The last roundie produced

[vintagecollect]

I'm curious when the last roundie color set was produced?? I'm hearing diiferent things, from the 1967 to 1970 to possibly as late as 1971 or 1972. Please if everyone can add info. Also did they ever make a roundie partial or mostly solid state set and if so , what model. Please post pics when can so everyone knows what your talking about.

[David Roper]

By 1967 roundies were almost as rare to see on the showroom floor as black & white programming was to see on network TV.

So roundies were even more highly anachronistic by 1968, the year ISTR being given as the last they were offered by Philco. Magnavox roundies selling new as late as 1970 is almost beyond believable, but that's another example that's been cited here.

A solid state roundie is about as likely as a tubed handlebar radio.

[tubesrule]

Originally Posted by David Roper

A solid state roundie is about as likely as a tubed handlebar radio.

I don't know about the television, but Automatic did make a tube handle bar radio in the Tom Thumb series. Must have been for the little rich kids :-)

Darryl

[jstout66]

I'm pretty sure those table-top Philco's were the LAST of the roundies. (circa 1967/1968) I have a bunch of "Life" and "Look" magazines from 1967 & 1968 and have seen ads for them. Other than that set, no way were ANY of the major brands making any after 1967. Most quit making Roundies in 1965, and a few may have still been in production and sold in 1966. (using the spare parts stash?) Other than that Philco which WAS made and sold in 67/68 I don't think there were any others. And NO WAY was anyone making Roundies in 1970. Most brands were working on solid state at that time, so they wouldn't have bothered. I worked in a TV Sales/Service shop in the late 70's and most people pitched roundies as fast as they could, to get something more reliable and "modern". We sold a few used, but had to sell them cheap, and this is when they were around 14 years old.
On service calls, the only people that would put any money into a reapair on a roundie was usually women who loved the cabinet.
I loved roundies then and still do. It's a shame of all the ones that got tossed.

[bgadow]

I once looked through the Sams files, folder by folder, searching for the last ones listed. There are some Truetones and I think some Airlines but the very last is a Magnavox, published in 1970. You can only date things approximately with Sams-they would have come out after the set was on the market. In a previous discussion Randy Bassham mentioned that the Maggie was a series string el-cheapo model.

I have read that there was shortage of rectangular tubes for awhile in the late 60s. Initially there were not many companies building them: RCA, National Video, Sylvania...but others came along. There were about 8 or so by about 1970. I was just reading an article from 1966 regarding Philco ramping up color crt production. Perhaps they were able to produce round tubes so cheap as to really make it worthwhile to keep going an extra year or two. The Philco chassis in the late sixties wasn't a Zenith but it wasn't too bad, from what I've seen. They did have some solid state circuits, moreso than some other makes, but certainly not at the level of the early 70s hybrids.

The Philco print-ad campaign is comical. Someone had posted it once before. It shows a big, burly guy struggling to carry a Philco roundie table model with a comment that Philco offered "big-screen" color for the price of those other guys portables.

As others have pointed out, there was no incentive to build a solid state roundie. Most companies continued offering tube sets up until about 1974 or so, with solid state being the top-of-the-line. The last roundies would have been the bottom-of-the-barrel as far as color tv goes. I think a solid state set could be built but it might take a little engineering due to deflection angle differences. If you could work that out you could take a real reliable chassis like a Chromacolor II and rig it up, right? I have what appears to be a complete Admiral Era II chassis up in the attic and someday I have the feeling it is going to end up in a Frankenset!

I'll add one more thing to my already too long comments-might have Setchell-Carlson ever built a solid state roundie monitor for commercial use? (or anyone else for that matter?)

[radio63]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Might have Setchell-Carlson ever built a solid state roundie monitor for commercial use? (or anyone else for that matter?)

Possibly Conrac??

Gilbert

[Sandy G]

Whaddabout all them GLORIOUS roundie monitors in "Colossus:The Forbin Project" from '71 ? OK, it was prolly made 1969-70, but IT sure had lotsa roundies innit...

[old_tv_nut]

I remember studying a solid-state Conrac monitor schematic to see if they had anything clever in the color circuits, but I can't remember if it was a round tube.

[Einar72]

I once worked on an RCA roundie with an IC sound-IF PWB. Used a 6AQ5 output stage, as seen in period RCA IC Manual application notes. I can't remember the CTC#, though.

[old_tv_nut]

Nobody I talked to at work can remember what was in the Conrac monitor we had years back. I know I studied a solid-state schematic, but that's as far as my memory will go.

[oldtvman]

Originally Posted by jstout66

I'm pretty sure those table-top Philco's were the LAST of the roundies. (circa 1967/1968) I have a bunch of "Life" and "Look" magazines from 1967 & 1968 and have seen ads for them. Other than that set, no way were ANY of the major brands making any after 1967. Most quit making Roundies in 1965, and a few may have still been in production and sold in 1966. (using the spare parts stash?) Other than that Philco which WAS made and sold in 67/68 I don't think there were any others. And NO WAY was anyone making Roundies in 1970. Most brands were working on solid state at that time, so they wouldn't have bothered. I worked in a TV Sales/Service shop in the late 70's and most people pitched roundies as fast as they could, to get something more reliable and "modern". We sold a few used, but had to sell them cheap, and this is when they were around 14 years old.
On service calls, the only people that would put any money into a reapair on a roundie was usually women who loved the cabinet.
I loved roundies then and still do. It's a shame of all the ones that got tossed.

You are correct Philco still had some 21 inch model as late as 1971, I had the serviced some of these guys. Most were hy-brids with solid state front ends and tube driven sweep circuits

[Charlie]

I have a '68 Philco roundie with 11 transistors and 17 tubes. It even has a 6HU6/EM87 green tuning indicator. One of these days I will get around to re-capping it. I bet they produce a good stable picture.

In Sams, the last roundie schematic I found was a '70 Maggie, as mentioned above by others.

'68 Philco --> http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/att...9&d=1163916479

[Randy Bassham]

Originally Posted by David Roper

By 1967 roundies were almost as rare to see on the showroom floor as black & white programming was to see on network TV.

So roundies were even more highly anachronistic by 1968, the year ISTR being given as the last they were offered by Philco. Magnavox roundies selling new as late as 1970 is almost beyond believable, but that's another example that's been cited here.

A solid state roundie is about as likely as a tubed handlebar radio.

http://cgi.ebay.com/1939-Motorola-B1...QQcmdZViewItem

You'd have to be the richest kid in town in 1939 to have one of these...

[David Roper]

Yeah guys, thanks for catching my...er...typo. Yeah, silly typo, I meant shower radio!

Solid state roundie as likely as a tubed shower radio.

[Randy Bassham]

Tubed AA5 Shower Radio with a hot chassis....That has possibilities: