Model ID this RCA DIMENSIA?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Some RCA sets of that era had RGB inputs, but they were only 1 bit TTL level input signal. Idea was that "Teletext" was expected to be the "next big thing" and that an RCA set top box (which never happened) was to receive, decode and feed RGB TTL signals into the set.

Zenith was apparently expecting teletext to catch on some time in the '90s as well. I have a 19" Zenith table model TV, 1995 vintage, with settings on the "video" on-screen menu for two teletext modes, as well as settings for two closed-caption modes. In the four years I used this TV at my former residence, I never saw anything on either teletext mode, although someone told me some years ago that then-WTBS-TV in Atlanta was experimenting with teletext at the time (mid-'90s). Nothing ever became of that experiment that I could see.

I was not aware of RCA's teletext experiments, although if you say the set-top boxes that were supposed to decode the signals never materialized, then I guess their system never even came close to getting off the ground.

Teletext may be a dead issue today because of Internet-connectable Blu-ray players, smart TVs that also have Internet connectivity, and other devices that connect to the World-Wide Web, including smartphones, tablets, et al.

I think teletext, had it materialized, would have been a one-way system for the dissemination of news, weather, and sports updates, financial news, etc., not unlike today's MSNBC, et al. on cable TV.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I was not aware of RCA's teletext experiments, although if you say the set-
I think teletext, had it materialized, would have been a one-way system for the dissemination of news, weather, and sports updates, financial news, etc., not unlike today's MSNBC, et al. on cable TV.

Back in the day, I suggested that teletext mode could have been used as a display mode for a home computer (this was the 8 bit days of Atari 800's and Commodore 64s). Instead of a TV modulator sending the video from the computer onto channel 3 or 4, and that makes for low resolution, have the computer create a teletext style signal on that video signal, and the user switches the TV set to teletext mode, and he will get a nice sharp computer display. Submitted this idea to RCA's patent attornies, but they never did anything with it. Well, I did get other patents there.