Those "Blue" picture tubes

Does anyone remember those blue tinted pix tubes from the 70s? Was that GE or Sylvania? What was the advantage with a blue screen rather than black?

I remember a dead one coming into our electronix class 10 years ago but for the life of me I can't remember the make.

[bgadow]

That was GE. Seems as though they came out early in the 80s? I have a brochure for one at home somewhere; they had a special name for it. I think it was supposed to aborb light or something such. I remember a friend had one which was a decent set and my wife's best friend still uses one up in PA. I'd guess that they stopped using them when they bought RCA but could be wrong.

[Charlie]

my grandparents' early 80's GE console has a blue lookin screen when off. I always thought it looked kinda odd, but the set has surprisingly held up well thru the years and still makes a great picture (considering it's a GE).

[andy]

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[jstout66]

i remember the Mitsubishi sets. I think they called it "Diamond Vision" Saw one in the "Goodwill" awhile back and the pix was still pretty good.

[Jeffhs]

Originally posted by Charlie
my grandparents' early 80's GE console has a blue lookin screen when off. I always thought it looked kinda odd, but the set has surprisingly held up well thru the years and still makes a great picture (considering it's a GE).

IIRC, GE was still GE in the early 1980s. I don't remember exactly when Thomson acquired GE and RCA, but I would guess it was some time in the late '80s (1985-1991). I would think your grandparents' set was a genuine GE, made by the original General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York (which, BTW, operated that city's then-NBC affiliate television station WRGB in the 1950s until GE acquired NBC in 1986).

The note in parentheses in your post (considering it's a GE) makes me wonder. Was the quality of GE TV sets beginning to slide even before Thomson absorbed the company and RCA? I have a great-uncle who worked for GE and has had GE televisions since the '50s; in fact, I think he still has a GE color portable from the '70s with VIR (the old vertical-interval-reference color control system, which I believe has been abandoned). His set, if he still has it (he moved recently and may have gotten rid of it before the move) still works well, although he has had a new CRT installed in it. I think this speaks volumes for GE before Thomson. I am only sorry we will never see those days again.

[Chad Hauris]

From what I have seen, the picture quality on the late 70's and early 80's GE sets is usually quite good, however, the sets seem to need to be fixed more often than others, maybe because of cheaper components. Shorted power supply rectifier diodes are very common in the early 80's solid state sets, also I have seen a lot of intermittants.

The solid state successor to the Portacolor, using the 10 inch tube, always seems to be a good performer once any intermittants are fixed. I also like the Mini-manual schematic that is included in a little packet affixed to the back of the set...unfortunately sometimes the manual is missing.

I've got a 1975 GE tube type set that has a few transistors...it uses a transistorized horizontal oscillator and is great to watch videos on as there is no bending at the top of the picture at all.

[domfjbrown]

Originally posted by jstout66
i remember the Mitsubishi sets. I think they called it "Diamond Vision" Saw one in the "Goodwill" awhile back and the pix was still pretty good.

My mate's folks bought a Mitsubishi in 1985 - in the UK they were called "Blue diamond"; a couple of years later it imploded when they threw it over the wall when the TV licence guy came round - erm, nice false economy....

Note - I never actually went to my mate's house - he was a friend at our blind boarding school.