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I feel a need to add to the “eulogy” for the 15Geez. It was always a high mountain for our fearless comrades to climb. But as John Folsom said, it was a grand adventure – and our lives require adventure. In many ways, “adventure” – along with avoiding starvation, etc., defines our human lives. An adventure is something we take on with no guarantees. Above, I used past tense, but I’m not without optimism that they or others will eventually succeed. Who can say how they might eventually build on their new understanding and find the key(s) that leads to total victory over the complex challenge our 15G guys confronted?
May I digress a wee bit?
I guess I’m one of the few who ever saw a color picture on a 15G set, back when they were still “new.” It was on our 15G Admiral and I’m reminded how tricky it was to get a decent picture – in Wichita, Kansas, over-the-air. At that time, about 1957, those sets were already obsolete and we bought ours for $65. The seller had won it in a contest and had less than zero interest in keeping it. (Few 15G’s were ever sold and I’ve always wondered how many of those Admirals were ever manufactured – let alone, sold.)
But I was just young enough and naive enough to believe that I could impress the neighbors with COLOR TV. It was primitive but it was fun. Not easy to watch a world series on that little screen. I was always trying to tweak the convergence and purity – with no instrumentation to assist. The only repair I remember was ordering a replacement focus control; the original couldn’t hold up to the load on it. Eventually my teenage interests moved on and I don’t even remember the final disposition of that set. I probably used the proceeds to “fix up” my first car.
Just now, my memory clicked onto the 19” Motorola that my brother and I also cadged along the way to my first 21” color set – a 1958, or so, Sylvania – with its unique ratcheting tuner lever. It was probably a $500 floor model that had set around for too long – I think we paid $100.
Allow me to digress even further.
Yesterday, we went to a Best Buy store to see a Samsung 3-D LCD model set up for demonstration. It actually brought back a memory from 1954, of our dad taking us downtown to see a COLOR TV (Westinghouse) set up in the window of a department store – probably the only color TV in Wichita – other than a broadcast monitor back at the transmitter. We were part of a small crowd straining to see the washed out picture (summertime, about 7PM) of Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town show from the local CBS affiliate, KTVH. If that was color TV then that demo would never sell any. Neither would yesterday’s demo at Best Buy. Three sales people fumbling around that Samsung – three who seemed totally incapable of demonstrating 3-D or understanding any of the physics that made it possible. When they handed us cardboard glasses with blue and red cellophane lenses, I knew that we had a serious problem and would not likely be seeing any 3-D TV that day. Later, one of them told me that the (necessary) Samsung viewing glasses hadn’t arrived yet.
Better luck next time to the Best Buy people. And, better luck and future success to all those motivated and talented people who contributed to the 15Geez effort.
Roger Dreyfoos
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