I bought one sort of similar (different looking case) made by Jensen back in 2004. Still have it. The best part is mine has composite video and audio inputs. So it makes a great little monitor for game consoles and the like. I think I paid $29 for it at the time.
“Daytime running lights are for daytime only. Remember to turn on your headlights at night for full power” People today could still benefit from hearing this
People are getting stupider by the day, and it shows most immediately in their driving. I'm working on a bad driver video which I will post before long.
Can't even drive at night anymore. So many people either have their high beams on all the time, or they do those stupid mods to their headlights, i almost have to wear sunglasses at night because of how bright and shine directly in your eyes, whether they're in front of you or in my mirrors
During the aftermath of Hurricane Ike - this little TV was the only functioning TV on my block. I rewired leads for a car battery. That, and my campfire coffee percolator, made us popular for the nearly 2 weeks we had without power. I still have it.
I had an even smaller screen B&W TV (battery powered) that I gave to my aunt and uncle so they could watch TV after Hurricane Ike - they were without power for about 10 days.
We had a similar thing going on during Hurricane Katrina. It came in handy to get the news running while all the power was off. It was also that year my mom decided for us to move up to East Texas closer to Dallas to avoid anymore hurricanes
I had one of these in my big truck years ago. I bought it for $17.00 at Flying J somewhere in south east Missouri. When the nasty ice storm of Jan 2007 hit us, I pulled a battery out of one of the cars and had it going in the house for several days. Analog was still going strong then. I had news weather and more. No electricity for 10 days. I'm almost sentimental about those little pieces of junk really. It served me well in a moderate crisis event that will not be forgotten.
Flatscreens show snow when the antenna is not working right, or it can’t bring in a channel. Then again, who uses antennae anymore? Everything is cable or stream XD
@@93Volvo240 You sure about that? Unless the TV in your country is still analogue (not sure where you are) then digital TV just shows a black screen with no signal. And if the signal goes poor it just freezes and breaks up - the "snow" is impossible because there is no analogue signal involved.
I owned one, bought as a TV for emergencies. When *three* hurricanes hit my area in the space of a few weeks in the 2000s, I was grateful to have it. It was infinitely better being able to watch the news and weather as opposed to just listening to the radio. Unfortunately it became useless with the end of analog TV broadcasts. The last time a storm hit I lost power for a week and was forced to rely on very spotty internet. Sometimes simpler is better.
Maybe someone needs to hold office and require news shows broadcast analog in disaster prone areas when there is one occurring. I would want something like this if I was around hurricanes or tornadoes. Also have a rechargeable battery inside units. To help sell maybe give it in/out puts and possibly internet.
Evil Otto, you can check for DTV converters at thrift stores and garage sales. Quite common. It also provides remote control functionality to a TV that never had it before.
@@vickiegrant3325 Only problem is they need external power, so it kind of defeats the purpose of an emergency "no power" TV. I got a no-power needed cable to antenna adapter for mine and it worked great with cable during the period where my parent's cable company still sent an analog signal after the DTV transition, but that stopped being useful when their cable provider stopped broadcasting analog.
@@Saucy-ws6jc About two weeks after the digital TV shutdown, Detroit's channel 2 station reactivated their analog transmitter to warn viewers of a severe line of thunderstorms.
@@thatguyalex2835 not as clean, but more-or-less, yes. Channel 77 was where I would get a lot of them. By the way, the spectrum was reallocated in 1982.
I had the gray one as a teenager. My parents didn’t allow cable in our rooms so I saved up for this around 2002. It was cool that it was so portable in the pre-smartphone world, and super affordable by then.
I had one of these as a kid. I loved it because it received one more channel than the TV in our living room. Every Sunday night I'd watch The Simpsons and Family Guy on it. Then one night I fell asleep with it on and woke up to my smoke alarm going off because it caught fire. I miss that piece of junk.
I had this exact same tv for when i was in the bath. Ill never forget when they switched to analogue and i could no longer watch tv in the bath. These little relics were the mobile videos of its time. It was such a novelty to take it around anywhere and be able to watch it
I got one of these for free from a south German brewery as a promotional item for the 2006 soccer world cup in Germany. The case was altered to vaguely ressemble a soccer ball.
It's funny because back in 2006 here in Berlin that was the exact moment terrestrial Analog TV was shut off in favor of DVB-T so it was available for the Worldcup in Berlin. First only in Berlin, then slowly all across Germany. If you wanted to watch that on a analog TV with antenna, you were out of luck then.
