The reason these "sets" were so large and heavy, is because of the large, heavy, Vacuum Tube inside called a "Picture Tube". The Picture Tube itself, is a glass jug with an arpeture mask, phosphor coating(s) inside, movable filaments called "electron guns" for each color (one for B&W, thtree for Color - aka R(ed) G(reen), and B(lue) - or RGB if you will). These filaments move across the screen from the upper right to the lower left 50-60 times a second (50Hz for PAL used in Europe/Britain, 60Hz for NTSC used in Japan and America). It also acts as a giant capacitor, taking tens of thousands of volts through an external coating on thte inside of the TV to control those electron guns and keep those phosphors burning. Just the tube itself is about 50-75% of the weight of the TV, the rest of it is not much, especially on later TV's from the 1990's and later.

The fact it is a glass vacuum tube with an external capacitor layer (called the "Dag") on the back is what makes these VERY dangerous to work on if you don't know what the heck you are doing. And even older CRTs tend to be even more fragile and less electronically protected by capacitors that drain the tens of thousands of volts off the graphite-looking-substance that coats the back (it's called the "Dag") can be deadly. This is one reason people DON'T like to fix these old things, is because they are about as dangerous to work on as a modern Electric Vehicle. Granted, the currents are low, but it's at least going to hurt like a murder hornet covered in citric acid and battery acid while emitting mustard gas. This is why, when I get to the fix/maintenance part of this page, DISCHARGING and providing a path to ground that's not through your body is something I'll probably mention excessively.

Projection TV's came in 2 types, one type was just a big coffee table that projected an image onto a reel-projector type screen using 3 CRTs inside the projector to process the red, green, and blue signals to create a complete image. These are very rare, and probably something only some Ferrari driving Millionaire would hav ehad in the 80's. The later, more common version, is what we used to call "Big Screen" TVs. These TV's had the same setup but with an inverted image, which then proojected onto a mirror, then was reflected onto the inside projector screen INSIDE the TV. You can tell these because they have very big screens, as big as some modern 4K HD TVs, and the screen itself has tiny ridges going vertically up and down the plastic screen panel. Honestly, if you want this experience playing video games, you're probably better using a modern VGA projector for the job, such as those made by Sony or NEC.

CRT Televisions started mainstream production in the late 40's, and ran all the way till about 2012. The earliest units were black and white, and highly collectable, so you likely don't want to be using some old Philips Predicta, as cool as they look, or some old Black & White 50's set, as these were all Tube based. Pretty much anything from the 50's or 60's will have tubes in it, and you will have to periodically replace bad tubes in these. Which can be expensive, and hard to find. Yes, I know they look cool, and super-retro, but they are like an old car with a carburator, you will need to "tune" them periodically, far more than you will with something "Solid State" from the 1970's or later. These also can be quite expensive as they are considered antiques now and quite collectible. For an idea on these go watch some videos by Shango66 or some guy in Illinois with dhr or drh for his channel name IIRC. There's also a subset of these from the early 70's called "Tube Hybrid" where some parts are transistor based (solid state), and some parts are tube, avoid these as well, just more work for you, unless you WANT to get into vintage TV repair.

This is where I've re-written the page a little bit as this is in the context of "retro-gaming".

I think the best way to choose a TV Set for retro-gaming, is base it on what the NEWEST Console you expect to be plugging into it will be. If you're planning just to have a nice little Atari 2600 setup in your den vs. having 5 generations of 8-bit through 32-bit console in your man cave is a totally different set of requirements. A lot of it has to do with how you CONNECT the devices.

So I think it's best to stick with anything - as a retro gamer - made between 1975 and 2008, that's solid state, and has the inputs you want to use, and has an ANALOG Tuner! Also, keep in mind, the older the system, the better it's going to look with a SMALLER screen that's OLDER and LOWER in "dot pitch". That's because the pixels will be compressed more, and the lower resolution created by the lower dot pitch, will cause the graphics to look a lot more attractive to your eyes than they would say - playing an Atari 2600 through a HD CRT Sony Trinitron. Everything is a trade off - want a 2600, NES, SNES, Playstation, and N64 all on the same TV, either you're going to have to deal with a less as crisp image on the newer consoles, or a very crisp and less-attractive image on the older consoles depending on the age of the television. And if you are using older RF-only consoles, and don't want to mod them, you WILL need a "Analog" TV Tuner.

Old TV's come in multiple formats as well...

The smallest are "Portables" - these were tiny 5"-10", usually Black & White (though some color ones exist) that could run on a car cigarette lighter adapter or "C" or "D" cell batteries. They weighed about 3-7LBS and basically look like a cross between a "Disaster Radio" and a Professional Video Monitor (PVM). Some of these, later ones usually (mid-80's and later) use the goofy 1/8" phono input for A/V or Cable connection. These were typically bought by your weird uncle with the SUV and camping gear so he could have his Superbowl parties in the woods.

Next up are the "Utility TVs" - these are small 10"-15" CRT Televisions, earlier ones were almost always Black & White, while later ones were almost always colors (mid-80's onward). These were usually what the parents bought their kids to use in the bedroom, or were the family TV when the family started, and then were moved upstairs when dad got his big promotion and purchased a huge console TV. These usually weigh between 10 and 30LBS. Most of these just have 75 Ohm Coax on the back, or Antenna Screw Terminals for RF, and only the later ones (mid-90's and later) have A/V jacks or even S-VIDEO on late examples.

Standard Televisions were between 15"-27" and were sort of a "budget console" of sorts. They looked like a bigger Utility set, or started to resemble something substantial, but still not in the "furnature" category. This is what hte majorioty of the "BPC" 0r "Black Plastic Crap" Sets of the 1990's and later were. Most of their weight is the picture tube, the set usually had a small, simple, IC Driven circuit board, multiple inputs, incluing one or two A/V inputs, and possibly S-video on nicer ones. Some were mono, some were stereo, most later ones are stereo. 2000's era models could also be found with a lot of silver paint on them as well to make them look more "new millennium-ish". Almost all of these from 1985 onward had a DIGITAL Tuner on them - ie push-buttons, instead of knobs.

Then we start into the big mamma-jammas, the "Console TV". These were huge sets, weighing in at 30LBS or more, mostly due to the picture tube, and earlier on, a elaborate WOODEN cabinet. Screen sizes ranged between 19" and 32". These were the "Caddilac" of TVs back in the day. They had wood cabinets, a lot of the bigger ones (22" and bigger) were designed to sit on the FLOOR of a house rather than on a stand. A lot of the controls and adjustments were in the front and hidden behind doors. These were among the first with digital tuning, digital fine tuning, remote controls, multiple inputs, output passthroughs, multiple antennas, and using fancy schmancy picture tubes such as MGA/Mitsubishi's Crystal Scan and Sony's ubiqutously adored Trinitron tubes. The console set was a big deal from the 1950's, all the way through the mid-1990's when the "Big Screen" projector TVs started to become more commonplace - which are not interesting to us retro-gamers unless we really like screen burn-in.

First off, older game systems were DESIGNED to work with older TV's. You have to remember, while The Legend of Zelda or Pac-Man may be timeless, they were considered "Kids toys" when released, and were designed to be easy for a regular, irritated, overworked, underpaid parent to connect to their regular, consumer-class television set that would have been popular at the time. In the 70's, this meant something like a 18" 2knob TV with rabbit ears, in the 80's, this meant some woodgrain console or livingroom TV with coax, in the 1990's, this could mean Maxamillion could play his SNES on his dad's brand new 30" CRT Ultra-Tube in S-Video, while Middle-Class-Johnny could play on his old 80's Magnavox over COAX with an RF switch.

And not just were the old game systems designed to work with older TV's, so were the games themselves. A fine example is any gun game for the NES, let's use Duck Hunt in our example. How Duck Hunt works is when you pull the trigger on the NES Zapper, the screen flashes black and the ducks are shown as bright white as the screen can muster - if the photosensor inside the Zapper senses it's over the bright duck image on screen, it will trigger a "hit" - and you won't get laughted at by the dog. This works on a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) Because the color white is many lumens brighter than an LCD can manage, so when you try to play Duck Hunt on an original NES on your modern 4K UHD Smart TV, that's why it does not work. The NES is not broken, the Zapper is not broken, the TV is not broken, it's because it's an outdated mechanic that only works with a Cathode Ray Tube Television from the "olden days".

And even without the Zapper, there's another part of modern TV's that are incompatible with those old games, and it has to do with latency. See, old Tv's, your game system sent a signal of the image change in relation to controller input directly to the TV Channel or heck, directly to the screen circuit itself, and you had a seemingly instantaneous reaction to controller input. In modern times though, your average 4K UHD Consumer Smart TV has a "DSP" - or "Digital Signal Processor" that takes ANY signal applied to the TV regardless of source, and runs it through a rigamarole of adjustments and improvements to make a sharper, cleaner, nicer image in 4K UHD when you're WATCHING TV, and modern consoles compensate for this issue in hardware in their own video output circuitry, but do you think Nolan Bushnell was thinking in 45 years we'd be sending a video game signal through a Television equivalent of a shoegazer's guitar effects board? Heck no. But that's basically what's going on inside your modern 4K TV with a vintage console. And that's why games don't "feel" right when you play them on a 4K TV if the console predates UHD 4K and DSP built in.

This is why there's such a huge deal made about "Scalers", just as much as why HDMI capable things like the Retron 77' or AVS are so bloody expensive. The amount of R&D that Hyperkin has to put in to put out such a produt and not have it feel like that Chinese trade market piece of crap you can by from AliExpress is a lot more than you might think. Because these new "retro consoles" require all sorts of special circuitry to allow them to do the best job on a MODERN Tv set they can do. And even then, I find a lot of that is massive hype bullshit anyway. I run my Atari 2600 on a 4K UHD TV, and it does just fine, it just does not feel the same as sitting in front of an old rabbit ears set with a CRT Screen. But not everyone does their research and buys a good-all-around 4K UHD Set either. Most people just buy whatever is on that big black friday fringe weekend sale, and it turns out it's the shitty model nobody wants to buy, because it will die in 3 years, lacks a scaler, and you can't turn the fucking DSP off to play video games.

Okay, and then let's assume that you could manage to drive the screen with a PIxel clock - well, do you want to play Atari in the upper left hand corner of your 4K TV's screen in a picture so tiny youneed to sit right up against the screen only 3.5" away to see anything? Today's televisions and displays use PIXELS in a big way to display graphics, and when you take away all that streaming service crap, modern LCD TVs are nothing more than a LCD Monitor with a computer attached to allow you to stream, and a tuner interface for DTV. And the only way around these issues is to purchase even more crap that costs way more than it would if you took someone's third hand CRT Television that they no longere want, and have to pay someone else $45+ to "recycle" rather than reuse.

Early consoles used a MANUAL RF Switchbox. This was a box that (originally) had a RCA jack on one end, screw terminals on another, and then a pair of terminal "hooks" on the side. What you did was you took those "hooks", screwed em' to the back of the TV, then screwed your antenna into the screw terminalson the RF Switchbox. When you wanted to play a game or use your computer (because Computers used this too at the time), you slid the switch to "GAME" or "COMPUTER", the screen would fuzz up with that familiar static pattern, and the signal for the computer/game system took priority over the antenna signal. When you wanted to watch TV, you slid the switch back over to the "TV" side - a royal pain if your screw terminals were really low on the back of the TV. Consoles that used this included the Magnavox Odyssey, Magnavox Odyssey 2, various dedicated Consoles (Atari/Nintendo/Sears/Telstar/Emerson/etc.), Atari VCS 2600, Atari 8-bit computers, Colecovision, Mattel intellivision, and anything else pre 1985. These were often associated with their "dirty" somewhat "distorted" and "interference laden" signals. A lot of people bypass these now using a RCA to 75 ohm Coaxial converter, but that has some issues nobody talks about too. Basically, those consoles with that method can cause a LOT of interference with more modern devices, expecially things like RCA to Cable converters, and most especially the chinese made garbage that passes as "AV equipment" today.

With the 8-bit NES, we started to see the rise of "Automatic" switch boxes. These RF Switches worked in that the switch was flipped automatically as the console would send a small bit of current to an electronic switch I/C inside the RF Switch to change the status to "GAME" from "TV" for us when the console was turned on. The NES, Sega Genesis, SNES, and some others also used this method. However, the problem with these, is since everything from the NES forward was designed to work with RF AND Composite, or even S-Video or RGB direct with adapters, almost nobody has an RF switch for them anymore, and almost nobody uses them as Composite and better yields a much cleaner, crisper, and stronger signal than RF does.

Only by the time of the Playstation and N64 did we start to see the modern methods of connecting a console to a standard television. Which is how it has been ever since. Today we use HDMI usually, or at least composite or component inputs for less capable consoles not capable of HD or 4K HD. RF Switches are dead, but not necessarily.

Now you might be wondering, what the heck do all these ports look like? After all, if you are shopping for a "retro gaming TV", you might as well know what consoles you are hooking up and make sure you can connect these devices or any other A/V devices you want with as little hassle as possible.

Screw Terminals(19??-1995) - This was the old way to connect aa regular Antenna to your TV from the 1990's on back. It's very rare to see it on any 90's sets but my 1993 Magnavox has it. Older RF Switches like those that originally came with the Atari 2600 had this type of terminal on them and nothing else to use. That said, there are better and more modern methods to use for this today.

75 Ohm Coaxial(1982?-present) - This is the ubiqutous "Cable connector" which is still in use, but for a different kind (digital) cable signal. So cabling and hardware for splittiing/switching/filtering/amplifying that signal is still available. Today we sometimes use it with a RCA/COAX adapter plug to connect the older consoles that used the twin hook terminals above into this type of connection, whcih does work, but can induce problems with interference. This was the most popular way to connect an NES, Genesis, or SNES to a TV back in the day.

RCA/Composite(1982-present) - RCA/Composite was not in common use with consoles until the late 1990's. Primarily it was reserved for rich people who wanted a cleaner video signal and had very expensive LaserDisc or DVD players early on, or even 4-head auto-track VCRs, or used for Computers, another expensive endeavor at the time. With consoles, this produces a nice, clean, crisp signal with clean audio, but it also is only available on later game systems from the NES onward. Earlier composite consoles had MONO audio signals, so you might need a "Y" splitter that can join the signal to two audio inputs. They have a consistent color coding as well - Yellow = video signal, Red = Right Channel, White = Left Channel.

RGB D-Sub(1984-present) - Basically the same connector found on a CGA/EGA Computer monitor. This was never really used for a game system, but could be useful to people who want to connect an old MS-DOS computer to their TV with crisp CGA/EGA color graphics - such as a Tandy 1000. These were more common on PVMs (Professional Video Monitors), but some Commercial television sets that can be found on the third hand market have this feature.

S-Video(1986-present) - S-Video is a small, PS/2-like, mini-din connector with 4 pins on it - looks a lot like an Apple Serial Bus cable from an 80's or early 90's Macintosh computer (because it is the same connector). It produces a slightly better image than RCA Composite, but it's also not that easy to find on low-to-mid level consumer TV's. I've only owned TWO TVs out of the five or so CRTs I've owned with S-Video, both of those were high end Mitsubishi and Sony WEGA TVs.

VGA(1987-present) - Some commercial TV's have VGA on them, as do some later era WEGA style TVs. VGA was an analog video standard from the IBM PC and Compatibles starting in 1987. This particular video signal is an analog color signal used for high resolution graphics on PC's and is still in use on a lot of computers today. That said, still very rare to be seen on a consumer-level TV, even high end ones Pre-1999.

Component(1999-present) - Component looks like composite, except the Red, Green, aand Blue picture signals all have their own "channels", and the audio is the same, so five plugs instead of 3 - with Red, Green, and Blue plugs for their respective signals. This was not used on consoles until maybe the SSNES at the earliest (as they use the same special Nintendo connector as the N64, Game Cube, Wii, WiiU, and possibly Switch use for their video signals).

HDMI(2005-present) - HDMI is High Definition Media Interface, and is the present standard for connecting various A/V crap to a TV, and as the WEGA and similar TVs were around at the time of HDMI's inception, and there were even a rare subset of HDMI CRT TVs out there, this connector may be present, meaning you could quite possibly, use a CRT with modern nconsoles as well if you want to have a "retro/modern" setup like I kinda-sorta have.

Okay, but I'm sure you are wondering "well, when are we going to hook all this crap up"? Okay, well, I'll introduce to you some scenarios, from simple, to complex, after we goover some strategies.

Connecting Old Consoles to old TV's - How to Get the Best Picture over RF

Personally, I HATE spade terminals. For starters, RF signals going over these tend to be pretty weak, and now you're going to have this thing attached to 2 screws in the open - open metal = interference. So I tend to avoid anything that uses this kind of old school connection.

For coaxial RF, the #1 problems I see are either poor quality cables (NES RF Switches), or poor connection or poor crimp at connection. The "needle" wire in the middle needs to be clean, and shiny, for the best signal, and it needs to be LONG enough to reach the contact inside the RF Switch or other device the console is attacheed to to get it's signal across. Also, the connector needs to be FIRMLY crimped on, with the connectors metal part coming in proper contact with the "Shield" - which is the outer layer of webbing inside the coaxial cable that provides a faraday cage against interference. A huge problem with old cables from the 80's/90's is they had crimps that would often go bad and fall off, or even worse yet, I found some "screw on" replacements once and I had to keep re-layering material ontot the cable to keep it attached. You want a tight, firm connection, with a solid, reliable wire inside making firm, solid contact with the contact inside the RF Switch/Device. Without this, you can get interference patterns, fuzziness, or even a weak signal. Sometimes the problem may even just be the RF switch itself, as Coaxial cables are very sturdy cables typically, and these will sometimes get tweaked in such a way that the solder connections become unstable.

If a signal is weak but good quality, you can sometimes use a Coaxial amplifier - like those packaged with a Digital Antenna - to boost the signal to the TV set. I did this to my NES with a modern coaxial amplifier and the picture was almost as good as composite. You just don't want to amplify the signal too much or it may become washed out looking as it will be overdriving the video circuit inside the TV. Usually these need a USB port to be powered. Some consoles may have trim-pots to compensate for this too, but it might cause interference with other devices if you adjust it - so beware.

One of the best tips I can give though, is sometimes you need to ISOLATE your video sources on COAX, because one may interfere with the other. I did this with my Atari 2600 on the Magnavox for awhile because it tends to cause crosshatch patterns on any channel when attached via RCA to Coaxial adapter. I got a 2-way coaxial switcher, and that 2-way switcher was set to select either the NES or the Atari 2600, to prevent the Atari from putting interference patterns into everything I was using. The NES was going through RF with the composite devices behind it.

Another, cheaper way to isolate is to use multiple channels and program the TV (if it has a digital tuner) to have only the channels the devices are on. For example, my current setup had the NES on channel 3, Atari on 2, and the Composite devices on 4. However, this still made things tricky. If the Atari was left on it'd screw with the next channel over, and if the NES was on, it would block both devices, and get blocked by the Atari if that was on at the same time. So just some things to think about.

Connecting Old Consoles to old TV's - Strategies for Connecting

When I was a teenager, the simplest setup I had was a coax only Zenith 19" TV. I had 3 consoles: An Atari 2600 JR, a NES, and a SNES. To get all three working was pretty simple chain-wise - Atari 2600->NES->SNES->TV. I set the Atari to Channel 2 and left it on "GAME" all the time, and then set the NES and SNES to Channel 4. The SNES would override everything in the chain. Since I had Analog TV, I just had to remember the Atari was on 2 with no channel (so fizzy, hissy noise), and the NES and SNES were superimposed over the Weather Channel. Which was fine, because I could check the weather to see if it was better to continue gaming or go outside and do something productive, lol.

Or how about we talk about putting something composite on there, say you have a Tandy 1000 Computer, or you just got a Playstation off someone for real cheap and it only has composite? Well, with a coaxial only TV, there are a few ways to achieve this.

First, a specialized hardware approach would be to attach a "RF Switch" like the one above to your TV to convert Composite to A/V. What this does is the samet hing your game console does - it takes the A/V signal, converts it to 75 ohm coaxial analog, then sends it on a frequency of a specific TV channel, usually channel 3 or 4, and then you can use that device or system on that particular channel. The upside is you now can put composite devices on your vintage coaxial TV. The downside is you can't record them.

Or maybe you want to go full retro like me and have a Betamax or VHS player? Now you most likely CAN record your output from the consoles on a Coaxial TV. Here's how it's done. The VCR/Beta goes right before the TV Set, any composite devices go into the A/V input on the VCR, and the coaxial devices, such as your older console(s), go into the coaxial input on the VCR. The A/V out on the VCR goes to your DV Recorder device that connects to your computer being used to capture. Now, is it just that simple - well, no. Because to record, here's what you have to do!

Old VCRs had 2 modes TV/Video - usually a button located somewhere on the front of the VCR/Betamax. How this button works is it interrupts the TV Signal on the channel chosen for your VCR with the signal from the VCR. Most VCRs have a TV Tuner built-into them, or earlier stuff, like my old Sony portable Betamax player I bought for my wife, has a TV Tuner that attaches to it to allow it to work. So your coaxial consoles will be on that "Tuner" on the apropriate channel, and your A/V devices will be on a setting for A/V. The way I set this up, because my Atari was interfering and overriding everything (probably because of the channel trim-pot tweak I did) - was Atari on Channel 2, and NES on Channel 4, everything else on A/V via a manual switch. Also, these old VCRs can sometimes CLEAN the signal going to your TV from the console, improving your picture quality!

But sometimes you get lucky and have multiple inputs on the TV, somtimes old TV's can have passthroughs, like Mitsubishi did on their old TVs. Actually, another cool thing about old Mitsubishi TVs is they often had 2 Coaxial/Screw-hook connectors on them - marked Antenna A and Antenna B. I've never seen this on any other brand whatsoever but Mistubishi, but it's a real retro-gamer's delight.

So on a vintage 80's Mitsubishi, you don't even need a VCR to do this. On my CS2720R and CS1984R, I did the same thing. Atari 2600 on Antenna A, NES on Antenna B, A/V input was all manual switched between 3-4 devices, and in the case of the CS2720, which had a second A/V line for S-Video, I could put a 486 PC on S-Video, and then capture EVERYTHING from the A/V passthrough that both Mitsubishi TV's had. And because there was no Analog TV, and each console had a nice, clean signal, and I could also move the NES to composite and put another device on antenna A or B (whichever the Atari was not on). And all inputs, whichever was the current one, went through to the DV Capture device.

In the 1970's - most homes had at most, one or two TV sets, one in the livingroom ranging from a 13" Color portable to a 22" Color Console (those big, woodgrain monsters) depending on economy and how much your parents cared about TV. If you were upper-middle class, and had more than one, there was usually a black & white "utility TV" that was passed from room to room as needed. This was the reason the Atari 2600 had a color/b&w switch on it, because it was expected when junior was in the livingroom, be playing on a color set, then moves to the bedroom and plugs the Atari into a b&w 13" portable. If you were lower class, you might even still have a 1950's or 1960's portable, or maybe your mom and dad lived in the middl eof Wyoming, and TV was the lowest priority, so you'd be gaming on a old Zenith from 1955. in the 1970's, a TV was a MAJOR purchase, up there with buying a car or a computer. People had their sets FIXED when they broke, they did not throw them away and replace them. So the sets of this era are really d'rigeur for being repaired by someone willing to learn a few skills. There are some tube hybrids and other oddities too that makes it interesting. Back thehn, Zenith was still a great maker, so was Magnavox. I have a weird thing for the Philco/Ford sets - yes, FORD motor company, the car maker, was selling TVs in the 1970's - don't ask me why, I dunno, they sold lawn mowers too (made by Jacobsen, MTD, and AYP), go figure. On the lower end you had RCA, Quasar, Montgomery Ward, White Westinghouse. Sony's Trinitron series starts in the 1970's as well, but it seems the earlier ones had some problems with capacitors and circuitry cooking itself if the shango66 videos are any indication.

In the 1980's - more households had 2 sets and slowly, by the mid-late 1980's the "Utility" sets started to become color, and we started to see a class of battery powered and cigarette lighter powered "Portable" sets being marketed towards dad's who could not let the "big game" get in the way of a camping trip. Sony made a "Watch Man" B&W handheld portable. The earmark of the early 80's livingroom was the big wooden "console" set for middle-class+. These were designed to look like furnature and often featured either actual woodwork on higher end sets, or more often than not, pressboard with woodgrain veneer over it, or vinyl applique faux wood. This is also the era to be careful because we also had TWO types of projection TV. One type looked nothing like a TV, and was instead, a big box that sat across from a projection screen or a wall, and would project the image onto the wall using Red, Green, and Blue projectors. The other version, and one that became more common in the 1990's, was the rear-projection TV. This was a huge "Big Screen" TV that looked like aa regular CRT Television in modern 4K UHD Sizes of 50+ inches. However, this appearance was only cosmetic, in actuality, it used the same REd, green, and Blue projectors inside the TV (basically small CRTs projecting each color "channel" of the image), which then would hit mirrors, and then be projected upon the giant "screen" you saw in front, usually with a molded in vertical texture to it. THese were the sets the Nintendo manuals were warning you about in the booklets - in case any rich kids burned Tetris into Dad's big screen TV. Sony Trinitrons were all the rage - I had a KV19 model at one point. Sony, Mitsubishi, Sharp, and Panasonic were among the best at the time. Zenith was falling but still pretty good. Magnavox had it's ups and downs.

In the 1990's - we saw a move away from woodgrain electronics and a move to the BPC or "Black Plastic Crap" most vintage A/V Enthusiasts call them. These TV's were basically a plastic shell, completley molded in black, usually with the speakers and controls beneath the screen, simplified circuitry mostly driven by discreet IC's, and we saw the dawn of "secret service menus" on these sets accessed by a button combination on the remote or the set itself to set settings that were usually hidden behind doors or in back in the 1980's on back. Usually the livingroom had a 25", 27", or 30" CRT TV, while the kids upstairs got their own 13"-20" CRT TV to play video games on, usually a NEs, Super Nintendo, N64, Playstation, etc. TV's became increasingly cheap so more houses had one in each room, even lower-middle class homes like mine. A lot of people still kept their old 80's and 70's CRTs at the time too though. Like in my home as a kid, we kept our 84' Mistubishi CS1984R until 2002, where it was replaced by a 27" BPC set that I think mom STILL has in the livingroom to this day (2022). As much as people call them "BPCs", these actually were excellent TVs and gave a lot of trouble free use, except a handful, like the Zenith I got in 1994 that had the screen going bad. It's said Zenith stopped making TVS in the USA at the time and started having them made in Mexico, and these Mexican TVs were notorious for poor picture tubes that went bad. But Mitsubishi made good sets still, so did Sanyo, Samsung was coming up in the world, Sharp was a quality maker. And Sony was still top of the heap with their Trinitron series. I have to put a vote in for Magnavox because my 25" 1993 "BPC" Magnavox (which looks more 1980's and 1990's) is still kicking butt at nearly 30 years old with nary an adjustment.

In the 2000's - It was not unusual to see dad buy a projection Big Screen. That was sort of the upper-middle class dream, while the kids got Sony WEGA or the various clones thereof at the time. That silver-front-gray-back aesthetic took over from about 2002 onward for most electronic stuff, eventually dying off by the mid 00's when CRTs started to be replaced by LCD TVs in simialar or bigger screen sizes. From this era, the Sony Trinitron WEGA is one of the most wanted sets from this period, and little wonder, they're generally pretty trouble free and reliable. By 2007 though, when Analog TV was taken off the air, the writing was on the wall, and CRT productiion in the lower-cost labor areas started to taper off. Ending the era of the CRT TV. Looking back to that time, I wish I had the foresight (and the $$ for storage space) to actually have picked up a lot of the lder CRTs that were filling up thrift shops at the time.

