1966 Zenith Pay TV Box -- Phonevision

[mercury6768]

Another TV ancillary I've never seen or heard of, on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-1966-Ze...item53edd04b54

It seems like a rather complicated way to get your pay TV, but obviously precedes HBO by a decade or so. Cool little item.

[consoleguy67]

There had been another one on E-Bay that was more complete.

[OvenMaster]

One of the three stations in the U.S. that used Phonevision was WHCT in Hartford. I remember seeing the scrambled OTA signals when I was small, and hearing the garbled sound.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonevision

[W3XWT]

Zenith... Where Z-TAC lives forever!

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by mercury6768

Another TV ancillary I've never seen or heard of, on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-1966-Ze...item53edd04b54

It seems like a rather complicated way to get your pay TV, but obviously precedes HBO by a decade or so. Cool little item.

Zenith was the greatest early advocate of pay TV. The idea was anathema to many, and Zenith had great trouble getting pay broadcasts authorized. Today, of course, pay TV is the norm, with many people not even aware you can get free TV over the air any more.