A lot of arcade machine collectors are always on the lookout for "new" screens to replace their burnt out ones. But I remember seeing these in purple in the late 90s over here in the UK, thought they were terrible even back then :D
I remember watching TV on one of these late into the night in secret way back in middle school. My parents were super strict about me watching any TV (even though they would turn on their variety shows as soon as they got back) so I used mine to catch a lot of late night movie showings on public access. I vividly remember watching all of Spaceballs and finally being able to talk to my friends about it. Thanks for covering this - definitely brought up some nostalgia for me!
I am honestly surprised to see you here Vechs, but I think you could find a better retro portable unit, if you did some digging, that would still be fun as heck to play NES on.
As a teenager in the 90's I would have loved one of these. Before I was old enough to get a job any option to get my own TV would have caught my eye. The small size would have fit nicely in my childhood bedroom. Sure, by every respect other than price it's junk, but to a kid with a weekly allowance of $3.50 I would have seen the device as punching above its weight.
I had one of these in the early 2000s. My grandma bought it for me and I remember watching Nickelodeon shows in black and white. I was honestly really fascinated by it because I never saw a black and white TV before.
@Millennial Smark it was along time ago so I can't remember. I feel like we were watching rocket power or something. It didn't have allot of channels like the big TV in our living room did though. I don't remember connecting our N64 to it so i think it couldn't do that but maybe we just never tried.
I kept one on my desk. Cartoons weren't much of an option, other than Saturday mornings, and the Fox Simpsons animation block. I had always wanted a black and white TV ever since my grandma told me about seeing the early models with screens as big as this one.
Mine is like an early pioneer tablet 😆 I can put rechargeable batteries in it, and slide it to charge on the power switch. I never had to take the batteries out to recharge.
Watched the 2002 Super Bowl in mine, earlier as a kid my dad had a shoe box sized one from the 70s or 80s I remember we were watching COPS on one of our road trips.
I had a handheld TV in the early 90s. Used 6 AA batteries and gobbled them like a mofo. Also had terrible reception and a 2 inch screen. Fun toy as a kid but useless for sport.
I secretly bought one of these at Walmart, for about $50 (using Christmas money), when I was about 12-13 because I had terrible childhood insomnia. I hid it under my bed and brought it out when I couldn't sleep (almost every night) to watch the Simpsons, King of the Hill and late-night talk shows. Years later, my mom told me she knew about it, and even though we weren't supposed to have TVs in our room, she knew how much not being able to sleep fucked with me, so she let it slide. Watching this thing, while under a duvet, was an incredible relief to the stress.
Same here, except I used mine hooked to a game console and played to keep my mind busy until I got tired enough to sleep. Good memories, I will always love my $19 TV, saved my sanity more than once.
I was given one of those in 2000. Right away I knew what to use it for: listening to cellular phone conversations on the high UHF channels. Made possible by the continuous analog tuning dial and ability to tune into frequencies long ago allocated to 1G cellular. Great entertainment!
@@CrashCarson14 Could be lower lmao. There were wireless landline phones that used frequencies low enough you could tune into it with an FM radio... Happened to my parents with their phone a looong time ago.
I had a TV similar to this in the mid 2000s. My parents didn't want us having TVs in our room, but I was allowed this. It only picked up like 3 channels and my brain sort of filled in the colors.
This is giving me some childhood flashbacks that I nearly forgot about. When I was a kid, my family owned a house boat and the hull of the ship was this flat square area that was only 2 and a half feet tall with that 90s brown carpet, I had put a small cot down there and hooked up a tiny TV just like these ones and had my Ps2 playing Ratchet and Clank on this tiny black and white screen. It was something magical, 11 pm on a cold summer night, wrapped up in my blankets playing my game, the sweet rocking of the water going back and forth. Just me, living in the moment and enjoying myself, with nothing on my mind.
When I was a kid in the 70s, my uncle had one of these TVs in his car. It was under the dashboard between the front seats and whenever we went somewhere with him, my cousins and I would sit in back seat and watch our favorite programs. Our uncle was so cool, like a rock star back then! I’ve never known anyone else with a TV in their car.
@@Maki-00, I had something similar but much more ghetto rigged. Have you seen those screens that latch on the back of the front seats head rests? They’re mostly for children to watch to distract them but I hooked one up and put a ps2 slim console inside the center glove department. Good times for people not driving lol.