CRT Televisions now are bordering on at least 15-20-25-30 years old at the youngest, so like any old machine, they will require maintainence, repair, and servicing periodically. Unlike your LCD TV, not all these old TV's had On Screen Displays that could carry out functions within the set. Actually, most sets 1995 or older had a lot of internal, tech-only accessible trimpots, switches, and other adjustments that you might need access to. They are what we call Antique, or Vintage, or Classic now. It's like owning an old car. I own a 1993 Magnavox, I own a 1993 Ford Explorer - taking care of both requires me doing things that to most people would be considered "foolish" "scary", "stupid", "not worth the effort", or "difficult", or "God tier". That's why most consumerta...er consumers buy new stuff all the time, because they can't fathom or understand HOW to do all this stuff that I and many others know how to do. To them, their possessions run on "magic" and "rainbows", and guys like me are an exception, not the rule.

At it's mmost basic, a TV consists of 3 circuits: Power, Tuning/Channels, and the Screen itself (Monitor). The power circuit has to take 120VAC 60Hz to drive both high vltage (up to 50,000 volts at low current) to drive the screen, and around 5vDC to drive he electronic gobbledygook that runs the tuner, OSD (if equipped) and input management. That high voltage is the reason people say NEVER work on one of these unless you know what you're doing.

CRT TVs can be, and are, one of the most dangerous electronic devices you can work on. DEADLY even. First and foremost, you have a heavy, bulky object with a giant glass tube with many HG's of vacuum inside of it, and the bigger it is, the more the structure is weakened. And inside that vacuum includes a sheet of metal with holes in it, large chunks of glass that can become lethal shrapnel if an implosion occurs (not an Explosion, but IMPLOSION), and pointy electronic components, some that might have a structlre like a pure rare metal hypodermic syringe for admnistering Penicillin to your ass. To add to it, the screen is ALSO a giant capacitor that can store up to or in excess of 75 Kilovolts (75,000 volts) of electricity at low current levels, but sometimes those levels with that amount of voltage can be lethal as well - especially if you don't understand that you can make a circuit straight through your heart by holding onto a ground source and something connected to that high voltage charge. The bigger the screen, the more voltage it caan harbor. My 27" Mitsubishi, when I discharge it, makes a spark about the size of a small firecracker, and makes a nice, loud, POP when it discharges. When thaht discharge happens, that's electircal energy being converted into light and heat. Also, CRTs can use residual charge to discharrge themselves, so you MIGHT need to discharge a TV more than once when working on it to make sure you are safe!

To add to it, they use mains voltage, there may be times you WILL need to operate the TV, with the back off, with 75,000 volts floating around the tube on the "Dag" on the back, touching a flyback with a plastic screwdriver. A flyback that is generating that 75,000 volts, pushing purity rings near the dag, adjusting the screen angle on the delicate CRT neck, turning trimpots in locations no owner was ever intended to interact with. To be completley honest, you have to be nuckin futz to want to work on these things, and I am, so I do. But I'm also the one who repairs lawn mowers without engine stop bails with a vice grip holding the engine still to remove the blade, and works under a 4800LB truck supported by 4 3ton jack-stands to bolt in crossmembers and change out parts during a thunderstorm. Trust me, this part of ownership is not for everyone. It's a big part of why guys like drh4683 and Shango66 have a lot of watchers, because they are doing things - like myself - that are hard, scary, risky, and difficult.

That said Safety is key here. Just like I'd never work on a running car engine without tying my hair back, or do work on a lawn mower without disconnecting the spark plug, or restring an exploding piano (it's a thing), I would not work on a TV without taking precautions...

1. Only Work on a Running Chassis if ABSOLUTLEY Necessary - otherwise ALWAYS unplug the darned thing (more about that later, got a lifehack)
2. ALWAYS Discharge the Set before working on it - some people, including Shango, don't have to be so hardcore about this, but we ameteurs need to play it safe
3. DO NOT DROP/HIT/KICK/BANG-INTO/DRILL/TAP/SMASH THE PICTURE TUBE - This is a glass bottle with hundreds of HG of pressure inside of it, trying to crush itself from the inside out, releasing that gas, not just destroys the tube, but unleashes unholy hell on the level of a landmine in some cases/ This is ESPECIALLY Important around tthe neck of the picture tube (the weakest part)
4. Discharge Once, then Discharge Again - There have been reeports of picture tubes storing up a charge again while the rest of the set is being worked on, so wise to periodically re-discharge the picture tube to make sure it does not shhock you the next time
5. WHEN WORKING AROUND HIGH VOLTAGES KEEP ONE HAND IN YOUR POCKET AT ALL TIMES - The wors thing you can do is create a circuit or a loop between BOTH of your hands. With one hand, you might get knocked on your ass. But with two, you will create a ccircuit that your heart will become a component of, and you could kill yourself accidentially in the process by making your internal organs a part of that circuit. I'm not doing this to be mean, nor gorey, I'm telling the truth about harm incurred. ALL professional people working with electricity do this.
6. It's A Good Idea to Shed the Jewelry - Your wedding ring could become your worst enemy when working on an old TV. You could end up getting it welded to your finger or worse. Jewlry is metal or metal plated, that can act as a conductor. Not just can it damage you, it can damage the TV, or other devices on the same circuit.

I won't be the last to admit I'm in no ways an expert...here's some good resources for TV repair that I have found....honestly I suggest trying these first since they have the best data on the subject.

