Some History of the Rectangular Color CRT

[akent36]

Lately I have become interested in the saga of Motorola and National Video developing the first practical rectangular screen color CRT during 1961 to 1963 and have been searching Chicago Tribune archives on line. National Video was publicly traded and their stock went from about 115 in October 1965 to zero when then they folded four years later. There is also another part of the story involving Admiral--both Motorola and Admiral decided to build color CRT plants in early 1965 and they were both ready to go around October 1965. Admiral's cost $18 million which they could hardly afford since their profit picture hadn't been that great since the mid 50's. Motorola must have built a smaller plant because they only spent $10 million. It is not clear to me, but it doesn't look like Admiral ever got past the pilot run stage into full production, and Motorola closed their plant after nine months of effort.