Anyone like "kitchen TVs" and smaller sets of 1980s-00s?

[crt89]

I know most here are probably into 80s and earlier sets but I grew up in the 90s-00s so these sets are some childhood ones for me.

More specifically I'm kind of partial to oddball small sets from this era. GE had the Spacemaker color undercabinet sets (I also like the Spacemaker undercabinet radios), Magnavox I think made a white 13" and RCA had a white one too with a washable remote I remember seeing in a catalog.

Just wondering if anyone else likes these oddballs. Generally I really like the smaller 13" sets of this era. Especially the Malaysian made Magnavox 'Total Remote Control' 13", which reminds me of those old Channel One TVs from school. Sometimes they're branded Philco and maybe Philips. We used to have a 1996 RCA rounded back 13" I always thought had an awesome picture, unfortunately I think a surge took it out.

Oh, and once I found a Mitsubishi 13" on my street, which was white as well. I ended up getting rid of it because the picture was really fuzzy and me being a kid I didn't feel comfortable opening it up. Strangely that one had no way of accessing any of it's adjustments, because it was missing the remote, and there were no adjustment buttons on the panel.

[Electronic M]

Your family must have been doing well back then...I grew up in the 90's too and we only had the 20" living room Zenith new...Our other sets predated my parrents knowing eachother. Our kitchen set was a 5" color Emerson AC/DC portable with AM/FM radio that (I'd like to say it was an '86 model)...Aside from the vertical hold being on edge for years and no one bothering to dig it out enough to adjust it it was a trouble free set...Up till my folks threw it out in a move...I was so bothered by them chucking a working TV that I later bought another I happened upon. Almost everything post 1975 is BPC junk in my book, but childhood memories are an exception.

[ESigma25]

I really want that little white RCA kitchen set with the smoked translucent plastic over the actual tube, it's such a nice aesthetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCo...ched_a_lot_of/

One of these, though I believe I've seen it in a version without the cabinet mount as well.

I own a little 9" Zenith "Space Command" cube shaped set in white, which I quite like.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Your family must have been doing well back then...I grew up in the 90's too and we only had the 20" living room Zenith new...Our other sets predated my parrents knowing eachother. Our kitchen set was a 5" color Emerson AC/DC portable with AM/FM radio that (I'd like to say it was an '86 model)...Aside from the vertical hold being on edge for years and no one bothering to dig it out enough to adjust it it was a trouble free set...Up till my folks threw it out in a move...I was so bothered by them chucking a working TV that I later bought another I happened upon. Almost everything post 1975 is BPC junk in my book, but childhood memories are an exception.

I just picked up an Emerson like you're referring to. I was surprised to see a vertical hold control on the side with the normal operating controls.
It seems to work rather well and it came with the DC cord. A yard sale item that was priced at $5.00. I offered three, the seller said four. For four, I have to plug it in.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by crt89

I know most here are probably into 80s and earlier sets but I grew up in the 90s-00s so these sets are some childhood ones for me.

More specifically I'm kind of partial to oddball small sets from this era. GE had the Spacemaker color undercabinet sets (I also like the Spacemaker undercabinet radios), Magnavox I think made a white 13" and RCA had a white one too with a washable remote I remember seeing in a catalog.

Just wondering if anyone else likes these oddballs. Generally I really like the smaller 13" sets of this era. Especially the Malaysian made Magnavox 'Total Remote Control' 13", which reminds me of those old Channel One TVs from school. Sometimes they're branded Philco and maybe Philips. We used to have a 1996 RCA rounded back 13" I always thought had an awesome picture, unfortunately I think a surge took it out.

Oh, and once I found a Mitsubishi 13" on my street, which was white as well. I ended up getting rid of it because the picture was really fuzzy and me being a kid I didn't feel comfortable opening it up. Strangely that one had no way of accessing any of it's adjustments, because it was missing the remote, and there were no adjustment buttons on the panel.

