Quote:
Originally Posted by decojoe67
I just did a trade for a rather scarce optional blonde finished 7" 1948 Hallicrafters T505. I like the contrasting dark tone of the front "brow" molding. The design is so Raymond Loewy. Clean, modern lines.
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Seven inches? That screen looks awfully small. This television looks to me like it was a reworked oscilloscope. How was anyone supposed to watch a screen that small? I hope the picture wasn't so small as to be nearly unviewable unless the viewer sat within inches of the screen (like today's HD flat screens, which can only be enjoyed in high definition if the viewer is almost in front of the set).
How many of these pitifully small Hallicrafters TVs were sold, and for how long? I can't imagine a single person or two, let alone a family, watching a TV this small and being able to enjoy it. The person would have to sit very close to the screen to see it at all (I don't think anyone worried about X-rays from TVs in those days, although I can imagine eye doctors cringing at the very thought of anyone watching a 5-inch TV while sitting within inches, or any reasonable distance for that matter, of the screen). What must Hallicrafters, which was mainly a radio manufacturer, have been thinking when they came out with the T-505 TV, with its 5-inch(!) screen?
Philco's "Predicta" TV, with its larger screen (I think it was perhaps 10 inches, give or take), had the CRT on a cable, in its own enclosure, so that it could be set some distance from the rest of the TV itself. This allowed the set owner to put the main TV cabinet near his or her easy chair, with the picture tube (and its associated circuitry) sitting on a table, stand, etc. some reasonable distance away. I don't know in what year the Predicta was introduced; however, my best guess would be some time in the late '50s. This was, IMO, a huge improvement over the 5-inch Hallicrafters set being discussed here, and things only kept improving as time went on.