Quote:
|
Originally Posted by captainmoody
The new crt makes sense as I can't remember any of those sets lasting that long. Was this model the first trinitron introduced into the us market? Did Sony make any color sets bigger than 12" in '69?
I also noticed it uses a 3AT2 hv rect tube...
|
Actually, though the model number would suggest otherwise, the KV-1210U was the first Trinitron model sold in the USA; it looks similar to the KV-1200U that replaced it except for some cabinet color/trim differences. [drh has one of these 1200's too that I've seen] I would imagine the chassis is similar given that the 1200 still has the 3AT2 HV rect.
The 12" Trinitrons were the first ones that Sony sold in the USA; the 15" and 9" models came out not too much later, but I don't know if they were around yet in 1969. One weird thing-- somewhere around here I've got an old electronics magazine with an article about the "new" Sony Trinitron CRT. I think the magazine pre-dates the introduction of the KV-1210U, but the prototype TV pictured in the magazine is a 9" set and looks like a KV-9000. Maybe Sony didn't think a 9" portable would sell as well as a 12" one, so chose to go with the larger tube for their first product introduction..?
On another note: The Japanese-market version of the KV-1210U was the KV-1310. Evidently the Japanese continued to market TVs using the overall diagonal (in the USA starting in the late 60's, advertized TV picture sizes had to be based on just the viewable area). Note also the use of inch units in the model number. Even these days, I've noticed some Japanese ads (for the Japanese market) for TVs and computers describing screen sizes in inches, even when other measurements are given in metric units...