Roundie-daze Anecdotes...

[roundscreen]

My aunt and uncle bought a remote round screen color rca set in 1963 and it was the first color set I saw in person. They were vary fussy when it came to the color adjustments and it had a vary good picture. I was the one who would crank up the color when watching cartoons and sit about two inches away from the screen. My aunt would tell me to sit back from the tv or I would go blind but I never did listen to her and I still do it now. { I am 48 years old.} That set was in service till 1975 and was on 8 to 10 hours a day. The flyback burned up in 1966 and the crt was replaced in 1970 if I recall correctly. { My uncle would show me the repair bills.} The first round color set I owned was a ctc15 that my step dad gave me when my mom bought a new one in 1972. The crt got busted when I moved out of the house in 1973. When I bought my house in 1979. I started collecting round screen color and b&w sets and now I have a large collection of round screen sets. I had no clue that there were other people that collected old color sets untill I met Tim in the 90's. Now I see people collecting 70's and 80's sets and I think that is so awesome. I hope our collections will be around for a long time for other people to love and enjoy just like we do.
Ed

[Pete Deksnis]

I remember generally being pissed because I was seventeen and hadn't seen color television yet.

It was in the spring of 1957 that it happened, complements of an after-school job at a local butcher shop that included delivering orders in their '54 Chevy panel truck. The first time I delivered to a bar in West Conshohocken I saw a 'color TV' sign over the front door.

Walked in and there it was: a metal table model 21-in. roundie IN OPERATION SHOWING COLOR!

I didn't know it at the time, but I stood there watching "Matinee Theatre," a live color broadcast being beamed cross-country from Los Angeles.

I hung there mezmorized far longer than an underage kid probably should have in a 1957 bar. I didn't care.

That was a long time ago.

But hey, you can always remember your first time.

[oldtvman]

Pete I guess that's what makes us a different breed. As I said earlier, nothing I have seen in my life nothing has come close to the impact of seeing color television in the 50's, It was almost surreal. Color television was very good but almost out of place in that era. And although HDTV is a major improvement, it almost goes unnoticed in today's busy world.

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by oldtvman

...although HDTV is a major improvement, it almost goes unnoticed in today's busy world.

It's also been a slow starter for sure. I've seen people buy a widescreen HDTV, feed it with only NTSC, stretch the 4.3 sweep to 16.9, and proudly show it off to neighbors.

MeThinks HDTV is still too technical for most to wrap themselves around, but unlike the gestation of color, HD is being legislated into acceptance.

Originally Posted by Sandy G

...one of the 1st times that made an impression on me was seeing myself on TV in color at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair.

You and other AudioKaramans were fortunate to have been there in front of an operating TK-41. My parents lived in Manhattan at the time, and so my Dad and I took the subway out to the fair one day. Keep scratching my butt but don't have specific memories of the RCA pavilion. I do seem to remember roundies on view around the park, but the Chrysler turbines keep popping up and fog my vintage TV recollections. Found a few slides of that trip a few months ago; drat it, no roundies to be seen, but we were both wearing suit and tie! That certainly was a different time. I barely own a tie today, and those turbines are dust. Viva color TV!