Did RCA make any post-mid '70's steel cabinet TV's?
 

I know Zenith made steel cabinet 23"/25" color TV's well in to the '80's; but, I don't recall ever seeing an RCA that new. Actually, the newest steel cabinet RCA that I've seen was a mid '70's 25" solid state CTC68 mural TV with the jack panel on the back.

I think the CTC-68 might be the last steel cabinet RCA... I've seen plenty of cheap masonite CTC-97s, and then after that, of course all plastic.

Charles

I have never personally seen an RCA steel cabinet beyond a CTC-12 I sold to a fellow VK'er a while back.

I remember seeing a late '70's CTC 8x or 9x series chassis (the one with the MDR regulator module) 25" set with ultra-sonic remote and motorized tuner that was housed in a cheap masonite wooden table model cabinet. I can't remember if it had provisions for screw on legs or not.

It seems that Zenith stayed with such designs as rounded corner 23V CRT's, metal cabinets, large screen B&W sets, and consoles on legs way later than RCA or any other brand. In the early '80's, I think Zenith still had a following from the older crowd who would still buy, and preferred, these older designs.

Speaking of metal cabinet solid state RCA's, the only ones I ever saw were the 25" CTC68 Lyceum/Mural TV's for institutional use, a similar 21" institutional set, and a few consumer level 21" sets.

I just parted out one of these CTC-68 Lyceum TVs (sent the chassis to retrochad.) It had a manufacture date of June 1978

I worded on a zillion metal cabinet XL-100s’ in the early ‘80s. Most of them were for schools, local governments, and cable TV providers. Most of them were fitted with composite video / VTR jacks. Not bad sets.

Latest one I saw was made in 1976.

Our school had some steel cabinet 25" XL-100's circa 1982 or so, with manual tuner. They were the only color sets we had at the time, the rest being 60's vintage GE sets. Those RCA's had a great picture, and didn't sound too bad either. Don't remember what chassis they had.

The newest metal chassis set I ever saw was my 1976 Toshiba Blackstripe 13".

I can't recall an RCA metal cabinet "regular" set beyond the XL-100 vertical chassis sets (MA series modules). Teknika and Sanyo (91C 19" series) made metal cabinet sets well into the early 80's, as did Hitachi. I've mentioned previously a Engineering-use only metal cabinet GE PC-chassis set we got when the Portsmouth plant closed. She's a junker now.

The US Navy had Teknika metal cabinet sets with internal isolation transformers on ships in the mid-1980's. We had one on 24/7 in our shop on the Forrestal.

I can recall an RCA Mural (hotel/motel/hospital) metal cabinet set using either a CTC68 or CTC72 chassis - seems it didn't have the bonded yoke, so it may have been the earlier chassis. We had some from the military hospital system with the hospital grade plugs and 75-ohm f-fitting only RF input. Sadly, I recall junking them, particularly flattening the cabinets after removing the corner braces with a chisel. This was late '88/early '89.

Cheers,