Very, very early CoLoR TV
 

Today I read the thread about color TV circa early 50s. I was intrigued by the idea of sets pre-dating the well known RCA designs. For example, this photo shows a mirror-in-lid color set from 1949:

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...7&d=1391177730

I'd love to know more about these super-early sets, but that's obviously limited to what's already published... Or is it? What ever became of these prototype sets? Did any survive? Are any in the hands of collectors today? Are there any better photos? (Would love to see the guts in that mirror-lid set.)

It even got me to thinking it might be a fun project to build some kind of alternate-reality early color sets. (Lots of cool gear out there with trashed cabinets..) For example, what if R&D stalled in certain areas, but advanced in others and the first color sets for the public used low-defelction angles and were mirror-lid?

Just a little food for thought.

Something's wrong with your pic links...


But beyond that, how early are we talking? JLB had a workable color system way back in 1928, that early enough for you?

http://earlytelevision.org/baird_mechanical_color.html

I have an early RCA CPA chassis at the museum, here's the thread on it:

http://earlytelevision.org/rca_cpa_restoration.html


Ed Reitan is a noted collector of early sets, and John Folsom has quite a menagerie of rare stuff as well. Have you seen the early stuff on ETF website?

http://earlytelevision.org/color_gallery.html

I think my pic isn't working because it links back to something already hosted on VK (although it displays fine on my screen, likely because of the cache). But if you've seen that 1949 prototype set, you know what I mean. I'm aware of your CPA set, and read the thread with much interest. :thmbsp:

However, I'm thinking much earlier but still in the all-electronic era... Perhaps to a time when we wouldn't even recognize some of the components. I think there were some early concepts that contained three guns in separate CRT necks, firing at a common screen... Far out stuff like that.

I'll check through those websites again, there may be some updates since the last time I looked.

A "parallel universe" of sorts exists in the automotive world, with people rendering what-if concept car ideas, like a contemporary full-sized Mercury coupe:

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73...59f07ebc54.jpg

Sort of like a stillborn museum of failed early color TV ideas... If that makes any sense?

That mirror in the lid color set was a reverse of the three tube color camera's of the time. It's amazing to think that they made a monster of a set with three picture tubes in it, and thought that somehow they would sell such a monster to the public.....

But I guess those were only for development. I once read about the Commodore 64 and it's development. Before they got all the specialty chips made that computer, in development, was larger than 3 S-100 style IMSAI 8080's... (those were bigger than early VCR's, and maybe 50lbs....)

Anyway, I bet there were lots of ideas that never went very far.....

Now I wanna read about that mechanical color set....

The mirror lid color prototypes are properly called triniscopes and a couple survive, one of which is for sale and can be yours if you've got 20K burning a hole in your piggy bank.

http://earlytelevision.org/images/cl...scope_fron.jpg

http://earlytelevision.org/images/cl...scope_back.jpg

There ya- go....

That's the thing I was thinking of........

Thank you.....

I think I'd forgotten about this link, but this is a some of what I had in mind, although I tend to think of the color-wheel sets as a "cheat".

Incorporating the base of the CRT into the leg of the cabinet seems like a profoundly bad idea. So on that basis, I'll pass. :D

Very interesting none the less. Who made this contraption, and when?

Why a cheat??? If it could be done, and cheap, and work reasonably well, it would have sold...... $600. vs $1000. est.

If there were all-electronic systems (admittedly with problems) near-ready for production; it amazes me that work even continued on a system that had as much in common with a clothes dryer (and nearly the size). It would be like a cell phone with a rotary dial, in the same era as push-button land lines.

One or another division of RCA for sure. IIRC it was the very last triniscope made, so probably early 1950.

Curious, but in one of my 1950's TV books, and on ETF, they are called Trinoscopes. I notice on this site, I see Triniscope a lot. Jus' sayin'...

Trinoscope is correct

If you compare the mechanical system to the all electronic system available, I believe on the timeline it would have been at best the giant monster with 3 picture tubes..... I think final development of the three gun tube ended the mechanical system, and the three picture tube system. But anyway, a mechanical disc is surley lighter, less expensive, less power hungry, and I bet more dependable than the three picture tube system..... I think the weight of a 3 picture tube system would almost require it get assembled in a person's house upon delivery..... Viewing angle I imagine was limited to those directly in front of it.... Unless those three tubes projected a picture onto a frosted glass screen.

We can imagine the different devices they may have had under development. I have always wondered about a tube with one gun, and vertical striped colors, IF only they could turn the gun on and off fast enough to accurately hit each color as required, to do away with the shadow mask, and the need for 3 guns.... Not entirely like the index-tron. I guess if a tube could respond that fast, we would have had HD a long time ago.....

Here's Ed's site, in case you hadn't seen it.


http://www.novia.net/~ereitan/


I think the info you're after is out there and has been for some time, you just have to look for it.

Username1, the problem with the mechanical (disk) system was picture quality. It was only 30 line resolution.

The Trinoscope was only to demonstrate color TV - RCA never considered selling it. At the time they were developing the tricolor tube, which they thought would be the solution.

There are several one gun color tubes, starting with a 1951 prototype:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/rca_d...al_onegun.html

Later attempts included the Philco Apple and Uniray:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/apple_crt.html

IIRC Dumont made a tricolor tube with 3 separate guns. Each neck on the CRT was mounted separately on the bell 120 deg offset from the others (from the back the necks looked like a convergence yoke). the screen consisted of a pattern of triangular pyramids inside with each side having a different phosphor painted on so that only the gun that faced that side could scan it's phosphor. To me it looked less awkward than the triniscope and color wheels.

