Poll of the Day > it still amazes me that we went from crt tv's to flat panels

(+) Yeah! (+)

like we went from 6000 pound huge fucking monster tvs, to tvs that are gigantic, but you can lift with one hand and take up like, 2-4 inches of depth space

it's crazy

phones are even more crazy

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Yeah, I remember the big screen TV my family bought in '99 or so. Took up the whole corner of the living room.

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Joe_Biden posted...

take up like, 2-4 inches

Just like your mom lmao

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Far-Queue posted...

Just like your mom lmao

Self-burn!

My dad once came home with a 43" Sony crt TV and we almost died getting it in the house

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I don't remember what our first TV looked like, but I remember the remote. It was a Zenith Space Commander Six Hundred. It had 4 buttons and they made an audible click when you pressed them. (Which is why a TV remote is still sometimes called a "clicker"). The Volume button would turn on the TV at minimum volume, and each press would turn the volume up, you couldn't go down. Once it hit maximum volume, one more press would turn the TV off. There were buttons for Channel Up and Channel Down, but these could only tune channels 2 through 13 and ONE pre-selected UHF channel. To select a different UHF channel, you had to turn a dial on the TV. There was a Mute button that would cut the sound, and while it was muted the Channel buttons could adjust the hue of the image.


From about the 1980s until 2000-ish we had a Zenith System 3 with a built-in "space phone" and an infrared remote. I think it was a 25" screen, with a huge cabinet that made it an entire piece of furniture.


Then we got a 36" Sony WEGA. It weighed over 200 pounds and required 3 people to deliver it. It was so front heavy it literally had a strap in the back to tie it down to the stand. I didn't even try to take it with me when I moved.


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Lol back when a TV was a piece of furniture

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Mead posted...

Lol back when a TV was a piece of furniture

And built to last. That first TV was probably over 30 years old the last I saw it (we gave it to someone). And the second one lasted about 20 years, and I think we gave it away too. The WEGA was actually pretty crap, it suffered a major component failure and had to be repaired in less than 3 years (thank goodness for extended warranties), and it was beginning to go out again when I abandoned it.

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captpackrat posted...

I don't remember what our first TV looked like, but I remember the remote. It was a Zenith Space Commander Six Hundred. It had 4 buttons and they made an audible click when you pressed them. (Which is why a TV remote is still sometimes called a "clicker").

Audible clicks are still better than the way we do buttons nowadays. True for remotes and especially true for keyboards.

Not sure when the idea started that we don't want to hear the button being pushed down but it was a bad idea...and it should have stayed in Star Trek.

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DrYuya posted...

Audible clicks are still better than the way we do buttons nowadays. True for remotes and especially true for keyboards.

The remotes clicked because they were entirely mechanical, with no electronic parts at all. Inside were several aluminum rods. Pressing a button would cause a hammer to strike the corresponding rod like a xylophone, except the sounds produced were ultrasonic. Each rod was tuned to a specific note and the TV would listen for those specific tones.



While the remotes themselves were fairly cheap to produce, the receiver inside the TV was not, requiring six extra vacuum tubes and adding about 30% to the price of the set. The price began to fall after the advent of the transistor made the receiver circuit smaller and simpler.

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captpackrat posted...

I don't remember what our first TV looked like, but I remember the remote. It was a Zenith Space Commander Six Hundred. It had 4 buttons and they made an audible click when you pressed them. (Which is why a TV remote is still sometimes called a "clicker"). The Volume button would turn on the TV at minimum volume, and each press would turn the volume up, you couldn't go down. Once it hit maximum volume, one more press would turn the TV off. There were buttons for Channel Up and Channel Down, but these could only tune channels 2 through 13 and ONE pre-selected UHF channel. To select a different UHF channel, you had to turn a dial on the TV. There was a Mute button that would cut the sound, and while it was muted the Channel buttons could adjust the hue of the image.


From about the 1980s until 2000-ish we had a Zenith System 3 with a built-in "space phone" and an infrared remote. I think it was a 25" screen, with a huge cabinet that made it an entire piece of furniture.


Then we got a 36" Sony WEGA. It weighed over 200 pounds and required 3 people to deliver it. It was so front heavy it literally had a strap in the back to tie it down to the stand. I didn't even try to take it with me when I moved.

Now , imagine that Zenith a yard longer on each end , with one end containing a stereo with space to store albums along side the stereo , and at the other end was a AM/FM/8 track combo .

And it was a pain to move because the ends were flip tops , so you had to bend down to find a spot to grab and lift. Fortunately , it had more clearance at the ends being 6 inches higher along the end bottoms than the center where the TV was.