Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!diablo1.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Edward Rawde" Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: Re: Who remembers how bad analogue television was? Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2025 20:52:46 -0500 Organization: BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com) Lines: 50 Message-ID: References: Injection-Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2025 01:52:48 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com; logging-data="18509"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@blueworldhosting.com" Cancel-Lock: sha1:a7ACMo/nnOtlYU73rPAy5f44XMo= sha256:5tt4FSvhhq4RFGPX9aLbMa9dncTVGNjrTfNzeFphMws= sha1:01X/e0kw3HXRiTvPkTjiVk2DfLs= sha256:8wnztNsDErHbuQb8HRZei+GKiD5hhFVvq9mlQelihA0= X-RFC2646: Format=Flowed; Response X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.6157 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 Bytes: 3907 "Jeff Layman" wrote in message news:vprrbe$3in6g$1@dont-email.me... > On 28/02/2025 03:03, KevinJ93 wrote: >> On 2/27/25 12:45 PM, Martin Brown wrote: >>> On 27/02/2025 19:58, KevinJ93 wrote: >>>> On 2/26/25 8:52 PM, Sylvia Else wrote: >> <...> >>>> >>>> Are you sure that 1984 date is correct? By 1970 in the UK colour TVs >>>> used transistor signal processing stages and many had already changed >>>> to transistors for the power stages such as line and frame output as >>>> well as using chopper stabilised power supplies. >>> >>> The first two colour TVs I recall owned by friends or family were about >>> the time of Apollo 8 in 1968. Memorable for the Earth rise shot. Both >>> were entirely valves and my uncle's caught fire leaving a nasty brown >>> burn mark on their wool carpet and smoke damage on the ceiling. >>> >>> The earliest was at a school friends house and was in pastel shades pre >>> Nd glass. It was in colour but only just... Joe 90 launch was the first >>> programme I can recall watching there in colour. Test cards in shops >>> don't count. >>> >>> I'd believe 1974 as a date for hybrid colour TVs that almost worked >>> correctly and didn't need a service engineer visiting them every other >>> week. By 1980 I'm pretty sure they were almost entirely semiconductor >>> based. >> >> My father bought a Ferguson 19" colour TV at the end of 1970 that was >> fully semiconductor (it was my first term at university and he got it >> just before I came back for Christmas). It seemed to work fairly well - >> he would tinker with it but I don't remember it needing any significant >> repair. I gather it was one of the first such sets. > > The first domestic UK colour sets were valve-based. However, it wasn't long before transistor sets came in. See page 22 at > . > This was the June 1968 edition of Practical Television, and it refers to the new 19" Marconiphone Model 4701 as being "fully > transistorised". I think they worked with a Texas Instruments facility in the UK where the necessary transistor was produced to make it possible to do the line scan and EHT without valves. R2008B I think. Doesn't seem possible to find any data on it now. https://www.google.com/search?q=R2008B+npn+transistor > More details can be found in Practical TV July and September 1967. What's amazing to me is the price - "284 guineas". So just > short of £300 in 1968; equivalent to £4500 today!!! > > -- > Jeff