Thinking about a rare Zenith prob'ly nobody has/wants

[maxm]

I don't have any of those later big screen or electronic tuning Zeniths, though I did see one of those 13" sets in a resale store a while back.
I also remember seeing a GE "Performance Television" Black and White set that I believe was from the late 70s or early 80s and had about a 19" screen. I didn't see an exact date, but it was Solid State, had a "click" UHF tuner, and an early 80s "look" to it. Maybe somebody out there knows when GE made this line of "Performace" sets, I have seen color ones too. This could have been one of their last large screen B&W sets.

[Chad Hauris]

The Performance line was in the late 70's and early 80's...I have one of the Portacolor-type solid state color 10" sets plus a 27" console with VIR. also have seen b/w sets plus 17" and 19" color sets...it seems just about every type of TV GE made came in a "performance" model.

[JCFitz]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

The Performance line was in the late 70's and early 80's...I have one of the Portacolor-type solid state color 10" sets plus a 27" console with VIR. also have seen b/w sets plus 17" and 19" color sets...it seems just about every type of TV GE made came in a "performance" model.

Wonder what the difference is on the 10" versions between the Performance and Non Performance models.Mine says nothing about Performance series on it.Works great though.Doesn't have VIR or Autocolor.I don't even think it has AFT.Maybe only the Performance series had those features?

P.S.I'm jealous of that Wurlitzer 1100 jukebox in your new avatar,Chad.Is that yours or a customer's.

[Whirled One]

I've seen both the 19" and 12" versions of the Zenith digital-tuning B&W portables show up occasionally at thrift stores and such. They're not *real* common, but not super rare either. They have direct-access keypads, but I don't think any of them ever had remote control or cable-ready tuners.

About a month ago at a local "junk" store I saw a recently-made 12" B&W set that had (amazingly enough) on-screen digital tuning display, CATV tuning capability, on-screen menus (!), and A/V input jacks. Yes, it was a B&W set. Really! I even lugged it to a nearby outlet and plugged it in to verify the existence of the menus and everything. I've never seen one like *that* before. It did not have remote control capability, nor a closed-caption decoder, but otherwise looked a lot like a typical modern 13" color set, and the cabinet was made of transparent plastic. I don't remember the brand name (it was some no-name brand as I recall), but I think the sticker on the back indicated it was made in the year 2000. Weird!

Speaking of "new" B&W TVs, has anyone noticed that many of those cheap little 5" portables nowadays have resumed having UHF tuners that have coverage up to channel 83? Seemed like in the late 1980's, all of the TV manufacturers reduced the coverage of their UHF tuners to only receive channels 14 through 69. I assumed this was due to the "upper" UHF channels being re-assigned; part of this was for the then-new cellular telephone service (the old FM analog celluar band). [Oddly, the FCC also banned the sale of radio receivers (such as scanning radios) in the USA that covered the cellular band, even though practically every American household already had a device that could receive analog FM audio in the celluar band-- namely, a television set.] Anyway, while analog cellular is pretty much obsolete now, I wonder why any manufacturers would bother changing their UHF tuners over again to cover channels 70-83 (it's not like there are any actual broadcast stations there anymore), or if that's even allowed? (Does the FCC even care anymore, or was the no-UHF-tuners-over-channel-69 thing a voluntary guideline rather than a mandate?) On a related topic, once analog TV goes off the air, I suppose that will mark the end of the small, cheap, battery-powered TV set. Or new B&W TVs in general, for that matter. I guess I'm having some difficulty imagining a 5" widescreen B&W HDTV...
[Seriously, though, I wonder how long it will be before someone introduces a 5" LCD portable HDTV similar in style to those portable DVD players.]


In regards to last-gasp B&W consoles, yeah, I've always wondered about that myself. Zenith had 'em until at least 1979, and I've got a 1978 Admiral dealer catalog that still listed two models of them. Attached is a picture of one. Granted, they were still significantly less expensive than a color console, but I'm amazed that anyone would have still bought a brand-new B&W console in the late 70's...

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by JCFitz

Wonder what the difference is on the 10" versions between the Performance and Non Performance models.Mine says nothing about Performance series on it.Works great though.Doesn't have VIR or Autocolor.I don't even think it has AFT.Maybe only the Performance series had those features?

I could be mistaken, but I always thought the "Performance" label was something GE put on *all* of their TV's during one or two model years. I've seen even the lowliest of GE 12" B&W portables from that period with a "Performance Television" label on it. I figured it was just an ad campaign slogan that covered the entire GE TV lineup for that model year (or however long it was), and didn't specifically refer to a particular feature or "luxury" version of a product. I could be wrong though!

[vintagecollect]

Nice pic-- whirled one. That TV cabinet looks a definete throw back to late 60s, early 70s when TV makers still produced quality cabinets. That TV surely looks older thatn it actually is!

[andy]

I wonder who, if anyone, actually bought a B/W console that late?

[colortrakker]

One thrift near me has a 12" BW Performance set that must date from the early '70s. Right next to it is a Performance Plus 19" color set from about '85. Most of the GE sets I've seen from that period are Performance sets, but maybe not all. We had a basic '85-vintage GE 19" that wasn't one.

Andy: could be there were some colorblind 80somethings out there who bought those late '70s BW consoles, but why would the manufacturers bother with such a small market?