Impertinent Question...

[Sandy G]

Wonder why was it, that after 21" roundies had been more or less standardised as "The" size for color CRTs in the mid '50s, why didn't the mfgers offer any OTHER sizes ? Monochrome CRTs were offered in a variety of sizes, I don't think that it necessarily was at the expense of sales of one size over another...A 15" round color CRT in a semi-portable set around '57 or so, to my mind might have been The Bee's Knees...And given color TV a welcome shot in the arm. Let's face it, ALL color sets during that period were pretty much the same, the biggest differences being in whether you got an El-Cheapo metal table set, or sprung for the Megabux full-house console...You STILL got a 21" round tube. Did they not have the capacity, the technical know-how, or what ?

[nasadowsk]

My guess is that the tooling to do another size was just insane. Remember, they were barely selling any color sets in the 50's, and color CRTs were not a simple manufacturing process. B&W was just a different envelope and maybe a somewhat different gun, and you'd easily sell as many of one size than the entire yearly sales of color. Color? Different mask, different jigs to coat the screen, different gun, different convergence assembly, etc etc etc.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cost difference between a smaller size and a larger one would be minor - the color section's the same, the CRTs required a lot of hand work to make...

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by nasadowsk

I wouldn't be surprised if the cost difference between a smaller size and a larger one would be minor - the color section's the same, the CRTs required a lot of hand work to make...

In fact the mfg cost might have been higher for a smaller set! Imagine trying to cram all the circuitry necessary to produce a decent color picture into a portable set in the late 50s!
IMHO, Most of the development effort at that time went into rectangular crts, simplified circuitry, special multifunction tubes, cost cutting, in an attempt to get a decent rectangular set at a (more or less) reasonable price into living rooms. Portables would have to wait!
IIRC, some of the first small sets that were available for something in the vicinity of $300 or less were the the GE portacolor 10" and the RCA ctc 22 14" (15"?), which sold quite well! Sets like these started to appear in the mid 60s.

jr

[oldtvman]

I think by the time color was in the late 50's the chance to make major inroads had been passed by simply because of the chicken or the egg theory.
Manufacturers that had jumped in early on the color bandwagon found out color wasn't the hot ticket they thought it was, so most of them threw the problem back in Rca's lap since they were the ones who held all the card in the color game.
By the late 50's color sets were really pretty decent, but the price and lack of large amounts of color programming were responsible for the problem.
Manufacturers got cold feet and pretty much stayed with what they had. There was no reason to do any major engineering until the problem of cost and amount of color headed in the right direction.
Most give a large amount of credit the Walt Disney and the Wonderful world of color for really helping color gain a foothold in the market. After that you saw Zenith and others jump back into the color game.

[Username1]

I agree, and we right now can see just how color worked in those days in sales and acceptance as we watch the few manufacturers now producing 3-D tv sets. Just the other day on the business news they were talking about the 3 companies making a 3D set, and the 4 current movies, and possibly 1 or 2 shows on some cable show that might be on..... Like competitive paper-ball fights. (something you can see in 3D). The reporters did have a pretty good time laughing and saying stuff like "Who is going to plunk down $3,000. bucks for 3D and watch Avatar over and over.....? You gotta be crazy to do that, its juast too much..." "Color???? I don't need to spend $1,000. dollars on some crazy thing RCA made in their basement just to see Ralph Kramden's walls are dingy grey......." just imagine....... its like a time machine..... in yer mind just replace "3D" with "Color".........

This would be a good time to get one of those $3,000. 3D sets and burry it in the yard till its worth more 25 years from now....... Then dig it up and put it on ebay... NIB naturally......

[marty59]

Good comments, and through it all I believe manufacturers were trying their best to make sets more affordable thus using current tooling and production for roundies and drive down costs, besides development expendatures..

B&W's were pretty well perfected and "established".

"And who would want one of those new-fangled contraptions anyways?"

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Username1

This would be a good time to get one of those $3,000. 3D sets and burry it in the yard till its worth more 25 years from now....... Then dig it up and put it on ebay... NIB naturally......

Sorta "squirrel one away"

Actually, several of the sets in my collection are ones that I purchased new 20-30 years ago... the bad news is that I did not realize the importance of keeping the original packaging... Big Duh here!

jr

[old_tv_nut]

Besides the market not yet taking off at that time, portable sets with any chance of selling would have to wait for higher deflection angles to make them more reasonably compact; plus, automatic degaussing wasn't introduced at first, so purity adjustment would be needed every time you moved the thing. And then, there was the price - about $4,000 - $6,000 in today's dollars - for a small screen portable?

[Reece]

I remember my folks talking about B&W TV in the early fifties, after seeing neighbor's snowy set..."wait 'till it's perfected..."