How did people watch 7" sets?

[rcaman]

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

Yes Sandy everyone including us little kids, wore nice clothes. People did that sort of thing back in the day. I didn't like getting dressed as a toddler, and I still don't lit to dress up to this day.

yes and we dressed up to go to the doctor and about everywhere.
now as long as my clothes are clean i do not care i am not dressing up.

btw remember all the nurses had white clothes and a white cap on.

[Sandy G]

Originally Posted by rcaman

yes and we dressed up to go to the doctor and about everywhere.
now as long as my clothes are clean i do not care i am not dressing up.

btw remember all the nurses had white clothes and a white cap on.

Yeah, & they about ALL wore heels, & I think a lot of 'em musta worn "Taps", to, 'cause they 'd go "Clack...Clack...Clack...Clack.." as they walked down the hall. My wife has one of them little "Go To Hell" caps, but I've been w/her since 2007, & I've NEVER seen it. About all of 'em, doctors, nurses, techs, the whole kit & caboodle wear scrubs, & sneakers, or Crocs, as my wife does. And I don't think any of 'em wear the caps, except ones fresh out of nursing school. But she says think about it-those starched white uniforms were UNCOMFORTABLE, the 1st patient you see will bleed or puke on you, so there goes the pretty white business right out the window, I GUESS somebody still makes the "Dress Whites", but hardly anyone wears them.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by Kamakiri

Here's the only photo I could find that shows a living room with a 7" set, I took this as a still out of a Motorola TV commercial from 1948. They can't be more than 3 feet from the set, which is actually about right. I picture all of their living room furniture moved into a corner, and the rest of the room totally empty

Or, they have a tiny living room, like I do. If I moved my couch away from the wall to have a walking path behind it, the dimensions would about match that picture. To me, though, that would be the right viewing distance for a 65-inch 1080P screen.

They have no coffee table in their little room (and neither do I). I suppose, if you used a 7-inch TV as your living-room set, you could probably only afford a small room anyway.

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

The local stations down here start the "6 o'clock" news at 4 or 5. They have Live at 5 on 5, then rehash the same dopey stuff at 5.30, regurgitate it AGAIN at 6, the networks take over a 6.30, then quite a few of 'em rerun the same 3 stories of a Horrible Wreck on the Interstate at 7 & 7.30 that we've heard about EVERY 30 minutes since 4 or 5.... And just in case you missed it, they dutifully repeat it AGAIN at 11 PM..The ads are even worse-down here, there's some bucktoothed guy w/a cheesy beard/stache who has been the spokesperson for "Johnson City Honda... Johnson City" for AGES, to try to get you believe that you'll get less of a screwing at the JC Honda emporium than you would if you went to the Dastardly cutpurses in Bristol or Kingsport.

Yes there are also several news hours throughout the day on the locals here too. Fortunately, only so much bad or could-care-less news happens in the Harrisburg-York-Lancaster market, so it seems pretty lame. Only the weather is truly unpredictable

Now for the Philly channels, well that's a different story and the car dealers must shout (especially the NJ dealers, where its even cheaper) how they are simply DESPARATELY INSANE to get rid of the overstock and will NOT LET YOU OUT OF THEIR STORE until a deal is to your liking.

And now for something completely different....

I got used to a 7-inch set when I was a teenager and took my Sony TV-720 "upstate" to the cabin in the late 70s so i wouldn't miss SNL and SCTV.
There was only 12 volts DC and two channels available.

My father-in-law recalls a very popular neighbor in the late '49 hosted "friday night fights" parties similar to Bob's description.
i'll keep working on him to remember if it was a Moto VT71 or RCA 621TS..=)
Fortunately, that town was not limited to the one channel intended to cover the area, but could get all three Philly stations as well.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by ohohyodafarted

Yes Sandy everyone including us little kids, wore nice clothes. People did that sort of thing back in the day.

But even though they wore nice clothes, seems that generation didn't shower real often. "BO". "PU". I'd hate to be time travel teleported back to that era...

About 20 years ago I used to work for Philips in New York. We'd have expatriates from Europe come work here for a year or more, at first they tended to be stinky. But most cleaned up their act, though one, it seemed the smell could peel the paint off the walls...

The local stations down here start the "6 o'clock" news at 4 or 5. They have Live at 5 on 5, then rehash the same dopey stuff at 5.30, regurgitate it AGAIN at 6, the networks take over a 6.30, then quite a few of 'em rerun the same 3 stories of a Horrible Wreck on the Interstate at 7 & 7.30 that we've heard about EVERY 30 minutes since 4 or 5.... And just in case you missed it, they dutifully repeat it AGAIN at 11 PM..

Don't think the local news at the New York City TV stations (the ones that are named for their networks, WABC, WNBC, WCBS) is any better. "If it bleeds, it leads" Also fires and murders and rapes. The only quality news is found during the national and world news shows.

[Kamakiri]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

But even though they wore nice clothes, seems that generation didn't shower real often. "BO". "PU". I'd hate to be time travel teleported back to that era...