I have three GE spacemaker color sets, two were in the original boxes and one well used. All 5" color sets. The well-used one, the cabinet is discolored but works well.
All the larger under-cabinet models seem to be nine inchers. Two Panasonics that are discolored, the pictures great, but the sound quality is terrible.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by ESigma25

I really want that little white RCA kitchen set with the smoked translucent plastic over the actual tube, it's such a nice aesthetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCo...ched_a_lot_of/

OMG IIRC I have one of those! They had an FM tuner too. When I was a kid a Girl I was friends with had one of those in her bedroom...I remember watching MTV on it...Some years later a neighbor across the street had one (again bedroom set), then a few years later I saved one from the curb on the far end of the neighborhood and still have it. At the time I found mine I was desperate for any TV of my own...Especially since the folks tossed out the used 80's 13" color emerson that had been my first bedroom set in a move, and wouldn't get me a replacement (which was a dick move since they had gotten me a brand new VCR for my birthday in the last house and I still had the VCR).

[Titan1a]

Awhile back I picked up an RCA 5 inch color TV/radio combination at Goodwill for $5. It still works!

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by ESigma25

I really want that little white RCA kitchen set with the smoked translucent plastic over the actual tube, it's such a nice aesthetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCo...ched_a_lot_of/

One of these, though I believe I've seen it in a version without the cabinet mount as well.

I own a little 9" Zenith "Space Command" cube shaped set in white, which I quite like.

I have six of the Zenith cubes, two S/C and the others manually tuned. I have one badged "Heathkit".
I have three of the small U/C mount 9" Philips sets built by Funai. The tuner is bad in one of them, but the audio and video inputs work fine.

[zeno]

That set used the TX-81 / TX82 chassis. Very common in woodgrain.
The chassis was an odd ball. It was designed to run in other modes
with minor changes. They had a very good pix but being an odd ball
repairs were not fun.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

Originally Posted by ESigma25

I really want that little white RCA kitchen set with the smoked translucent plastic over the actual tube, it's such a nice aesthetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCo...ched_a_lot_of/

One of these, though I believe I've seen it in a version without the cabinet mount as well.

I own a little 9" Zenith "Space Command" cube shaped set in white, which I quite like.

[joe111671]

I have an RCA under cabinet kitchen set that I bought new in '05. It has the washable remote and makes a great picture. It's been stored in a closet for years now, but still works like new.

[crt89]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Your family must have been doing well back then...I grew up in the 90's too and we only had the 20" living room Zenith new...Our other sets predated my parrents knowing eachother. Our kitchen set was a 5" color Emerson AC/DC portable with AM/FM radio that (I'd like to say it was an '86 model)...Aside from the vertical hold being on edge for years and no one bothering to dig it out enough to adjust it it was a trouble free set...Up till my folks threw it out in a move...I was so bothered by them chucking a working TV that I later bought another I happened upon. Almost everything post 1975 is BPC junk in my book, but childhood memories are an exception.

Not really. My parents had an SR 2000 (Sears) 25" remote woodgrain console in the living room with a Goldstar VCR. That thing lasted all the way to around 2001 when it got replaced with a 32" Sanyo, which lasted until about 2014 and got replaced with a cheap Westinghouse LCD which got knocked over and replaced with an LG LED. I really liked the Sanyo and was sad it broke.

My parents also had a 13" color dial SR-2000 set in their room with rabbit ears. Don't remember it ever being used really. I think that one got sold and replaced with the 1996 13" RCA. When that stopped it got replaced with a 2008 Emerson 20" flat screen CRT.

My first bedroom TV was an 80s 13" Capehart (AOC) a neighbor was going to throw away. It had green LCD channel display and a glass cover over the screen. It was also really lightweight for some reason, but missing the remote and never could get one to work with it.

My parents got me a new Funai VCR so I would watch movies on it. Then another neighbor threw away a 1994 19" RCA so I drug it home as an upgrade. LOL Gray cabinet mono speaker and I think one of the first ones with closed captioning. I used to like playing with the closed captions on it. And I found a universal RCA remote that matched it well. (I was particular about remotes.)

It ended up having an issue with the picture jumping up and down so I'd smack the top of it to straighten it up. lol Finally the sound went out on it, and my parents got me a new 19" Panasonic for my birthday one year. I loved that set, but unfortunately it got hit by lightning summer of 2007, and replaced with a Sylvania (Funai) 20" which I still have. Not a bad set all in all.