There's a failing of virtually all monochrome TVs too: They have mean level AGC instead of gated which (nearly all) colour sets have. So dark scenes are always a murky grey colour, they never do real black even though the tube is perfectly capable of doing so.
@@chrisdigitalartist Colour temperature of the CRT phosphor but also depends on how the camera was white-balanced before recording. Some first generation colour TVs in the UK had a relay (or similar) that made the picture more blue to match the appearance of a typical b/w TV.
Yeah, I had a cheap black and white TV as a kid. When the picture should have turned completely dark, it went light grey instead. I remember wondering why, was it something wrong with the TV? I now understand that it wasn't, it was just a crappy design. :)
I'm not entirely sure of the design features of UK televisions but most B&W sets here in America had gated (aka, keyed AGC). It's certainly possible that corner cutting may have deleted this feature. But the main reason for the gray screen on dark scenes is lack of DC coupling in the video circuits. And unfortunately, most B&W sets were designed this way. A set without this feature will deliver an acceptable picture under most circumstances since most scenes have significant light and dark components (AC signals). But predominantly dark scenes are conveyed by a direct current voltage, which AC coupled video circuits cannot provide. Interestingly, the same problem occurs with bright scenes-- the picture comes out washed out. This generally does not happen with color sets, which require full DC video coupling to produce faithful color pictures.
One of the TVs he showed us was manufactured in 2005. Thé iPhone came out in June 2007. This means that TV could still been in a store shelf when the iPhone was out. That’s stunning
These TV sets were very popular in Greek military outposts in the 2000's, before digital TV. I would have the TV set in a corner keeping me company as I was standing guard lol 🤣
In 1995, my family had a long car trip from Oklahoma to Virginia to move, and we had a tiny miniature black and white TV similar to this model, hooked up to a VCR to provide entertainment in the back seat. We got VHS tapes at a gas station, and when we arrived at our new house and hooked up our full-size TV, I was surprised the tapes were actually in color!
If there had been a service such as the FCC reception maps and Radio Locator back then with today's smartphone technology, you probably could have used the over-the-air functionality on your old portable TV while allowing those sites to track your location to pull in various stations to watch TV on as you passed in and out of the many various TV markets between Oklahoma to Virginia. This is, of course, on the possibly incorrect assumption that your model had an AM/FM radio tuner in it.
@@scratchpad7954 Back then it was simple. You just tuned around to see what you could receive. Sometimes you'd lose the signal before even hearing a station ID or broadcast city, and it would remain a mystery. I still tune around the radio dial on road trips. Nowadays of course, online tools are helpful for tracking down what mystery station I had received on a certain frequency in a certain region. I have actually received high-power FM stations over 80 miles from the transmitter numerous times (line-of-sight reception, not E-skip). I did this too with a pocket radio in an airplane, and estimate reception over 100 miles.
I'm slightly embarrassed that 11 year old me wanted, and got, one of these for Christmas in 2005. But I'll hand it to it that it still worked fine when I donated it to the thrift store a decade later. Mine had the A/V jacks, which was nice.
I wanted one so badly at that age I went out and bought one the moment I had enough money for one c2002.wonderful times playing perfect dark, WWF Wrestlemania:the arcade game, and Ghost Recon on it… too bad I parted ways with it. loved when it picked up tv signals from Mexico
I still have one of these which I use in a somewhat novel application: I have a small equipment shed behind my garage, which houses some of my amateur radio equipment. I needed a way to monitor some of the operational parameters of one of the radios I had in this shed. So, since I ALSO had a Standard brand cable TV modulator that was agile, I rack mounted this modulator in the shed, and then added a video surveillance camera that has infrared LED illumination that is pointed at the metering of my radio. I then take the video out of the camera and run it to the video IN of the TV modulator. I set the modulator on old TV channel 13, and put a 1/4 wave whip on the modulator's RF output port. This B&W TV sits in my radio room in my house several yards away. And by careful focusing of the camera, in addition to careful tuning of the TV, I can quite easily read the metering of the radio. As for the annoying hum to which you referred, I found that could be largely mitigated by doing two things: 1) turning down the brightness control, and 2)carefully adjusting the RF tuning so as to SLIGHTLY offset the 4.5 MHz sound subcarrier . Like you, I paid a whopping $2 for my TV at a yard sale. But it came WITH the proper AC adapter, so I don't need to use batteries. Also, some of the audio hum noted when powering the TV from the AC adapter can be lessened by keeping the AC adapter as far away as possible from the TV, and running the DC input line through a toroid several times. Nearly all B & W TVs used a lot lower HV from the flyback, as there was no need for the 25 KV commonly found on color sets. Since I can turn the brightness up on mine until it nearly inverts the video, why waste money on the extra size and cost of a 25 KV flyback?
