Porta-Color on You-Know-Where...
 

..Not mine, no affiliation. Item # 290212073905. Got a little over a day to go, still pretty cheap. Looks like it works pretty good, typical for a Porta-Potty. They don't know they're old & cheap & shouldn't still work, so they just do...(grin) Always had a warm spot in my heart for these little guys, they're generally real troopers. Somebody grab it, OK ? You'll feel good about yrself...-Unca Sandy

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Its an exact duplicate of mine. Mine has served many hours with only a few hiccups. I'm actually pretty impressed by these little sets. Very reliable.

David

Is that that one you got from me? I bought that from a thrift store when I was in Michigan, never did any repairs to it, as far as I know (except for missing the antenna) it was still totally original.

Those were remarkable little sets for the time. But remember....

1) The dot pattern on the screen is of exactly the same density as for larger CRTs of the time. This means iffy resolution at best.

2) Some of the compactron tubes used in some sets of this vintage are made of pure unobtainium.

It was in the early 1980s that I had one of those sets on my bench with a complete sync failure problem. After being on for about 5 minures the picture would suddenly start to spin and roll. Turned out that a triode section in one of the compactrons would develop a grid-to-cathode short after warm-up. After futile search for a replacement, and a customer that reeeeeaaallly wanted this set to survive, as he really liked the thing, I said :sigh: I'll see what I can do. After some meditation over this matter I went out to my car and removed the battery, and brought it in to my bench.....

Inside of 15 minutes I was buttoning up that set--fully functional, and with that tube working just fine. :D

I found the listing before I found this thread! I'm the high bidder right now, wish me luck!

Wow! You blasted the short with a car battery? Did you put anything in series with the battery to limit current?

I have an attic full of compactrons, so if it is needed, I may have it.

I also have a 1977 Portacolor that works but not well, just as Andy indicates.

Interestingly, the picture is dated April 3rd 2008... This can only mean one thing... THERE'S BEEN A TIMEWARP AND THIS AUCTION ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER MONTH!!

or they had their date stamp wrong...

Yep! :yes:

Noop! :D

WOW! I had no idea this could be done, I guess 'ya learn something new everyday.:yes:
Does anyone know the year of the porta-potty? It looks to me like a '72?

The deal with compactrons is that they may be a whole lot easier to find now than they were 25 years ago. A lot of that stuff has come out of the woodwork. I know I've got quite a pile of 'em, though I don't know specifically about the ones used in the Portacolors. I remember a few years ago I was working on one of mine and broke the horiz.output tube; seems like I had several NOS on the shelf.

I have a pile of them too, from sets I picked up on trash day and were too far gone. Lots of the early 70s GE color tabletops had bad crts it seems. I always pull the compactrons since I have one 1966 portacolor and one GE SF-chassis portable.

My portacolor has a dim CRT but is in mint shape otherwise.

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