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From '83-'88, when I was in elementary school, there were several older top loading Sony and Panasonic U-matic machines in use. Most of them were on a roll around cart that also contained a TV. Most of the TV's were 23" metal cabinet tube type RCA mural TV's that used the CTC39 chassis. These sets were commercial grade, used 3-wire power cords, and had all sorts of jacks for connecting external equipment. In the library, they had a newer early '80's Zenith 25" table model set connected to a U-matic machine.
Around '87, the school got a VHS VCR and the old U-matic machines started seeing less use. Most of what they had on U-matic format was educational material that was either recorded off of, or otherwise provided by, PBS.
Back then, there was not a TV in every room. There were a couple of sets in the library and probably two or three more that the teacher wouldl have to reserve in advance of needing it.
When I entered the 6th grade, they still had the roll around TV's; but, most of the sets were newer Zenith 25" sets by then and I recall everything being on VHS by that point.
Sometime during my 7th grade year, a company provided 19" Magnavox wall mounted TV's for each classroom with an elaborate CCTV system. In return, the school was to allow the students to vies a daily 12 minute "news" program called "channel one". And, if the teacher wanted the class to view a tape, all he/she had to do was ask the librarian to show the film in room #(whatever) at whatever time.
For some reason, one of the science rooms at the high school didn't get one of the newer TV's and it still had an old CTC39 RCA in there. By the mid '90's, that set was on it's last leg and didn't produce a very good picture.
So, that's my memory of U-matic tape machines.
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