I still have one of those and it still turns on. That little TV got my family through Hurricane Ike back in 2008. As usual before a hurricane all the batteries in all sizes were sold out , so I went to Sam's Club and found a small 12 volt car battery, which lasted the entire 2 weeks we were without power. When we all went digital here in the states, I purchased a new color rechargeable battery operated TV and that battery swelled up and made it inoperable in less than a year. Those little sets were cheap as hell, but they worked amazingly well.
Same here. I remember when Hurricane Ike hit Houston, this little TV is what gave my family and I news information about what was going on. It was a God send during those moments.
I had some similar little TV, but it was officially on battery, I think it was for C or D size, I had some ni-mh cells from old notebook, so I made it rechargable. :-D
I used to have one of these around 2009. I remember hooking up a gamecube to it and thinking to myself "That's the sharpest Wind Waker I've ever seen" Even though it was monochrome, the game looked absolutely fantastic on it, like it was in HD or something. The clarity was unbelievable.
Played ghost recon on mine with my GameCube, it really did look great…though I had to use the night vision googles to fight enemies in the day time levels lol… Perfect Dark(N64) and Wrestlemania the arcade game (SNES) we’re flawless on it.
@@woozleification Pixel density. Game Boy Micro has such a small screen that GBA games look fantastic. In fact because of the classic NES series NES games look better on a Gameboy micro 144p screen than they did if you played NES games for the Wii U Virtual Console in 1080p
On sept 11 2001 I was working in a machine shop Here in St Louis MO. We heard a few radio interruptions decrying the goings on of that day. We had no tv's in the shop. I snuck out and went to a Walgreens next door and bought one of these and made it back in under 5 min. I threw the tv in a cabinet near my machine and started watching the news broadcast's. Within a few minutes there was 30 people staring at the little tv. We were all watching it when the send plane hit the 2nd tower..... I kept the tv in the cabinet until 2014 when we rearranged the shop. I tried it out but it was toast. I reluctantly through it away.
Alot of those old Analog and Portable TVs from the 1980s until the 2000s, both black and white and color, were pretty much the way many people were able to see alot of the then trending news events occurring in the United States at the time from the 1990s until the end of Analog TV on Full-Power TV stations in 2009.
0:24 I begged my mother to get this TV when I was a kid!! I still remember it was 99$ (Canadian) at the time! We weren't that rich but sure enough, she managed to get me one for christmas!!! And I still own it today!! I would bring it on Road Trips sitting in the back of our 1987 Hyundai Pony! Trying to find channels to watch as they would fade in and out as we drove along!! It's sad that there are no more analog stations.
I wanted my grandmother's black and white tv radio combo so bad when I was a kid in 95. She wouldnt give it up. I still love my grandmother for protecting me from disappointment.
@@belstar1128 It would be period correct only in the sense the Sinclair ZX81 (UK)/Times-Sinclair 1000 (US) outputted a low res B&W image amend so a tiny decent 5” B&W TW would have displayed the image adequately (though maybe I suspect the text size might have been too small for many people on such a small screen). I doubt however you could get the Spectra shown in the vid to display the ZX81/TS-1000’s image adequately enough given how poor the VCR image looked on it. Unfortunately I no longer have my old 90’s era 5” B&W Colby TV or my 80’s TS-1000 computer to test this out.
@@belstar1128 but the idea would be that since the ZX81\TS-1000 is a very tiny computer it would just about fit the width of a 5” TV and would create a certain athletic look, at least for display purpose in one’s own retro computer collection. If you really wanted to use the computer then a better color CRT would make a better display but that computer is pretty handspring with limited resources and no sound anyways so there is better retro home micros IMO to play around with these days if you seriously want to do old school basic or assembly language programming or play retro games. I could see this combo being employed by a demo scene programmer wanting to turn their ZX-81/TS-1000 into a art piece maybe.
The last CRT I remember seeing was being used as a security camera monitor, it was a small B&W not much bigger than those TVs. The image quality wasn't much better either, even Sasquatch could make an appearance without fear of being recognised.
My local Big Lots just got rid of theirs last year with the store remodel. It was a massive 32" hooked up to a camera that hung right over the cash register from the ceiling.