That's EXACTLY what I think of every time I see Jimmy Roberts on the Lawrence Welk show. I often wonder how many layers of bear grease he's got on his head.

Every time I see him, I wanna say TAKE A BATH WILL YOU?

[David Roper]

One of my grandpa's friends was a fellow by the name of Monty Cutler. I have no idea how often Monty bathed, but I'm sure he absolutely never used a deodorant in his whole life. Monty was married--twice--so apparently pheromones were still effective with even some American girls back then. But there was also the oft-repeated story about one lady who actually confronted Monty about his odiferousness: he told her "it's a manly smell and the ladies like it." So there.

[Jon A.]

There were a few customers at my former work placement I would have liked to have sent through a car wash, without a car.

[Tubejunke]

Sometimes you have to do without in order to appreciate what most of us take for granted. I learned this about many things in life, but the topic is small screen TV sets. The power goes out a lot where I live for whatever reason. So I always have kept a small TV around that I could run on a power inverter from my truck's battery.

For years I had a 13" black and white which at the young age of 45 is not crazy small. That's all that me and my grandmother ever had when I was growing up and we didn't even think twice about it. Dad had the monolithic 25" remote controlled, color floor model in the basement, but we were happy with what we had.

Anyway, I donated the 13" a while back and found an 80s Panasonic AM-FM-TV portable that ran on D cells or AC line. It has like maybe a 4" black and white tube. Panasonic really had it going on with quality and durability back in the early to mid 80s. Everything I ever find is bullet proof. So, twice now the power has gone out and I lit the oil lamps and set the little tv on the coffee table and was perfectly content. It sure beat sitting there in the dark! The inverter runs the tv and either the DirecTv or free TV box for hours before the low voltage alarm sounds and I go crank the truck and recharge the battery.

Really I could easily run my bedroom 19" PANASONIC that plays around the clock many days without flaw. It would just run the battery down a lot quicker. It's another 80s set. I don't have the stuff for nostalgia; I just have it to use. Just regular stuff to me and works and lasts better than the crap their pushing these days.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

...Even though they wore nice clothes, seems that generation didn't shower real often. "BO". "PU". I'd hate to be time travel teleported back to that era...

That was 'specially true when they went to church. The worst stinkys had to sit in their own Pew.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by old_coot88

That was 'specially true when they went to church. The worst stinkys had to sit in their own Pew.

I always heard that saying was related to passing gas.
Still funny, just the same.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

Sometimes you have to do without in order to appreciate what most of us take for granted. I learned this about many things in life, but the topic is small screen TV sets. The power goes out a lot where I live for whatever reason. So I always have kept a small TV around that I could run on a power inverter from my truck's battery.

For years I had a 13" black and white which at the young age of 45 is not crazy small. That's all that me and my grandmother ever had when I was growing up and we didn't even think twice about it. Dad had the monolithic 25" remote controlled, color floor model in the basement, but we were happy with what we had.

Anyway, I donated the 13" a while back and found an 80s Panasonic AM-FM-TV portable that ran on D cells or AC line. It has like maybe a 4" black and white tube. Panasonic really had it going on with quality and durability back in the early to mid 80s. Everything I ever find is bullet proof. So, twice now the power has gone out and I lit the oil lamps and set the little tv on the coffee table and was perfectly content. It sure beat sitting there in the dark! The inverter runs the tv and either the DirecTv or free TV box for hours before the low voltage alarm sounds and I go crank the truck and recharge the battery.

Really I could easily run my bedroom 19" PANASONIC that plays around the clock many days without flaw. It would just run the battery down a lot quicker. It's another 80s set. I don't have the stuff for nostalgia; I just have it to use. Just regular stuff to me and works and lasts better than the crap their pushing these days.

My residence seems to be on the end of the line, from the power plant, as it seems that we have more power failures, than most.
I keep a small "Garden Tractor" battery in an old Igloo cooler. When the power goes out, we have no phone, cable or internet. I use a 200 watt H-F inverter, connected to the battery, operating my RCA "prison vision" and a 13 watt CFL in a desk lamp. A total of 68 watts.
The set has a built-in ATSC board an can receive Milwaukee channels, 41 miles away.
The longest, the power was out, was about 5 hours.

[Coshi]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

I don't have the stuff for nostalgia; I just have it to use. Just regular stuff to me and works and lasts better than the crap their pushing these days.

Thats what I'm talking about, All of my 'antiques' As my freinds say are just the only thing that I have found that was cheep enuf/Good enuf for me. There all every day use stuff. IN fact the only thing I own that was made AFTER I was born is my cell phone and my computer. Everything else is pre-1993 and used everyday...

I think the oldest thing I own would be a toss up between my late 40's tostmaster toaster and my late 40's kirby vacuum cleaner.

[Kamakiri]

That gets harder and harder to accomplish as the years roll on

[Jon A.]

Most of my stuff is for regular use *and* nostalgia. Sure I have stuff from before I was born, but was still commonly used when I was a kid, and those things are still perfectly suitable for use today as almost all technical advances since then have been completely unnecessary. None of those I would hang around with back then had the latest of everything.