• Notes on the Troubleshooting & Repair of old TVs
• Shango66's YouTube Channel
• drh4683's YouTube Channel

Make/Model Picture	Features/Specs	My Opinion(s)
1978 Quasar WT3832	14.5" Screen (officially under-advertised as a 13"), UHF/VHF Tuning with Separate Spade Terminal Antenna Inputs, 1x COAX Input? (Maybe was a mod on the set from e-bay I was looking at that matches), adjustments for the Flyback and color drive (RGB) actually accessible from the back of the set by techniican (!!!)	This was the TV We had when I was born up until about 84'-85' when it was replaced with the Mitsubishi below. I remember it because I used to walk up to it, plus we played Atari on it quite a bit. I think these sets had some serious issues because I don't see them a lot on the 3rd and 4th hand market, and the few I do see are in pretty rough shape. I have been tempted to get one of these myself. I think there's even a picture of me with it in my photos that I'll post here with the Coleco Gemini sitting on top. I remember when it died, I was a wee little kid, and I remember the technician coming by and trying to fix it, and finding out that the vertical collapse would be more worth replacing the set, than repairing it - and then the strage two weeks or so without a TV where we waited for my grandparents to visit and they bought us a super-high end Mitsubishi (the one below).
1984 Mitsubishi CS1984R	19" DiamondScan Tube Console Color Stereo TV with SAP (Secondary Audio Program), 2x COAX (Antenna A/B), 1x UHF/VHF hook, Composite I/O w/ Passthrough, 2x 5x7" Speakers, full feature remote control (stored inside TV), Cable Loop Antenna and 2x Rabbit Ears. Cost $800 in 1984, cost me $15.00 in 2006. I've technically had "Two" of these though questions remain if the "two" really were the same set as a lot of curbside damage from when we put ours out plus the smell matched our old one - how it went 1300+ miles to Seattle from Opelika is anyone's guess if that's the case.	This was a top-of-the-line set back in it's day with all the bells and whistles, and it is also a quite rare set. The one we had as a kid was bought by my grandpa for us in 1984 for $800. The second one for $15 in 2006 (or I bought the same one again from the looks of it). This set was awesome for Atari because something about 2600 games would activate the "stereo" and "SAP" (secondary audio program) features, causing the set to have this really cool stereo separation. RF was very clean and crisp, but did ghost on the Atari 2600 somewhat, making games look 3D. I always remembered it as Atari 2600 rocked because of the 3D effect on this set, and NES rocked because of how crisp it was. This TV features a Composite passthrough in back, which makes recording video games to a Computer via DV Capture card a snap. A lot of my early "on an actual console" videos were done using this set and that very cool feature. Composite quality was incredible because it has a Diamondscan CRT in it - Mitsubishi's Trinitron competitor (and also a popular CRT to be used in Video Arcade monitors at the time). The problem with this set was my High Voltage died on the second one (which may have been the first one traveled 3000 miles via Goodwill's warehouse system). There were also a 22" and some other variants of this set as well. Th
1982 RCA/J.C. Penney AJR120	13" B&W CRT Tv with UHF & VHF Mechanical Tuners with fine tuner rings and UHF/VHF Antenna hooks in back. Pretty basic little Utility set. IIRC it was built in 1982. Cost us nothing but was likely around $75-120 new in the early 80's.	Got this for free off my second older sister for free as my first bedroom TV when I was 8. We had an Atari 2600 (4-switch woodie) plugged into it and I would rarely play video games on it. I quite liked this set, however, we later removed it and put it up high on a curio cabinet where it fell hard, and was tossed out. It was a nice little black & white set and quite reliable. My wife almost talked me into buying another one recently because of the woodgrain and overall look. Honestly, if I lived somewhere where I had more storage space for TVs, I might actually consider getting one of these, but otherwise, if I were to pick up a 13" portable, it'd probably be the Quasar above because I want something that plays in color.
1985 Sony Trinitron KV-1993R	20", headphone jack, coaxial only, remote	19" Trinitron Curved Picture Tube, digital tuner, mono 5x7" speaker, 1x Coaxial Input, headphone jack, we got this from Grandpa for free as my first "bedroom" TV. I'm guessing this was an $800+ Set when new. These days they go for a pretty penny because everyone seems to want a Sony Trinitron. Original REmote Control. This was also the same TV Captain N; The Game Master was sucked through - how fitting! Quite nostalgic because I remember going to sleep to my older sister playing Nintendo ono this set while babysitting on school nights. I'd drift off to The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, or Ultima: Exodus (and Dragon warrior II at one point IIRC). However, there is one thing, if you have one of these, please put it behind a surge protector. Mine gave us a nice campfire story after being hit by lightning and having the rectifer replaced where it would pick up stray signals from....somewhere....maybe I"ll tell that story sometime just for fun. It also ended creepily in a house fire whhen we gave it away. "Hola...Hoooooola...." (wink wink).
1994 Zenith 19" (Model Unknown)	19", 5" Speaker, Coaxial Only, Remote	This was the TV of my teens. I recall mom and/or I buying this when I was 11 in 1994 for my room, after I'd started collecting Atari 2600 games, and after giving away the Sony. It was a Mexican built Zenith set so you know the drill, that picture tube got dark really fast. For the longest time I had a 2600 JR, Super Nintendo, NES, and a Sega Genesis plugged into it via RF. At some point I realized how dim the set was when playing Donkey Kong Country 2 was somehow incredibly impossible on dark/night levels. Being able to see was an incredible strain. I got a LOT of hours out of this set though considering hwat it was in a short period of time. If I was nnot gaming I was watching Comedy Central and VH-1 on this thing all the time, or at least had in the background while I repaired guitars and messed around with computers. I think we junked it when it was 10 years old because it was just too dim to do anything with anymore due to the notioriously terrible picture tubes these had. Again, probably why I had to dig and dig and dig to find a picture of one of these on the internet because I'm pretty sure most of these are long gone due to the picture tube issue. BPC indeed!
