[radiotvnut]

I believe the GE "XB" chassis was introduced in 1975 and was the solid-state replacement for the hybrid "SF" chassis, and was used in 12" and 15" models. For a little while, I think they were making both the tube "SF" and the solid-state "XB" at the same time, and both used the same cabinets.

I think this chassis was in production until late-'81 or early-'82, when GE discontinued production and started outsourcing their B&W sets to GoldStar. Personally, I don't think the GoldStar sets were as good as the genuine GE sets.

Below are some of mine, but some of them are not in the best of cosmetic condition. We have a woodgrain 12" from '79, two white plastic models from '79, a 15" black-plastic model from '81, and one of the Goldstar models from '83 (GE chassis designation XJ-A).

The ones from '79 have a large filter can-style capacitor and use a strip tuner. The one from '81 has newer-style capacitors and uses a cheaper wafer tuner.

The 15" model has a weak tube, but looks OK after it warms up. When I got it, the tuner and controls were very gunky. I also had a very dark picture that was not all due to the tube. There was an open capacitor on the socket board, and I had to change the value of some resistors in the brightness control area to get a watchable picture.

The GoldStar-sourced model had a tuner that was so jacked up that I installed an internal isolation transformer and converted it to a composite monitor.

I wish I could find a few of the tube "SF" versions, but I'm sure all of those baked themselves to death and were trashed.

As far as the "XB" sets, the main thing that sent them to the junk pile were weak/dead CRTs. The chassis itself was fairly reliable.