Ever hear of a 2-inch Trinitron?
 

A guy responded to my site recently and mentioned a recollection of a 2-in. Trinitron:

"Sony once made a mini portable TV with the worlds' smallest Trinitron
color CRT. 2 inches! The entire TV would fit in a shoebox. The screen
was on the end. A green bar on the screen pointed to the channel
numbers printed beneath the screen. The TV ran on 6 or 8 C batteries or
the included AC adapter. It was Hi-Tech for 1980!"

Can anyone back up his story?

Pete, did it look something like this?

Sony FX-310

Actually I think it was a 1.5" screen and came with a clip on magnifier. It was about 4" wide, 2" tall and 8-9" deep. It was truly portable and could easily be brought to a football game to see the replays.

The company I was working for back then (80-81?) used some with the surveillance equipment we were designing. A pretty cool little TV.

Your not thinking of the KV-4000? That was a 4" set and bigger than you describe but it was portable.

There was also a modular cube set but I think that was LCD or something other than CRT based.

Try looking on Bay, I think I have seen this several times, maybe as other have said, a 3-4" screen. Try calling Sony, they might be able to tell if ever a Trinitron with a 2" screen . Possibly, but I doubt it. Sony was already developing LCD TV screens probaly and maybe even doing R & R on LCD color. Please post if find such a set, must be very rare if such a creature exists-I'm sure was expensive.

:yes:

Well I heard from the guy again and he had this quote from someone who had contacted him:

"We actually had one of these in the early eighties. It also had a little slide-on magnifying plastic "hood" if you found the screen too small. It was pretty good for the time!"

Looks like a match, although I guess it is still a question whether it was actually a classic-type aperture-grill Trinitron.

Thanks for your responses.

Pete

Pete, there was a 1" Panasonic with a magnifier but it was B&W.

Correction:

from the archives: http://audiokarma.org/forums/archive...hp/t-1848.html

"this is the smallest color CRT set ever made,panasonics CT-101.
1.5" uses a real tiny CRT.. hard to photgraph.. but totally cool..
i am not sure the date on the bottom is 1982 or 1987 on this set..
a real trip to watch..!!"
terry;)

The picture is gone of course but I found this on the net.

As I worked for a former Sony dealer, I proclaim that there was never a 2" Trinitron. At least not CRT. There may well have been 2" LCD color Sony Watchmen in the 90s and 2000s, no idea on that part.

Sony's smallest color CRT was the 3.7". This was in the KV-4000/4100 (1981), and also in a variety of camera-top mount EVF's and monitors. The KV-4000 will fit in a shoebox, so that is likely the set in question.

Panasonic is the only set I know of with a slip-on magnifier, and had many B&W 1.5" CRT sets from '68 through the mid 80s, and the highly prized color CT-101 in '83. That Panasonic color 1.5" CRT showed up in a few RARE color electronic viewfinders in some RCA color cameras of the mid-80s too.

Charles

Thats real precision, to get the electron guns that small & the phosphors...if nothing else this was a way for the companies to show off just what they were capable of. Sadly, you didn't see this level of advancement in later years out of the American manufacturers.

Charles, If I have my math correct, from your publised age, you were 13-15 in 80-83? You were working for a dealer at that age? :saywhat: Not saying you are incorrect in you proclamation, but Sony did make a 1.5 or 2" TV with a slip on magnifier.

I can't remember after all these years if it was color, (Probably wasn't) but I had these units in my hands back then in my work. I designed them into briefcase consoles for surveillance work. :yes:

From Sony's own website:"1980: Markets the KV-4000, the smallest Trinitron color TV in the world w/a 3.7" diagonal picture." I have this TV, & the KV-4100, which also has a microcassette & AM/FM radio. I also have the CT-101 Panasonic, which, while fully functional, is really more of a conversation piece than a watchable TV. I have a whole bunch of these "little-bitty guys", & 5" is really the smallest practical screen size. The little guys sure are cute & VERY collectable, though..-Sandy G.

Since Trinitron refers to the type of CRT then I think an LCD set would be ruled out?

the magnifiers were a panasonic thing.
my tr-001 has one.the prize for the smallest color crt goes to panasonic(matsushita) for the 1.5 in the ct-101? pocket set.
now the surveilence gear may have been the 5" sony kv-5000 series.
i have had panels with 6 of them as security monitors.

At least if the thing had some bad phosphor dots, it's so small that you would never see them anyway!

Your observation is correct! I was 13 when I got my first job at Harvey's TV in West LA. That was where I learned the business after I had become interested in TV and electronics as a small boy. I would go over to the shop 3 days a week after school.

As far as the Sony 1.5" with slip-on magnifier, no offense but it doesn't exist at least in US production. But the Panasonic color 1.5" CT-101 does... And a myriad of B&W 1.5" slip-on magnifier sets from the late 60s to the mid 80s... Here's a photo of the two smallest CRT color sets; the Panasonic CT-101; shown without magnifier in this photo (Left), and Sony KV-4000 (Right)

Charles

I retained quite a few of my mid 80s Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. I seem to recall around 85 or so there was a Sanyo 3 inch or so color portable that used a flat tube setup similar to those seen in the B&W Sony Watchmans. I'll try and track down the issue as I have been looking through these magazines lately trying to sort the stuff out.

---

Damnation, THAT was about the Steal of the Century...Seems like I've seen these little guys go for 3-400 hundred bux...-Sandy G.

It happens sometimes... But think how the SELLER will feel when the "I woulda paid $600" eMails start rolling in. I won't send one, because I don't act that way. But someone will :nono:

I paid about 15 times that bid for mine several years ago.

Charles

These sets don't interest me a whole lot but for that price I would have had to grab it. A great novelty factor with that thing.

Bought a nice, big Airline movie-dial radio one time at the flea market for $30. When I got back with the pickup he was one grumpy seller. Somebody had been buy after I paid & offered him much more. I'm glad he was honest. (then there was the fellow who was going to sell my buddy a rolling chassis for a '67-72 K10 pickup for $150 delivered. after sitting around for a couple hours waiting for him we called & learned that the rollback driver had offered him $500 so he took it & never bothered to call...)

Sony isn't interesting EVEN as a Sony collector. These sometimes go for big bucks on Bay.
:boring:


The Panasonic, however, IS very intersting. -----IS this the smallest CRT color production TV ever made??????????????
:scratch2:

As far as I have seen; Yes. If there was a smaller one, it wasn't used in a TV set. And the biggest: A Sony 43" Trinitron as used in the PVM-4300.

Charles