CBS Slave Spotted

[miniman82]

So here's something I never really understood about the CBS sets: there's the slave an companion, what's the difference? ETF site says the slave has to be connected to a B&W receiver, I presume to rob it's tuner input or something. But does that mean the companion has it's own tuner and stuff, so it can operate by itself?

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by miniman82

ETF site says the slave has to be connected to a B&W receiver, I presume to rob it's tuner input or something.

IIRC the slave sets usually rob the tuner IF and sound from the Master (no sense duplicating circuits that would not be somewhat unique to the slave).

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by miniman82

So here's something I never really understood about the CBS sets: there's the slave an companion, what's the difference? ETF site says the slave has to be connected to a B&W receiver, I presume to rob it's tuner input or something. But does that mean the companion has it's own tuner and stuff, so it can operate by itself?

Nick,
In essence, To receive color on the tunerless slave set you did require two TV receivers in your living room. If CBS-Columbia had their way one of the TV's would be the slave set to reproduce the color image and the other set would be a CBS-Columbia "Convertible" set that, has electronic outputs, & supplied the tuner if & sound components. The convertible set also had a special output plug on the back to connect it to the slave sets input to receive the video & sound. The slave set had the electronic sync elements fed to the color wheel to convert the inputed info to a color image. Not exactly a success as who needed 2 tv's taking up space to receive the non-compatible color images. The 1951 CBS-Columbia ad further explains: