Help identifying RCA XL-100 year
 

Hello!

I've been driving myself mad trying to find the date of release of the RCA XL-100 console television that belonged to my grandparents. I have a picture that I took in 1983 and I wanted to add info about the set and VCR (also an RCA) for nostalgic reasons.

I am able to narrow the window down a bit. My grandfather always bought RCA. He passed away in 1982 and I know he bought the set. My grandparents moved into a condo in 1981. I am not sure if they bought it then or if they had it at their old house, but they did buy it brand new. I'm about 90% sure they had it before moving, so I'm thinking mid-late '70s.

I scanned the picture at a high resolution and it says RCA XL-100 and underneath what could be ColorTrak. It did not have conventional knobs to change channels, just a button (as can been seen in the closeup). The picture controls were behind a thin, tall door on the right of the screen (also in closeup).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. When I stumbled across this forum, I knew this would be the place to ask.


p.s. blacked out screen as it is old home movies

http://i.imgur.com/vB0F3.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/78HEW.jpg

The VCR is possibly a model VCT-400, made in 1978. That is based on seeing the tuner buttons on it (as opposed to rotary knobs). I doubt that the VCR is newer than 1980; the styles had likely changed by then if not sooner. I cannot tell you details about the TV, though.

I'm going to guess it's in the '77-'78 time period. I think '76 was the first year for the colortrak. This set also looks like it has a motorized tuner.

In the early '70's, RCA came out with the first XL100 sets (XtendedLife 100% solid state). In '76, the colortrak series was introduced. The colortrak sets were supposed to be a step above the XL100's in features and quality.

I've seen a few RCA's from the late '70's that had both the XL100 and colortrak badges on them. It looks like your set falls in that time period.

Yes, the VCR is a VCT-400 as I remember watching a bootleg of Star Wars over and over on it in 1978 (my grandfather worked for NBC and had "connections" lol).

As for the TV, I figured it was late '70s as opposed to 1980 or later. I tried finding an image on google for one that had the same channel changing setup hoping to date the set, but to no avail.

Hopefully someone will recognize the cabinet and the other features and help get the date to a particular year.

Thanks for the help so far!

Brian

I have one of those VCRs. The darn thing still plays occasionally (when it feels like moving the tape that is). If you're ever in Milwaukee you could always stop by and take that VCR off my hands for a song.

Never seen that TV though as far as I can recall.

Tom, since you like old VCRs, you should keep and restore your VCT-400. It is the first programmable VCR ever made (that is, the first one that could be set to record more than one show, on more than one channel). Every DVR ever made can be traced back to that machine (or to home VCRs in general perhaps).

Mine is just sitting on a shelf for now, but I did buy a new video head drum for it when MCM still sold them.

I may open it up and see if I can get it reliable, but I'm not very proficient at fixing newer stuff. That said the electronics are good and I'm better with the mechanical end on these things so I may someday open it up and work on it when the dozens of more interesting projects I have are done or become less interesting than it.

You're grandfather must must have been a large powerful faith man to afford an upper caste TV of such large endowment. :banana::thmbsp: My uncle Bashir who owned by rich man in my village who had such TV and first time VCR, but was killed by rival party. The black screen is scaring to me. Does it show the unmarried or unclean woman?:no: I wish you have the luck to gain knowledge. I am saying the TV is much newer of 1984-5. :music:

It showed woman cleaning, in shower. :thmbsp:

:no:

My friend in Georgia gave me the info on the TV he has the brochure for it.
It is a model Ga8365 made from June 76 to June 77.

Oh! Thank you! It's the same cabinet and everything? Wow...thank you so, so much.

Almost correct. It is a GA835S

The TV appears to be a CTC-81, if I'm correct. Year unsure, but I think they only had that long vertical control door in combination with the single key channel button on the CTC-81. Possibly carried over to the unitized CTC-92, but I don't think so. Did it have the "upholstered" remote hand unit? If so, it was indeed an 81.

Charles

The 81 was the "good" colortrak chassis that was built like a tank and I think it was only made for one model year. Then, they went to the much cheaper flat modular chassis.

ctc-81 was a fold down chassis that was on par with the zenith chromacolor chassis for reliability.the smaller flat chassis was ok but nowhere near as good.thats a great set.a keeper for sure!

Don't let that go! That was TOTL in 1977+/-.

My friends' parents traded a GE KC color for a GA725 that had a CTC81 chassis... but the tuner was a one-knob varactor type that never seemed to give UHF trouble like the 1976-78 Zenith ones did.

OK, enough guessing. If you are sure of the model and chassis number, I will dig out my old RCA Service Discs and see what they say about it. Look for a follow up post by tomorrow.

In the RCA parts and service bulletin index known as PartsFinder II, the model number of GA8365 does not come up at all. The CTC81 chassis does come up. Under CTC81AA therte is a model GA836 listed. The Service Information release date shows 01/31/1976. This date usually is very close to the product release date. I am a semi-retired professional electronics technician, and where I used to work, we were an ASC for Thomson Consumer Electronics (RCA & GE). I saw fit to keep PartsFinder on my computer.
Hope this helps you.
Rick

I think that it's a 1977-1979. The tabletop set in my avatar is a 1974 XL-100, but it has knobs. I can't think of an XL-100 before 1977 that had push-button tuning. I just remember that the Colortrak was favorable to the XL-100 by the 1980's.