2003 Sanyo 19" (?)	19" BPC TV Set from Wal-Mart, Composite Inputs (mono)	I bought this cheap set and hardly used it sometime around 2003, when I also bought a new entertainment hutch for my room. THis as post-Lithium and when Creeping Network was on the rise. For all I know it's still there, with about 5 hours on it. At the time, I was working on PCs more and thusly not very into console gaming. I left it because I did not have room for it in my car when I moved to Seattle. I think it's a bigger version than the two 8-bit Guy got his hands on.
2002 Orion 7" B&W Portable	Little Tabeltop Portable I don't remember how I got it. 7", AM/FM, RF input via 1/8" phono jack	I don't remember how I got this but for a time I used it to test video games and consoles on over RF. It was hilariously bad, and I mean baaaaaaaaaad! The edges of the screen waved in a psychadelic pattern. Playing video games on it was like being colorblind and on drugs at the same time, LOL. I remember playing Castlequest on this one a lot, as well as Castlevania III because it just seemed fitting to play some old horror based titles on a B&W TV. However, it was more of a gag joke thing than an actual serious TV.
1982 Daytron DT-505 Portable 5"	5" B&W CRT, Rabbit Ear Antenna, COAXIAL Converter on the back, 1x UHF/VHF input, Mechanical UHF & VHF Tuners with fine tuner rings, runs on 6+ D-Cell Batteries or 12VDC.	THis one was on my YouTube channel quite a bit in the early days, probably best known for me running a guitar wireless body pack through it (they run on VHF/UHF signals....it's pretty hilarious, you can even HEAR the guitar through the TV). I also played old games on this set for awhile as well. I don't remember if I sold it or gave it away. I do remember I had a coaxial converter on it from another TV that I used to plug the NES into it as well as the Atari.
2001 Sony WEGA	20" Stereo w/ Composite, AV, RF, and a flat CRT. THis is one of those Trinitrons that people now look for heavily for retro-gaming.	Sharp, crisp picture, great for all sorts of gaming up into the Wii Era. Was one of my top three (this, the CS1984R, and my current 2 are tied for a "whose best" of CRT Televisions. I honestly wish I'd kept it in the move but I decided not to for a time. My wife had to talk me into getting another CRT TV after this one because I was pretty much done with them and considering them a bit more work thaan they were worth. Many a night suffering Kidney Stones while playing Dragon Warrior and sucking down Gatorades like a maniac in front of this TV after the Mistubishi gave up the ghost.
1993 Magnavox CMP-CML-192 25"	25" Color Mono TV w/ tiny speaker. Coaxial Input, UHF/VHF Hook input, digital menu and controls, original remote lost. Got from a guy in Sparks named Gene who put it on Craigslist.	Surprisingly good for an RF only set. Handles Atari 2600 and NES over RF perfectly, and takes Composite signals over RF almost in as good a quality as Composite is. So a very good TV for old-school gaming. Little surprise, Gene, the guy who basically gave this and the Mitsubishi to me is a videographer in Reno and had done some stuff for my band and a few others. The tube itself is about average in dot pitch for circa 1993, but very vibrant in color, and nice and bright, but with a little bit of "white" tint to the black color. Can take some rough housing well too, as well as stood up to the elements. It's basically in teh era that a guy like Shango66 would call the "BPC Era" (Black Plastic Crap), but it seems to be one of the last good Magnavox sets. It also seems to use the same electronics as those Magnavox 20" classroom TVs we had when I was a teenaager in middle school and high school. I have a VERY hard time finding this one anywhere on the internet. What's funny is it looks older than the Misubishi it came with, but the Mitusbishi had 3 years on it. Unfortunatley in 2022 it took a nasty spill, ruining the connection from the RF to the TV's input, so it had to be scrapped.
1989 Mitsubishi CS2720R 27"	27" Color Stereo TV w/ 2x 5x7" Speakers. 2x Coaxial Input, 2x Composite Input w/SVIDEO on the second, Composite Passthrough, Auxilary Speaker clip connections in back, digital controls, no remote, got from Gene on Craigslist	A more modern version of thte CS1984R. Basically 27", stereo, A/V, 2x COAX, BPC-style design. Mines missing the trap door. When I got it it was "dead" because there were poor solder joints all over the board, including the power-on relay which had a cracked solder joint. Considering this TV Sat outside for years and next to a giant bass speaker at that, it fixed up surprisingly well for $0.00. I had to degauss the CRT using one of the Celestion speakers from my guitar cabinet (LOL), and got it about 95% of the way there (it does need a proper degauss)e. Right now it's living in the back of my truck for lack of a better place for it, though I have plans to repair and rebuild it, because the more I toyed with recycling/scrapping it, I keep seeing reminders that they are not making these things anymore, and I'm basically sitting on $$$ if nothing else at this point. I'm thinking I'll keep it as a rainy day project.
1987 Rhapsody 5" B&W Portable	5" Black and White AM/FM/UHF/VHF Portable B&W w/ Headphone Jack, 1x 2" speaker, and 1/8" phono Coaxial-type Input	We actually bought this for $1 as a joke in 2021. It's a little 5" B&W set, but this one is actually pretty darned good. I did a video about it on YouTube displaying it's capabilities. It'd actually make a nice monitor should I get into making video-based electronic's projects like my own game console, computer, or whatever. It's also just a little display piece most of the time. I've been toying with feeding a signal off of it to the main TV. Sometimes I hunt around the analog channels for fun even though there seems to be none where I live. However I have managed to pull some radio stations and I think a spanic VHF channel here or there still in the 20's.