, and he loved big Fords, and fast cars, so a lot of cars went back/forth with him. One day I mentioned a guy in Florence had an old Zenith TV up in his attic, but neither one of us could figure out "why" since it cost a lot of $$$ when new, but wouldn't be much more than a paperweight in Italy.

Knowing that Zenith built PAL sets, it makes a lot more sence. The missing hue control on your set certainly appears "factory". Danged if ya don't learn something new everyday!

here are the pictures of my zenith
 

Hi there! As promised here are few pics of my "pal Zenith".

And my most treasured...
 

This is a picture of my most loved tv set...Too bad it doesn't work...very difficul to find a more vintage color tv set here in Italy!

the evolution of color tv in my family...
 

The Sony set was bought in 1971. Since we could receive secam programs from the near Corsica (France) we bought this small Trinitron that only works in secam L. It has a perfect picture and never a repair in 35 years!!! The other is our first "modern" Pal tv set. It is a Loewe Opta sensotronic (it has an ultrasonic remote control and its keypad and tv controls board is entirely made by touch sensors.) and it was bought at the end of 1976! Useless to say it still works well!

Wow you have a CT-100...how did it got there? It was originally in Italy, or did you have it shipped from the States?

A lot of folks here in Brazil who are vintage radio and TV set collectors are people from Italian ancestors. It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff.

I noticed that you have a little Donald Duck on top of your CT-100. From what I read, Disney characters are very popular in Italy...are they still? Here in Brazil we used to be one of the countries where Disney comic books were the most sold in the world, alongside with the US and some European countries. I can almost say that Donald Duck made me learn to read. Growing up during the 80's I enjoyed the "Golden Age" of Disney comic books here, which lasted from 1950 to the mid 90's. They sold by millions, and there were very different types of Disney comic books. Unfortunately, in the 90's the publishing company that has the Disney rights here went into a crisis, and their comic book section was one of the most affected. Things are sadly different today, you almost don't see this magazines on the newsstands, and they are very thin, with a small number of pages. I also believe that maybe these stories, and the reading of comic books in general, might be "outdated" for the young generation who are growing up using the Internet. In a few years, the printing of this magazines here might end. I hope they are having more success in Italy.

What a unique TV! I've never heard or seen anything like your zenith set. What makes it so interesting is that its a true zenith made TV for export. I noticed it uses a "9B23P70" chassis which was not a chassis number of anykind on the american market. The letter "B" would indicate its a 1971 model year set. Is this the exact tv your parents bought in 1969? Are there '69 date codes on the original tubes? Chassis layout looks similar to 1971 models using the 12B14C50 series.
Extremely similar to US market zeniths by exterior styling and chassis layout.
Can you take a picture of the tube layout diagram? Im very interested in learning more about this set.

More on export Zenith
 

Hello! The CT 100 is a gift from a friend of mine. Since he knows how much I do love old televisions he bought it for me several years ago from a shop in New York. It is an unmodified american tv set but it was alredy not working when i received it. The picture tube has the three filaments burned out. I'd need time to start to try and restore it. Yes,Donald Duck ,Uncle Scrooge and company are very popular here in Italy. The funny thing it is in my childhood I wasn't interested in Walt Disney comics (I wasn't interested in comics at all): I started read them as an adult. My father ever told me the Zenith was bought in 1969 but since he is not particularly interested in old stuff he could mistake the date. I was only 3 in 1969 so I can't be sure about the date. Nothing is shown on the back which can lead to know the exact manufacturing date. I tried to take a picture of the tubes diagram but the picture came out blurred. I will try to take another picture with daylight. It has eleven tubes, transistorized chroma and color drivers. The vhf tuner is tube type and the uhf one is transistorized.
It has a chrominance "dura module".