Old timers - what was the first color tv set at your house?

Alla the color tv set info has made me misty eyed - we didn't get a color set until the middle 70's. Late one afternoon a delivery truck pulled up in our driveway, and a couple guys lugged a huge box outta the back, set it on a handtruck and wheeled it up the steps on my folks' front porch. In came an RCA XL-100 color console set. My dad just grinned as he screwed the coax adapter to the antenna terminals, then punched the ON button. Mmmmmmmmm - glowing color in our pad at last! I gave my best pal a call to run over and see our new set (his mom was a B&W holdout, too). A few days later, and there was a Zenith color set in their house, too!

For you old timers (say older than 30) - what was the first color set you had in yer house???

 

The day before Super Bowl I my dad and I went to the store where he bought a Motorola set, but I can't recall the model number or the tube size. I had an XL-100 that my dad got as a bank premium after I graduated from college, and that set lasted for years.

 

Early 60's...Huge RCA Color Consul...Don't recall Model number
I can still visualize all my favorite shows in "Color" on that set. The Stereo kicked too!

 

Mine was a canadian 25" Electrohome pro monitor, with an EIAJ connector to connect my Sony portapak video recorder/camera. AV3450 IIRC.

During the 70s, our then president outlawed color TV. Although the stations were already set up for color, they were not allowed to broadcast in color.

The stations would broadcast the full color signal, without the burst signal. Many people did a lot of money installing "antifilters", which were mods to keep the burst transistor open, so you could watch the color broadcasts.

I remember watching "The Rookies", a cop show. I spent many hours watching anything in color, during the first week or so. Also The Muppets Show.

I did my own in my Electrohome board. Very clean layout, lots of discrete parts. The same circuitry was used years late in the first Advent Video Beams.

 

My guess would be the American sitcoms prevalent at the time.

Our first color TV ( an RCA) was delivered on Nov. 22, 1963. Not many shows in color on that sad weekend. I did see an old religious movie in color. I remember the color being very unnatural, probably because the set was not adjusted.

I was sitting in front of the TV on Sunday morning, probably waiting for a cartoon or something in color, and witnessed the first appearance of Jack Ruby. Black and white, of course, as we all know. And lots of gray.

 

You know I never did have a color TV growing up....it was B&W up until the middle 70's for me. My parents weren't big TV people and the 13" portable in my room was also a B&W.

When I finally did see Star Trek in color, it looked amazing.

So that may be why I'm so hot for a HDTV these days...deprived childhood.

 

A Zenith, in October 1969--so my Dad could watch the Mets win the World Series in color.

P.S. I was one of very few people in my college dorm to have a color TV in my room. That was the late 70s. Used to get a big turnout every Sunday for Battlestar Galactica, of all things...

 

It was b and w for me till 1983......Yikes That darn black and white didn't break till then. After that it has been RCA's

 

Steve:
Last week I was watching a VHS of NBCs live broadcasts during the JFK assassination. Everything was B&W except for live updates from the NBC affiliate in Dallas. Living color! It's surreal to watch now.

I can't remember a day that we didn't have a color TV. I was born in '69 and I remember oh so well watching Sesame Street and Mister Rodgers in full color in the mornings. On Sundays my family would watch "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" in color too.

We were far from well off in those early days. However, I remember Dad telling me while growing up in Mexico he'd watch "Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in B&W and wishing he was in America. Sure enough, I think, a color TV became a serious priority later.

For the life of me I can't remember the brand of that early TV console. It might have been a Motorola or a Magnavox, or even a Wards brand. Not a luxury brand like RCA or Zenith though. In the mid-70s we got a Quasar. We didn't get an RCA until the early 80s, and soon after that we got a Sony Trinitron and oh MAN was that cool! (We had a Beta machine too!)

Dan C

 

Me either. I can honestly say that after reading this thread, I feel a whole lot younger than I did before. Thanks, everyone!

 

I don't know the exact model, but my first color tv was a big RCA with rounded corners on the screen, probably from the mid 1960s. I acquired it for nothing as a curbside giveaway in 1979, did a little tweaking, and had myself a genuine color tv. I didn't realize what good sound it was capable of until I patched it into my stereo unit for that "full mono" sound.
My most colorful tv was an old monochrome that I had in the mid 1970s. The channel changer knob was gone, and in its place was an old deer antler.

 

How the heck didja file that date away in yer gray matter???

 

Our first color TV was a Sony Trinitron, probably around 1973 or 1974. It was quite a novelty for awhile. Up until 1968 or '69, we didn't even have a UHF-capable TV either! Before then, we had a 19" Zenith that ran on tubes, and had a little removable panel on the front that said "UHF Convertible". The little 13" MGA replaced it, and amazingly it still works today! (Weird how, back then, it never occured to us to set up the old Zenith in another room, or the basement!) The 19" Trinitron was a large, heavy beast, but it was fascinating for awhile.

 

Used RCA color

It was 1962 and my folks had just bought a brand new Magnavox 24" B&W set. I tried to get them to go color but didn't happen. I wanted color so bad, I bought a used 1957 RCA color set at a local tv repair shop. Lugged it home and set it up in the living room. It worked really well. The new Magnavox wound up in my parents room. I remember watching the JFK assassination and watched the Dallas (WBAP-TV) color feed as well as a memorial concert from Chicago telecast in color.

 

I guess it was '66. I was in the sixth grade, and all summer long the pre pubescent crowd was eagerly awaiting the premier of the Batman TV show. It had been heavily hyped during the summer, but they never showed a picture of Batman.

Wouldn't you know it - the old black and white set went "flat line" that night, and I never did see the premier. Of course, the very next day, my pop came home with an RCA color 19", so I got to watch the second night in living color!

 

Hello Steve.

The government (in most cases that means El Presidente) here has a say in most things. It was true then and it is now truer than ever.

El Presidente felt that color TV was a gimmick and frivolous. Ergo, it was outlawed.

I think there was no extortion involved, i.e., they were not trying to extort money from the channel owners to allow them to go color. El Presidente really felt it was his duty to protect Venezuelans from color TV.

 

My folks didn't get a color tv until '72 or so, but I used to spend summers with my grandmother in Ct, who had a big (for the time) color RCA set. I used to love NBC's Hullaballoo, which was a color rock and roll show. The Byrds and Sir Douglas Quintet stick out in my memory. Bonanza on sunday nights was a big deal, as was Batman.

 

Wha?!!!!

I'd call Mighty Mouse crappy, but not Felix.

 

Friends,

Since my Dad was Chief Engineer for a Radio/TV combo, the station put a Color TV in our house [big RCA console] in 1963 so my Dad could monitor on-air picture quality when he was at home. I was fascinated by the NBC Peacock that was broadcast by the station that my Dad worked for.

In 1963, shows being broadcast in Color where still the exception...

Bob