I remember my grandparents had an older console. Then when they moved into a new house in 1994-95 they had a few Zeniths, which I think all almost caught on fire! Those got replaced by a Phillips Magnavox and a since several flat panels.

My other grandma had a 80s Sylvania projection which was pretty cool as a kid. That was probably the first set I ever saw with on screen display. I remember watching the Weather Channel on it in the early 90s and dancing to the jazz music.

[crt89]

Originally Posted by joe111671

I have an RCA under cabinet kitchen set that I bought new in '05. It has the washable remote and makes a great picture. It's been stored in a closet for years now, but still works like new.

Nice little set. That looks pretty close to the ones I saw in the 90s in a JCPenney catalog.

[uxwbill]

Many TVs played the part of "kitchen sets" when I was growing up, though none of them were specifically intended as such. Most were 13" color portables from the 80s and 90s. The last one was a 1983 Zenith in a silver cabinet, with a picture tube that had to have very few hours of use on it. It was rescued from the curb and served for several years until the DTV conversion made watching TV in a rural area with rabbit ears and a UHF "bowtie" basically impossible. I still have it in storage. A NiCad battery leaked into it, and I hope it didn't ruin the set. It certainly did a number on the cabinet.

I have a few "kitchen sets" in my collection. One is a GE with a very tired nine inch or so picture tube and FM radio.

The other is a Panasonic CT-10R10R (yes, that's really the model number) rescued from a thrift store. It's in much better shape, though I suspect it had been disused for long enough that components had begun to drift out of tolerance. At first power up, the only color displayed was that of the on-screen display elements. Only later did the color "dribble" on and it's been rock solid ever since. Somewhat surprisingly, this set has A/V inputs. (As best I remember, it's intended to run from AC power only.)

Picture quality is far better than it looks:



I got the original remote with it, and like the TV itself, it was utterly filthy. So I washed it, only I did not wait long enough for it to dry out completely. This turned out to be something of a happy accident, as it revealed hidden functionality.



There are controls for bass, treble and balance. None of them actually do anything. Fair enough. Panasonic likely skipped out on an audio processing IC or circuit that wasn't officially supposed to be accessible to the end user. (The headphone jack plays through both speakers on a stereo headset, but this is only by duplicating the monophonic audio.)

There is another hidden feature that seems like it might actually BE functional! Changing the audio reception mode results in a brief silence, as though the tuner is actually processing and complying with it!



You'll notice that "mono" is in green, which would be correct if the different color means that only monophonic audio is being received. I should haul out my MTS-capable RF modulator and see if the word "stereo" turns green.

Unfortunately, no broadcaster around here used SAP when analog broadcast TV signals were still a thing, and there are no analog broadcasts left here now.

I wonder if anyone actually made a "kitchen" or portable set where SAP, if not MTS stereo audio would have been made accessible.

[crt89]

Originally Posted by ESigma25

I really want that little white RCA kitchen set with the smoked translucent plastic over the actual tube, it's such a nice aesthetic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCo...ched_a_lot_of/

One of these, though I believe I've seen it in a version without the cabinet mount as well.

I own a little 9" Zenith "Space Command" cube shaped set in white, which I quite like.

That looks nice. I remember these in the Sears catalog. Once I picked a 13" RCA Colortrak from the late 80s. It looked similar but was white with black around the screen, no cover over the screen. Had 0-9 buttons on the front which was kinda cool. But unfortunately when I tried it, it'd just click right off when I pushed Power.

[Sandy G]

I managed to collect 2 Emerson 5" color sets/radios over the years for mere pittances...Gave one away to a kid who took a couple of ferrets I'd grown tired of, & I can't remember who I gave the other one to... Both had decent pictures/color, one had an EXCEPTIONALLY good radio on it. It sounded simply 1derful.... Have one now that is not branded "Emerson" but is obviously made by whomever made the others. Its OK color & pic, as well as radio functionality, but nothing as good as that one I had.. anyone else seen this in any of your personal sets ? Is the quality typically variable like this ? Do these "L'il Guys" also tend to attract others of their kind, or am I just lucky in finding them for some oddball reason ?