The Geer tube:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/geer_color_crt.html

also Baird:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/baird...nic_color.html

That seems like a pretty good idea. I would think it would eliminate convergence issues (or perhaps create a whole new set of convergence issues). So each of these guns would require it's own yoke? Cost is probably why no one proceeded down that road.

This thread did remind me of a lot of great links I'd read years ago and probably forgotten about. It seems the RCA early color history is very well documented and known. I wish as much info was out there on early Zenith color work. I know they didn't offer a color set until '61-'62, but I recall reading they were the only manufacturer besides RCA that was capable of building their own color tube in 1953, so there was obviously research proceeding it.

IIRC Zenith invented electromagnetic dynamic convergence, and also had a rectangular 15GP22 based CRT on display in 1954.

Here is the CRT (21 inch):

http://www.earlytelevision.org/pdf/z...ngular_crt.pdf

I thought I saw somewhere that a color set using the three-tube principle was actually put into production in Japan, circa 1963. I doubt they actually produced more than a few of them.

Mitsubishi

http://www.earlytelevision.org/mitsu...trinitron.html

Are there ANY survivors of the rectangular Zenith tubes left ? That anyone around here is aware of, anyway ?

I think those were static displays. They were "shown" but they weren't demonstrated. IOW they didn't work.

SOMEWHERE, in the back of my Feeble Little Mind, I remember reading an article in the mid-late Seventies in "Popular Science/Popular Mechanics", one of those mags, of a "Big Development" in color TV that had been undiscovered since its development in the Fifties... There were pics of the display, & the CRT had the familiar "ALMOST Round" shape of Mid-Fifties CRTs. This ringing a bell w/anybody ?

That MGA set is strange. All US tube numbers & a series string. Only
the damper uses a jap number. The yokes look US but everything
else Japan. The 5GH8's bring back not so fond memories of the
first plastic RCA 19" sets.
Gotta be a joint effort US-JP maybe RCA involved ???

73 Zeno:smoke:

This rang no bells with me, but a search on the earlier Philco "Apple" beam index tube turned up this article posted at earlytelevision.org:

http://www.earlytelevision.org/uniray.html

Is this it?

Here it is on cover of Feb 1972 Pop Sci

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ixq...page&q&f=false

A couple of years ago we were contacted by the family of the guy who developed the Uniray. They said they had his prototype set and tube. They paid to have it shipped to Hilliard, and we waited excitedly. When the box arrived it contained a CTC-7.

The family spent some time trying to find where the Uniray set was, but never found it.

That MIGHT have been it...Think it prolly was, come to think about it... Seems like I remember thinkin' "Huh ?!? That's pretty much a Sony Trinitron tube, but back in the Fifties..."

how come zenith never made a color porthole

Portholes are for ships, and that ship sailed years before color came along.

There is an interesting point here... Zenith was only 1-2 years removed from marketing its "giant circle screen" sets. If they really thought a circle was the shape of television (which I doubt); how odd that they would undertake not only color, but rectangular tri-color tubes by early 1954 . :scratch2:

Small screen size was the knock on the CT-100, and more "useable" sq. In. was the portholes's gimmick. I don't think they really believed it, but kinda funny.

The 15GP22 had no viewable area on the upper and lower sections, so there would be no additional picture area to show in a circular mask. Plus, there were probably no B&W roundies in production by 1954, the hot trend being rectangular tubes and bezels. Zenith did not release a 21-inch color set until much later...

Small screen was only one part of the reason CT-100s didn't sell. They were expensive ($1000 at a time when you could get an excellent 21 inch black and white set for around $200), poor performance, complicated so they broke down frequently, very little programming in color. It would be the late 60s before these deficiencies were cured. 1970 was the first year that more color sets were sold than black and white.

Gentlemen,

Understand that I see a multitude of reasons why Zenith didn't make a color porthole (or any color set for the public until the '62 MY).

My comment was only meant to provoke the thought that Zenith engineers would have been working on a color rectangular tube concurrently with the company marketing the "superiority" of its porthole B&W sets.

It makes you wonder if there was ever a discussion of producing a color porthole in the very early stages of color development at Zenith, circa 1949-51. The cons would outweigh the pros, but I could picture an argument being made by the "porthole camp". While I understand they were building color wheel sets at that time, they must have also been working on electronic color to be ready with their own tube in 1953.

Zenith was a little slow to adopt rectangular tubes but once they did they went all in and never looked back. The porthole was never anything but a gimmick ("umpteen percent bigger image than their sets!") albeit a very successful one.

I've often wondered if the CT-100 was in reality, little more than a "Lab Special" that somehow got put in production.. It was, after all, too small, too complicated, too expensive, too unreliable, the only thing it had going for it was it WAS a color set, & it DID have a superior picture-At least for the next 15 minutes before somethin' Went South in 'em... It seems that RCA started "Backpedalling" almost immediately after introducing them, indeed, the much more "Developed" 21" tubes were well on their way when the CT-100s were announced, & after what, 6 months or so, the CT-100s were unceremoniously dumped, & RCA never looked back..

Nothings changed. The few working CT-100's still break down frequently! Sarnoff, after all the money & time invested, wasn't about to let other manufacturers offer color sets before RCA. Although Westinghouse, at least, beat them to the marketplace by a month or so.

-Steve D.