Today I picked up this goddam beauty of a CRT TV for free from a local chap who said it was only destined for the tip.
(@steemmatt you would be proud!) (it’s in amazing condition too)
It’s just so awesome to look at. A proper little time capsule.
It fills me with actual joy.
It reminds me of the set I had in my bedroom as a pre-teen. A black and white old thing my parents used in the living room when I was a toddler. It had naff plastic noisy clicky buttons to change channels and by the time of got to me some buttons were broken so I had to use a pen 😂
This unit turns on just fine but it needs the right cables and adapters to get it hooked up properly to watch anything or play any games etc
I’ve found a HDMI - RF adapter... imagine watching Netflix on this thing! Or playing the SNES! 😍
The speaker works too, as crackly as it is.
I actually seeked out this TV for use on a ‘1989’ style kids bedroom video set we were building for a commercial.
It looks like the advert filming isn’t going ahead anymore but I’m glad I still managed to bag this thing.
I actually got three TV’s today. Here’s the other one!
How cool is that?
(the answer is very)
Other other unit is in the car. It’s not as pretty as these - more of a black characterless square but I’ll give it a proper clean up and get it working if I can.
Amazingly these kinds of ‘vintage’ CRT TV’s fetch quite a bit on eBay these days.
I don’t think most people see the value in them and take them straight from attic to the tip. But ones that are in half decent condition can fetch a decent price.
I’ll be keeping this one
Whether it be for nostalgic game playing, a fun office ornament or a prop for another video; I won’t be letting this go any time soon 😎
I had an awkward little black and white tv when I was a kid that I think was meant for traveling. 5 inch screen maybe. You had to tune it like a radio to get channels. VHF I think had two actual channels I could watch. Had a UHF band and for some reason I could listen in on phone calls. No idea where that signal was coming from though. Early to mid 90's so maybe cordless phones. I saved up Popsicle sticks for over two years to get it. Each stick was worth points. Some 10, 20, 50 points even. I think I needed 10000 points. It looked way cooler in the catalog.
Haha love that memory!
Now that’s a heck of a lock of sticks to collect. I’m sensing there was disappointment when it arrived 😂
Not sure what the phone signal thing was. Bet that was a pretty cool thing to discover at that age to be fair!
I was the same and was obsessed the idea of a true portable TV. (Battery powered and in your pocket!)
Now I take it so much for granted.
Thanks for sharing.
Well the picture was black and white but I expected color. So that stung. Especially after doing things like: Digging through the the trash to make sure my brother didn't throw out any Popsicle sticks...
And at first I didn't know what those voices were but at some point I heard that classic phone ringing sound effect and figured it out. It wasn't a crystal clear signal most nights when I sat up listening. You only got half the conversation. Spent a lot of hours listening in though. Any disappointment was gone once I realized I had a box with super powers. I had to keep it a secret. Thought my parents would take it away if they found out. Every night I felt like such a badass.
LOVE that! I know what you mean about it feeling like you have a power that you shouldn’t.
Eeek about the B/W! Haha
I had a TV adapter for my Sega Game Gear. It was actually really really awesome. Colour TV on the screen with a massive aerial that came out.
It was brilliant but it wasn’t like there was anything particularly interesting to watch. There wasn’t ever a dedicated cartoon channel or anything fun during the day or at night - just boring topical shows and news. Staying up late to tune in was pretty dull. So it soon dawned on me that that the best time to watch TV was the morning kids shows - where it was better to watch on an actual proper TV. 🤷🏻♂️
Exciting none the less. I still have the whole set. Pretty cool.
Kids in the Hall was something I'd watch. Red Green Show. David Letterman. It was late night, was supposed to be sleeping, and I was tired, so I'd often doze off. Then it's a couple hours later and all I can hear is that constant high pitch tone that went along with the test pattern. LOL! They'd always sign off with the Canadian national anthem and this corny video with moose and beavers, mountains, rivers, the prairies, fireworks, Mounties...
