Color Television was disappointing when first introduced?

[yagosaga]

Originally Posted by oldtvman

When I saw the porta color in 1965 i sold my 1964 zenith and bought it , I still have that set.

Oh, I want to see a photo of this 1965 porta color!

[kc8adu]

Originally Posted by yagosaga

Oh, I want to see a photo of this 1965 porta color!

iirc the first portacolor was 66.
would you settle for a set with an 80 datecode?
a neighbor has one with a mid 1980 date on the back.in a bright red cabinet.chassis 10he.

[Chad Hauris]

Any way you could get some photos of this set? Have never seen a 1980 tube type portacolor yet.

[bgadow]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

iirc the first portacolor was 66.
would you settle for a set with an 80 datecode?
a neighbor has one with a mid 1980 date on the back.in a bright red cabinet.chassis 10he.

In some GE service documents I have there is a letter dated 1977 from GE-Portsmouth, VA, stating that manufacture of the HE chassis was over & done. My guess is that there were a bunch of leftovers that they put in the warehouse & that they didn't get date coded until they were ready to ship. Either that or demand was so great that the General had to put them back into full production.

[Chad Hauris]

Originally Posted by bgadow

In some GE service documents I have there is a letter dated 1977 from GE-Portsmouth, VA, stating that manufacture of the HE chassis was over & done. My guess is that there were a bunch of leftovers that they put in the warehouse & that they didn't get date coded until they were ready to ship. Either that or demand was so great that the General had to put them back into full production.

Bryan, anyway you could get a scan of that letter...we could store it on our website for historical archive purposes.

[kc8adu]

next time i go there on a service call i will be sure to take a pic of that portacolor.

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

next time i go there on a service call i will be sure to take a pic of that portacolor.

I purchased one of the very first porta-color sets in 1965, touted as the first real portable color tv. I paid 249.99 for it.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by kc8adu

next time i go there on a service call i will be sure to take a pic of that portacolor.

Please do-- I'd like to see that as well! Be sure to include a shot where the manufaturing date sticker is visible.

I've got five or six Portacolors ranging from 1966 to 1977, but I'd love to find a 1980 Portacolor..!

As far as weight goes, it's true that Portacolors aren't as lightweight as small portable B&W sets from the same era, but they're still pretty darn light in weight compared with most other 10" - 13" color sets up through the early 70's or so. Try picking up a Sony KV-1210 in one hand and a GE Portacolor in the other hand, and it's no contest that the GE is lighter in weight. No transformer + printed circuit construction + Compactron tubes + plastic cabinet = a rather lightweight tube color TV. Even GE's first attempt at a solid-state replacement for this set (the Portacolor II) weighs more than the ol' all-tube Portacolor (partly due to the power transformer) and the cabinet is basically the same size and shape.

[Steve D.]

Since we've strayed from the original thread into Portacolor land, here's a neat little Portacolor site:

In Living PortaColor
Address:http://www.rwhirled.com/portacolor/


-Steve D.