Found a 1969 Motorola Quasar Works in a Drawer

[Findm-Keepm]

Nice set - we had the same Quasar, 'cept ours had the Insta-matic switch where yours has the Mototola Batwing - yours must be a base model without Insta-matic. The same base chassis is featured on the cover of the January 1969 issue of Radio Electronics magazine.

Our Quasar was the first set I ever adjusted - at 6 years old. One Saturday morning I played with the drive controls on the back and got things all screwd up - and got a good butt-chewing as well. My not-so-great start in messing with TVs.....

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Nice set - we had the same Quasar, 'cept ours had the Insta-matic switch where yours has the Mototola Batwing - yours must be a base model without Insta-matic. The same base chassis is featured on the cover of the January 1969 issue of Radio Electronics magazine.

Our Quasar was the first set I ever adjusted - at 6 years old. One Saturday morning I played with the drive controls on the back and got things all screwd up - and got a good butt-chewing as well. My not-so-great start in messing with TVs.....

I'll have to look for a copy of that magazine. The drive controls were always much to easy to access for anyone I thought since the controls protrude out of the back cover!

You set must have been a little newer though. The instamatic feature made it's first appearance on models starting in December, 1970.

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by drh4683

I'll have to look for a copy of that magazine. The drive controls were always much to easy to access for anyone I thought since the controls protrude out of the back cover!

You set must have been a little newer though. The instamatic feature made it's first appearance on models starting in December, 1970.

Our set was a TOTL set, with a Drexel Early American/Georgian cabinet that hugged the floor. We got it in January, 1970. Dad worked nights for a Motorola/RCA dealer, Snug Harbor TV, and Ralph, the owner, wanted the set gone - it was the last of his first batch of Quasars, and had gone unsold. Dad paid 60 dollars a week out of his pay to pay for the set. The only problem we ever had was once in 1971 - a lightning storm took out our Quasar (power supply diodes) and also took out an aquarium heater and a clock radio of our neighbors - dunno what dad did to fix that. The CRT blue gun went in 1980, and we junked it for panels. Our caddy of panels was missing a few...

Motorola had to hyphenate the Insta-matic to avoid a trademark held by Kodak on "imaging and photographic products" - so Galvin and Co. created the hyphenated name, and never trademarked it. Somewhere in Dad's stash of stuff is a LP record with highlights of a 1970 Motorola shareholder's gala in Chicago where the head of Consumer Electronics told the story. Kodak agreed on paper to let them hyphenate it and pronounce it the same as their trademark, but only if Motorola didn't seek trademark protection.

I noticed one of the bolts holding down the power supply is half removed- did you do that, or was it some earlier repair? Dusty threads, so someone might have been into the power supply.

[drh4683]

Originally Posted by Findm-Keepm

Our set was a TOTL set, with a Drexel Early American/Georgian cabinet that hugged the floor. We got it in January, 1970. Dad worked nights for a Motorola/RCA dealer, Snug Harbor TV, and Ralph, the owner, wanted the set gone - it was the last of his first batch of Quasars, and had gone unsold. Dad paid 60 dollars a week out of his pay to pay for the set. The only problem we ever had was once in 1971 - a lightning storm took out our Quasar (power supply diodes) and also took out an aquarium heater and a clock radio of our neighbors - dunno what dad did to fix that. The CRT blue gun went in 1980, and we junked it for panels. Our caddy of panels was missing a few...

Motorola had to hyphenate the Insta-matic to avoid a trademark held by Kodak on "imaging and photographic products" - so Galvin and Co. created the hyphenated name, and never trademarked it. Somewhere in Dad's stash of stuff is a LP record with highlights of a 1970 Motorola shareholder's gala in Chicago where the head of Consumer Electronics told the story. Kodak agreed on paper to let them hyphenate it and pronounce it the same as their trademark, but only if Motorola didn't seek trademark protection.

I noticed one of the bolts holding down the power supply is half removed- did you do that, or was it some earlier repair? Dusty threads, so someone might have been into the power supply.

Very interesting, so you had a set from January, 1970 with Insta-matic? I never saw or heard of one that early. Not trying to say no such thing existed. I got my info about December, 1970 being the announcement date for Insta-Matic per a 1970 Motorola annual report.

(seen here on page 11: https://www.motorolasolutions.com/co...-5p48mb-28.pdf )


Thanks for the detail on the use of the Insta-Matic name. I kinda figured there would have been an issue with Kodak regarding it and how the two got away with using the "same" name.

That screw appears to have been like that for YEARS. I don't even see any contact or rub marks on the metal from where the screw touched it. Perhaps it was hand started and never fully fastened from the factory?

[Findm-Keepm]

Originally Posted by drh4683

Very interesting, so you had a set from January, 1970 with Insta-matic? I never saw or heard of one that early. Not trying to say no such thing existed. I got my info about December, 1970 being the announcement date for Insta-Matic per a 1970 Motorola annual report.

(seen here on page 11: https://www.motorolasolutions.com/co...-5p48mb-28.pdf )

Insta-matic tuning on the Quasar II, yes - ours was a TS-915, original Quasar, same as yours. On the Quasar II, the insta-matic multi-pole switch was a real PITA. The switch would get dirty and cause problems in either position. On the '915, it was just a DPDT push-push switch that switched in /out a small "daughter" board mounted on the C panel - no presets, just factory selected values that resulted in the best color picture. Same size button as the power switch, with "Insta-matic in white or silver against the bronze background. The only Motorola logo was right above the UHF preset buttons, with the Quasar name. I watched many a Saturday morning cartoon on that set, and we watched the POW homecomings (big here because of Jeremiah Denton) and even the Nixon resignation on it as well. We also had a 16" Motorola B/W portable, and a RCA sportable that rarely saw service - I can remember watching it only once, when I was home with severe Poison Ivy the first three days of 4th grade.

Heck, if I can find the LP, you can have it - I'm not a Galvinite, although Motorola Semiconductor products were the best among the US makers. I'm more into RCA, GE and Sony - brands we saw tons of, other than Magnavox, Philco and Sears(warwick - Sanyo and Toshibas were A-ok), brands that never impressed me.

If you need any panels, I can also see what dad kept - I remember seeing an F panel in a PTS box recently.

[Findm-Keepm]

Motorola used a set with a similar speaker grille in their 1969 report, and possibly your same model in this photo:

http://fossforce.com/wp-content/uplo.../01/quasar.jpg