My post just now about the Patty Duke Show reminded me of a (fond?) few memories.
Who here remembers the following about our old TV sets:
-when you first turned it on, you had to wait for it to "warm up" before you could see a picture;
-when you turned it off, the picture quickly shrank to a small white dot in the middle of the screen and then the dot gradually faded away;
-you changed channels by turning a dial that made a loud "clunking" noise. After a few years sometimes the dial got "out of sync" so that in order to see a channel clearly you had to carefully position the dial in between two of the "clunks".
-eventually there were newer TV sets with names like "Instant-Pic" that showed the picture as soon as you turned the set on.
Our first remote control TV was a Montgomery Ward set and the remote had a whopping TWO buttons on it.
Button One - For channel changing. Hold the button down and the dial on the TV would rotate clockwise one click at a time for channels 2-13 and UHF.
Button Two - On/Off and volume. There were four options...volume low, medium, high and TV off. If you were on medium level volume and wanted to turn it down to low you had to go up to high volume, turn the TV off and then turn it back on to low volume! That's how it worked.
It also took me back to my earliest childhood memories of having a hi-fi in our house. It was one of those big, beautiful console types. To a little kid it seems gargantuan. I don't recall if it had a TV built in, but the sound quality was awe-inspiring.
Yup, I remember all of that. Our tiny b/w telly in the fifties/sixties, I think it was rented in the fifties (Radio Rentals) most were then in the UK. I remember some early colour TVs had red/green/blue controls, & people playing around with those got some very odd looking pictures, the TV manufacturers soon stopped doing that.
In the 1950s our TV also suffered from much interference. If someone used the vacuum cleaner it was impossible to see the picture. Intermittent inference also happened if some cars and especially motor bikes went past the house (not that there were many cars in those days).
My first b/w tv in my bedroom was a neighbour's Baird cast off when they upgraded. It served its purpose allowing me to watch tv while doing homework but indoor aerial was fun. Perfect picture hanging off the curtain rail but anywhere else in the room, ghosting. Then it would hum and whistle constantly - and i still did some adequate tv theme recordings by microphone - as long as the theme was loud all the way thru you couldnt hear the hum n whistle.
Then my favourite, when the vertical hold had a mad few minutes and the picture rolled incessantly until u slowed it down using the dial. If it didnt stop, what was very effective was bashing the top of the tv set's wooden panel frame with your fist. Crazily it worked. And for ten minutes you would a perfect picture! Lol.
Household items like mum's kenwood mixer altered the picture. And when we went to our caravan at the seaside, a big ship going up the thames affected it badly, tugging horizontally at the picture, sometimes even creating a "ship" shape on the screen. I kid you not.
I had an Ampro film projector that, when i ran it in the basement would totally muck up the television upstairs. This caused some friction (more than the Ampro!) in the family. I eventually got the Kodak Model 1 sound projector and all was well and quiet on the homefront.
We had a General Electric 21-inch set. Seemed huge back in the 50's. It came with horizontal and vertical hold knobs because as the tubes warmed up, the picture would start flip-flopping or rolling sideways.
This dates me, but I remember our first TV was a Vidor. There wasn't any means of changing channels because there was only what we now call BBC One. No "One" back then, though -- no need.
This dates me, but I remember our first TV was a Vidor. There wasn't any means of changing channels because there was only what we now call BBC One. No "One" back then, though -- no need.
First family TV I remember was a 17" Black and White Zenith that my 3 brothers and 3 sisters all had to share. I remember it went dead once and my mother (a widow) called the repairman who looked at it, pressed the reset button on the back and charged her a big TV man repair bill.
Our uncle bought us our first color TV (a Midland 17") to my great thrill, in 77' or 78'.
It also took me back to my earliest childhood memories of having a hi-fi in our house. It was one of those big, beautiful console types. To a little kid it seems gargantuan. I don't recall if it had a TV built in, but the sound quality was awe-inspiring.
Yup, I remember all of that. Our tiny b/w telly in the fifties/sixties, I think it was rented in the fifties (Radio Rentals) most were then in the UK. I remember some early colour TVs had red/green/blue controls, & people playing around with those got some very odd looking pictures, the TV manufacturers soon stopped doing that.
I remember those individual colour controls. It seemed like no matter how much you fiddled with those controls, the colour was never completely right.
Now here's a question: if we could take a time machine back to the 1960's and look at a brand new top of the line colour TV set, how good would the picture be really, compared with TV sets today?
We had a General Electric 21-inch set. Seemed huge back in the 50's. It came with horizontal and vertical hold knobs because as the tubes warmed up, the picture would start flip-flopping or rolling sideways.
OMG I remember the problem of the picture "rolling" vertically and how you had to try to stop the rolling with the knob.
I bet the flat screen TV's of today don't have the problem of the picture "rolling" ha ha!
