I actually built one of those through a GI bill program through Bell&Howell. Soldered every single part on every board, and it worked great for about 5 years. Eventually the picture tube faded out, so it had to go.
Remembering your old TV days
- Thread starter CourierDriver
- Start date
- Status
I just read through the whole thread and can't believe no one mentioned how years ago the old black and white's took about 5 minutes to warm up before you had a picture.
This may sound like a dumb question to some but what did running a magnet across the screen do to TV? I don't recall ever hearing of anyone doing it.
This may sound like a dumb question to some but what did running a magnet across the screen do to TV? I don't recall ever hearing of anyone doing it.
I don't recall it taking literally 5 minutes, but certainly our old B & W TV took a minute or so. In the early '70s one of the manufacturers, perhaps Zenith, advertised in a big campaign their new "Instant-On" TVs!
Hoffman in 1954.
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2006
- Messages
- 29,558
If you put a magnet up to the TV screen,it would make a big green dot.
When I bought my 30 inch Sony, I didn't wait for the free delivery and just got one that was in stock at the electronics store. I shoved it in the back of my '95 Integra GS-R with the rear seats down, but I still couldn't close the hatch. I also broke off one of the clips that held the liner to the body. Also tore the carpeting, but eventually got a trunk mat to cover that up.
And the irony was that I returned it for the next higher model since it had an S-video input. I opted for free delivery and removal of my old set. But the replacement was damaged (there was literally a hole in the shell) and the picture was distorted. So they left the previous TV in place and rescheduled. That TV was also rather heavy and had a weird forward balance. The matching stand had a clip to keep it in place, although the TV had holes that fit right into parts of the stand to keep it from shifting.
These days I can easily set up a flat screen myself. Even a 60" doesn't weigh all that much.
A long warm up time like that was not normal. 30-45 seconds was typical. It might have seemed longer. If the set took that long then something was on its way out.
Actually, you were NOT supposed to put a magnet up to a color TV screen. What you were supposed to do was run a "DEGUASSING" coil over it to remove stray magnetism. Similar to what was done on magnetic tape heads. Stray or outside magnetism would introduce errors into the gun alignment.
On the old color TV tubes, each of the three color guns were "aimed" by magnets, some permanent and some electrically created and adjustable, these made sure that the three GUNS "Converged" on the proper three dots. If you would start to see color fringing on objects, you were supposed to degauss, then go through the convergence procedure to realign the guns.
When people talk about the Heatkit having built in repair tools, this was one of them. It had circuitry inside that would produce a set and steady pattern on the screen, thereby allowing the technician to align the guns.
Funny thing about that is that those TV's were never OFF! There was always a little bit of electricity being used 24 hours a day, but Zenith never told anyone that.
It was more like idling in a car, but never off. These days we've come to expect that from a lot of equipment. One good example is the Cable Box on your TV, especially the ones that can record. They are never completely off unless you unplug them.
Maybe it didn't take as long as I thought but I know it seemed like a long time. Of course I was just a kid then. As for the "Zenith instant on TV's mom and dad bought one a 19" portable. I remember being amazed that there was a picture instantly.
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2020
- Messages
- 2,090
Agreed.
I recall in the late 90's, telling my GF at the time to "go warm up the TV" so we could watch the first episode of "Big Brother".
I was warned against doing it since it could eventually damage the phosphors. I saw a setup at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco that had a powerful magnet and a TV set. It was a setup to move the magnet to see how it affected the image on the screen. But there was already permanent damage to the tube.
It was generally a bad idea as it could damage the screen permanently. A CRT is really just an electron gun. It would warp the path of the electrons so that it might hit the wrong color phosphors. It might eventually permanently damage the phosphors.
At work I had some CRT monitors with a degaussing function. Some only did that when turned on, while others had a manual option to do it - often just a selector. Sometimes a specific button to do just that. Like this one:
To get the "instant on" effect, the filaments in the tubes had their voltage applied (about half) when the set was off so that the tubes were ready to work when the set was turned on. There was no voltage applied to the cathode, grids and plate(s) of the tubes when the set was off. That was the only item that had voltage applied when the set was off. It's the gradual warm up of the filament (glowing) in the tube which started the flow of electrons from the cathode to the plate of the tube and the process took time until the filament was up to full brilliance and warmed up.
Last edited:
My memory is a bit foggy, but after my brothers and I got old enough to work, some of us worked nights, others in the day I believe we never turned it off.
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2006
- Messages
- 29,558
Heck I remember the old color TV's even had to be warmed up for a few minutes. We'd turn them on, go grab all our favorite toys, make a bowl of cereal, and by the time we got back into the den, the TV was ready!!
We had one of the old ‘70s Zenith wooden console TVs in the living room when I was a kid growing up in the 80s in Memphis. Got a lot of use out of that TV!
I still remember the name of the old TV repair guy who was often summoned to fix the TV - Mr. Ray Holland!
I liked to sit and watch (read: pester) as he replaced a vacuum tube or a capacitor. He would keep me at a less annoying distance by warning me that the capacitors contained dangerous voltages.
EDIT: I just did a Google image search and found the exact Zenith we had! Apparently it was a 1973 Zenith Chromacolor “23DC14 Chassis”. My parents got married in ‘73, so, I assume they bought this not long after getting married! It was quite an attractive wooden chassis, and had a good picture for its time, I think.
I even found a YouTube review of the TV!
I still remember the name of the old TV repair guy who was often summoned to fix the TV - Mr. Ray Holland!
I liked to sit and watch (read: pester) as he replaced a vacuum tube or a capacitor. He would keep me at a less annoying distance by warning me that the capacitors contained dangerous voltages.
EDIT: I just did a Google image search and found the exact Zenith we had! Apparently it was a 1973 Zenith Chromacolor “23DC14 Chassis”. My parents got married in ‘73, so, I assume they bought this not long after getting married! It was quite an attractive wooden chassis, and had a good picture for its time, I think.
I even found a YouTube review of the TV!
Attachments
Last edited:
I bought an RCA XL100 console TV iirc in 1975. I bought it at Kmart and back in the day Kmart had a large appliance section. A piece of furniture with a huge 25 inch screen! I remember it cost around $600 and seemed like all the money in the world at that time! I also bought an outside roof mounted tripod that held a Tennarotor antenna. It was connected to a box on top of the TV and depending on the channel being watched, you would turn the knob on the box and the antenna would slowly turn to that stations best signal. My two sons would also wake us early on Saturday mornings playing ‘Pong‘ on their Atari video game.
Last edited:
- Status