I see them sometimes in stores. My dentist has one playing over the air channels. They’re actually really easy to notice now, as they usually have decent forward facing speakers, and good color/contrast. Cheap small LCDs look worse and sound worse too. There’s some level of comfort from watching an analog tv.
There's a CRT computer monitor still at my local Kohl's. And my local small grocery store had CRT monitors and Windows 2000 Professional towers until it closed in like 2018.
my grandparents still had CRT TV with settopbox not so far time ago, I also had one just for fun when I had retro mood :-) it's sad that TV died, I planned buy some PS1 or PS2 and play on that
The one I had back in the 80s was built like a tank - small, B&W, with a built in radio with tuner specifically for broadcast TV. Had it on my desk next to my Atari which was running on a full color JVC box monitor similar to the Commodore 64 monitor. Could watch TV while playing around with my BBS.
I loved these little tv's. As a kid living on a boat in an anchorage back when solar was less efficient and more expensive, these were incredibly battery efficient and connected to older and newer gaming consoles alike. It wasn't fancy but it sure was dependable. Camping too. And the AM/FM radio was very much appreciated too. And the manual tuning is superior to digital where digital omits less than perfect signals completely.
In the late seventies, we had our last b&w tv. It had a very common feature at the time: both the remote and the antenna were the same object: me, the youngest sibling.
We bought some to use as a monitor for our security cameras. Still have one for over a decade connected to a camera. They work great if you wanted to keep an eye on an area. I also used them as a cheap portable monitor when I would film, to get see if I was recording to my DVR and the position of the image if I need to adjust the camera.
Cheers from Italy, I have a completely unbranded one very similar to the "spectra" you showed in the video. My grandfather won it playing cards and gave it to me once he quickly bored of it. It does have VL, VH and UHF sintonizations. Since Italy switched to digital only in 2012 I got quite a bit of use out of it.
When I lived in China I recall seeing Taobao sellers selling CRT retro TV's from Korea. This was back in 2010 or so. They looked pretty nice and were digital ready. I think they were color too. I should have bought one.
I think I know the type you are talking about. Yes, Samsung did release a retro style CRT TV in 2010 with the dials and everything. Extremely difficult to find nowadays tho. Not even eBay or most online market places have it. And TH-cam videos on it are rare and mostly not in English.
In the early 2000's we got one of these to use in the car. We plugged it into an inverter and hooked it up to a VHS player or an Nintendo to keep the kids occupied as we drove up to Maine or on camping trips. It was one of the best $25 investments I ever made!
I have a black & white portable TV called the Ambassador, saw it on a shelf in Savers. In the store I barely touched the volume knob, it went off at FULL volume saying "Do you have chronic diarrhea!?" Bought it on the spot. In 2015 when it was brought home playing with all the knobs and dials it actually picked up a TV station with a land rover commercial and then a dancing show! I live in MN.
I remember when I bought in in 2007, to use it in a case of war (do not be laugh, I am from Bosnia and Herzegovina) hospitalization (and it was used for this purpose) and for camping and vacations (never used for this purpose, because neighbour Croatia shut down analogue TV, Bosnia in 2021 still uses analogue TV). However, this TV did not last for a long time, but it is not strange for this price.
Would the TV have been used to keep up to date on things happening in case of needing to move around quickly? Similar to the way a radio might have been?
Bosnia still uses analog television? I didn't know that since Serbia shut it down just like Croatia a few years ago, to comply with EU regulations. That's very interesting, one of the rare places in Europe I assume! Maybe I can catch some channels since I live close to the border? That would be pretty cool!
@@JimJamTheAdmin yeah, since analog TV is still up you could just connect your TV to a battery and you'd have access to the channels with national and regional frequencies
I had one of these as a kid. Keep in mind that this was the first time truly portable video was available to the masses. The fact that you could watch TV in the car, even if it was a staticy picture and even if you could only pick up two or three stations in any given area, was revolutionary in the 90s. (Yes, there were color sets with larger screens that could be hardwired to a vehicle's electrical system, but you'd typically only see them on coach buses and such as these systems were well beyond the price range of the typical consumer.)
4:56 you were supposed to use a flat head screw driver to adjust those settings (I worked for RCA/GE Thompson Consumer Electronics in the late 90s-early 2000s - we had a GE version of this - it looked exactly like the Memorex except white & a color variant) - they were designed that way so they didn't accidentally get bumped in the back and you had to purposefully adjust them. I used one for my camper - it worked fine. You can get the HDTV adaptor at Walmart for like $10 to use on these old TVs. I have one for my old 13 inch RCA ColorTrak.
