Later Electrohome color TV curbside find

[colorfixer]

Yah, I remember those days, when a simple 19" CRT was easily had. Nowadays, they're like unobtainium. I have some RCA tubes in my games that are nearing 30 years old, and although the screens are burned to hell, recapping the monitor board cleans dim picture and focus issues that you'd think were down to a weak tube.

I'd be interested to see if anyone has sucessfully subbed a chinese tube into an older monitor with good convergence/purity.

I remember the days when Panasonic quietly went to RCA tubes in their 26 inch "component" TV's. The first was a silver round corner monitor/tv with OSD from about 81-82 that was the rage around the time when Sony sold the profeel.

I've tried using tubes from orion and chungwa built sets that seem to mount well and will light up, but with the yoke from the G07 (or WG49K) they just won't converge or run with proper purity. Using the yoke from the tv, you just get really bad pincushioning.

The G08 was a monster. The design criterion simply was to avoid Atari's patents (and lawyers) on the spot killer circuit at all costs. By doing this, they over-engineered the thing to the point where it was made to self destruct, especially if there were any grounding issues between the components of the game. Stories of the monitor going to flame were no exaggerations.

[Tom_Ryan]

Electrohome also made a portable Electrostatic Air Cleaner for home use. All steel construction. About the size of a 19" portable TV. I have 3 of them, all bought new in the late 60's early 70's. The HT circuits uses a 2KV transformer and a voltage doubler to achieve about 5.5.KV that drives the electrostatic collecor cell. I got them to control dust and airborne pollen around the house - very effective for reducing allergy symptoms. The FAN motors are of exceptional quality. With regualr service and cleaning of the cell these units outperform airpurifiers available today on the market. Mine are still running strong.

[zenith2134]

Don't know about the air filters but they sure sound like a good product.

Back to the arcade machines, Is any manufacturer still making X-Y monitors (b&w or color) ? I strongly doubt it but that would be cool. I'm not a collector but would like to be.

Anyone remember US Billiards' Quasar game? That was a X-Y, wasn't it? EDIT: did some research and it was definitely a raster-scanned game. Must have been thinking of something else.

[gravitar]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

Hey, colorfixer. There are some really nice G08 videos and articles floating around the 'net. Vector monitors have always been very interesting to me.

I've seen a load of old arcade games like Midway, Capcom, etc... which were using RCA 19VJTP22s as well as Ehome or WG-branded JTP22s which definitely may have been RCA. These things were run hard, for long periods of time. Most arcades I've been to in the past 20 years had at the very least, one or two older games with this type of monitor which still worked. It wasn't very long ago that these tubes were plentiful and every TV shop on the corner could come down to swap the tube. Panasonic TVs seemed to use them a lot in the 1980-1984 time frame.

And those RCA tubes were the absolute WORST for arcade games.. 10 minutes in attract mode and the tube's marked for life!

[gravitar]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

Don't know about the air filters but they sure sound like a good product.

Back to the arcade machines, Is any manufacturer still making X-Y monitors (b&w or color) ? I strongly doubt it but that would be cool. I'm not a collector but would like to be.

Anyone remember US Billiards' Quasar game? That was a X-Y, wasn't it? EDIT: did some research and it was definitely a raster-scanned game. Must have been thinking of something else.

X-Y games got a bad reputation early on for poor reliability and were a flop, commercially. By '83-84 everyone stopped making them and it is highly doubtful that there would have been any monitor production after that.

[zenith2134]

Yeah, from what I've read, I'd have to agree. So many articles and websites dedicated to the restoration/repair of these old beasts. I read someplace that arcade operators just stopped buying the vector games because it was far from economical (or profitable) to maintain them.

In theory, they are fascinating displays, though!

[newhallone]

Wasn't the original Star Wars one of these? When empire came out they changed some over to the Empire Game. Star Wars was one of my favorite games. there was the stand up and a sit down version. I once played a rip off version that had a reverse lever. LOL

[gravitar]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

Yeah, from what I've read, I'd have to agree. So many articles and websites dedicated to the restoration/repair of these old beasts. I read someplace that arcade operators just stopped buying the vector games because it was far from economical (or profitable) to maintain them.

In theory, they are fascinating displays, though!

It was the only way to get a high-resolution display back then. I think the Lunar Lander manual said the screen's resolution was 1024 x 768.. Not too shabby for 1978!

[gravitar]

Originally Posted by newhallone

Wasn't the original Star Wars one of these? When empire came out they changed some over to the Empire Game. Star Wars was one of my favorite games. there was the stand up and a sit down version. I once played a rip off version that had a reverse lever. LOL

Yup, those are both color vector games.. Highly sought after today!