When did TVs start to sport A/V jacks...

[Red October]

I am curious. I have, at the moment, no clue if my Colortrack 2000 will ever be fixed. I have a lead on a chassis but it is slow. I just don't have the time to work on it these days. I know that specialized sets made to work with VTRs had the jacks all the way back into the 60s (I have a big B&W Sony set in great shape with a full A/V jack pack, but who watches B&W TV sets these days?), but I'd like to get a nice vintage set with A/V jacks... If this is even possible. Failing that, is it possible to hack A/V jacks into a set, or even to add RGB jacks? My cable box and two of my DVD players have RGB output.

[radiotvnut]

A/V jacks really didn't become standard equipment until the mid to late '90's. However, I've seen some nicer high end sets from the early to mid '80's that had them. RCA, Sony, Zenith, Toshiba, etc. all made them. Going back further, there were some commercial grade sets as far back as the tube era that had input jacks. My old school had a 23" RCA tube type color TV in a metal cabinet with all sorts of A/V input jacks; but, I don't think they were like what's on the current sets.

[jayk]

i think it was '84 when i bought a monkey wards (montgomery wards) 13"
color set with a full compliment of a/v ins and outs.
the next year when i bought my 1st vcr, they came in handy when i made a video tape (and r2r audio tape) of the 'Live Aid' concert and i could play the video tape back with full range (and loud if i wanted it) audio.
at least as far as the less than pristine vcr audio tracks allowed.

those a/v jacks allowed me to have my 1st home theater setup-sort of-using the 13" mw tv but with awesome audio.

[andy]

...

[botrytis]

We had a Toshiba in 1985/86 that had AV jacks.

[kx250rider]

On the high end sets, early 80s (Sony KX series, et al). Then by the mid 80s, most of the "monitor-style" sets had jacks. By the mid 90s, only the cheapie sets didn't.

Charles

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by kx250rider

On the high end sets, early 80s (Sony KX series, et al). Then by the mid 80s, most of the "monitor-style" sets had jacks. By the mid 90s, only the cheapie sets didn't.

Charles

And now, even the cheapie sets have them. When selling used TV's, the question used to be "is it remote control cable ready". Now, it's "does it have A/V input jacks". If not, they're usually not interested.

[freakaftr8]

We had a 1986 LXI (sears brand) 25" console set that sported the A/V jacks when I was younger..

[MRX37]

Oldest TV I have with A/V input jacks is a GE 13 inch dial TV from 1984.

It's a weird hybrid TV/computer monitor, and is even S video capable.

[zenith2134]

RCA sets had em way back further than the 80s. I've seen a few big ones that look like ctc-121's but are older with whole panels full of inputs.

[waltchan]

Originally Posted by zenith2134

RCA sets had em way back further than the 80s. I've seen a few big ones that look like ctc-121's but are older with whole panels full of inputs.

That's the one I have. It has two video input for aux 1, and another video input for aux 2. Total is three, although two is shared by the same aux.

[wa2ise]

RCA jacks started showing up on high end TVs back when VCRs became common. Early 80s.