Memories.
That’s awesome haha!
Classic kids ‘I’m gonna stay up ALL NIGHT and watc...’ crashes out
Or the, 'I'm going to get up early and watch...' Slept until noon
Wow. What a coincidence. I was commenting below to @ashtv about how my father and I used to hunt the UHF bands for that very reason. The conversations always sounded so spooky. We lived in a really old house. Made for some good, creepy times.
So this was common? It confused the crap out of me back then and I kept it to myself. Haven't even thought about that time of my life much until seeing this old tv triggered the memories.
My family had one of those old massive satellite dishes as well so growing up I got to mess around with that. Many of the channels weren't intended to be viewed by the public. So you'd see things like news reporters rehearsing and getting their act together. Another day it's a marathon of Inspector Gadget without commercials. Free PPV and live events. Watch a hockey game, they cut to commercial, but you don't get the commercial, you get the announcer asking for another beer and complaining about his chair...
Yes! My uncle had one of those! I remember he would always have seen all the new shows hours early because of that thing by switching to the East Coast feed. Ahhh the days when communications weren't encrypted.
I remember the uh, dirty movies, as they were known, were 'scrambled' but sometimes you could make out the naughty bits. Things sure have changed...
Yeah, memories... :)
Does it tune VHF and UHF? When I was little, my father and I would fine tune the UHF band on a static channel and you could pick up unencrypted phone calls and ham radio. It sounded so weird. Usually only half the conversation, but it was fun to hunt around for random talk.
That’s awesome. Tbh I’m not sure it does.
You should check out @nonameslefttouse comment just before yours about picking up phone calls on the TV!
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This is so funny. I love the excitement over the thing. I wouldn't of thought an old analogue tv would be cool but you managed to convince me. It is pretty neat. Definitely nostalgic for sure. Have fun with that bad boy
Ha! Yeah I guess not everyone shares the love of these things.
There are some bit of tech that are pretty ugly from that era though. Like, the amount of people who find modems and routers from the 90’s beautiful are probably quite small. But TV’s are more of a shared experience.
Glad you liked my enthusiasm
Ooh, a thing of beauty, for sure! Those things had the added advantage of being a shelf, too. When I was growing up, ours had a proper lava lamp and a chunky onyx cigarette lighter sitting on top of the set.
Haha yes! Good point. Photo frames and all sorts.
Lava lamp is cooler though!!
There's some nostalgia. I had a Marantz 16" portable TV (well it had a handle) that I used for years, including with my BBC Micro. I haven't used any CRT screen in a long while (apart from some test equipment at work).
I heard on a podcast how someone had taken an old TV and built a Raspberry Pi into it so you could get different web content by turning the tuner. Have to be careful with the high voltages in those things.
Hope you can find a use for it.
!BEER
Oooh now that’s a cool use, with Raspberry Pi!
My plan with these if they don’t work is to gut them, keep the box and facia, and then install an LCD screen inside it!
So it keeps the retro effect but is more practical for use
Cheers for the comment!
i always had an idea to put a pc into the old radio. now it would be easier then ever. never done it
There’s still time :)
JVC did some cool spherical TVs (1960s?). I expect those are popular with collectors. One of those with an LCD would be neat.
When I lived in Germany I had a big old TV that may have used valves as it took a while to warm up. One day the picture just disappeared. I hefted it to a repair shop and they were able to fix it. Some of the flat screens may not last as long. We had one where capacitors in the power supply gave up. Had a guy fixing it, but he managed to crack the screen. He just gave us another he had.
The 'smart' TVs may go out of date if they don't get software updates. Old analogue ones would keep working as long as there was a signal.
The spherical TV’s will certainly be popular. Funny to think that that shape was how manufacturers saw the future in 1960; circular, smooth, silver, UFO shaped.
Didn’t last long.
I might get on YouTube to see if anyone has done an old TV/lcd renovation.
great to keep this as a fun office ornament as you said.
:-)
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