Found a Predicta...

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Just saw the ad on Craigslist this morning-an ad for a tabletop Predicta in good cosmetic shape for fifty bucks. I just brought it home:

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/l...t=100_1385.jpg

The lady said she and her husband were in the tv repair business (in fact, that is how they met) and this was something they picked up during that time. She said that it used to work but that her husband ultimately tired of dealing with its emotional problems. We talked for a while, and she had some interesting stories about those days. In the end, she brought up her husbands old tube caddy, still filled with compactrons and later type tubes, as well as a box of much older radio tubes.

She knew her repair lingo, and said that the crt should be okay, and that the flyback and other hv stuff was also never really an issue. I noted that the electrolytics were newer and she said that her husband had replaced those about ten years ago. So, I did a brief variac warm up test after confirming the working electrolytics. While the filament string worked fine, I did not get any sound, picture or hv. I stopped at 80 volts, so we'll see what happens when I get it open. So happy to finally get one of these!