We really have come quite a long way since I was small, watching a 12" black & white TV in my bedroom, venturing through to the lounge which boasted the HUGE 24" colour TV set. If nothing was on we'd stick a copied cassette into the Betamax! What a time to be alive!!
I got one of these at a goodwill for 2$ in 2019. It was missing the battery cover so I nearly didn’t get it. Then I found it at the cash register being used as a coaster by the employee.
One of the best things about this channel is not only learning about old and unique tech, but also about the features of the 1997 Jetta. Keep up the good work.
Didn’t expect these to be so cheap when they were new, but it does make sense when it has been designed to cut costs. It would be a nice set to try and “upgrade” or modify with additional inputs or to receive digital broadcasts since they can be easily obtained, but it might be a bit tricky due to the integrated chips.
Yeah, it was made at the point where the circuitry was all integrated and the CRT factories were still in operation. Plus the B&W tubes need less than color sets to work. The only thing different with these sets is really down to the cosmetics of the housing and what brand it was sold under.
you can. go buy a cheap DTV external box take the external antenna port on the TV hook it to the box set the tv to 3 or 4 hook an antenna up of your choice and do a channel search i tried it when DTV was first coming around and it was cool also i used to have cable TV from Comcast so i used to flip between vhf and UHF with the cable from the cable system and watch TV that way to no digital cable just straight from the wall cable
It would be interesting if the DTV box circuitry could be combined within the tv itself so it could work like it did with analog, but it’s nice that the DTV boxes can still be obtained easily and that they work great.
Maybe break apart one of those HDMI to composite adapters, and cut the traces to the tuner and solder the composite wire to it. Then do the same with the audio line, but solder both stereo wires to the mono trace. Finish it off with a panel mount HDMI so it can stick out the back... Then it would be a perfect monitor for piping a terminal emulator into, especially with something like bb running.
I have no doubt you've been told this already, but it's mostly just the UK that only used UHF. Ireland had VHF analogue until it was shut off last decade, as did France, though only for Canal+. It's true that most of Western Europe only uses UHF now though.
I still remember when Argos here in Ireland had "Not available in the Republic of Ireland" stamped on most of the TVs in its catalogue due to lacking a VHF tuner. We picked up RTÉ One and (formerly) Network 2 on VHF channels 9 and 11 from what I recall, right up until the October 2012 analogue switch-off.
We in the UK used VHF channels for 405 line black and white TV broadcasting. It was discontinued in 1985 and VHF hasn't been used for TV since. 625 line TV and later colour was always UHF only here.
I had one of these on my desk in college. It was handy for some noise as a I studied. My model had an analog channel selector, and if you put it halfway between channels 13 and 14, it would sometimes pick up analog cellular calls (this was early 90s), at least the half being sent out from the car. My buddy and I had some fun with that.
These TV's aren't that bad and I actually love their portability. I have one in my house and it holds a special place in my heart cause nostalgia, btw I'm 2000's kid
My dad used to have one of these. Im also a 2000s kid. This things bring so many memories. I remember my dad watching the news on one of this in a tiny hotel room with no tv circa 2009-10. I think that was when blackberries were still popular, i dont remember. Ah, the nostalgia...
We had one in our kitchen during the 2000s for hearing the local news while my parents cooked dinner. Being a 90s kid and a teen during the 2000s led me to see so many old world tech still exist as digital began to take over. We still had one of these when the main family TV and my TV had been converted to flatscreens
If you happen to have a Jetta with power windows, or power sunroof, you also get the convenience of a closing feature built into the system. By holding the key in the locking position, your power windows and sunroof will automatically close.
I saw that part and thought, huh, I wonder how many cars have this feature and people just don't know about it. I suppose it's likely this either never caught on or was phased out after people started using keys that can unlock from a distance, but it still makes me wonder.
@@TheOneGuy1111 A lot of cars have this feature nowadays. Just hold the close button for a few seconds and it's likely that all the windows will close.
I made a little computer with one of these, and some more information about them: The components are quite bad, and some spots aren't even soldered all the way so you can increase the quality a bunch by just resoldering everything and replacing shotty parts.
I have a blue one of these from my old job. Basically, when you work in shipping and receiving, vendors often send some kind of weird free gift. I have free multi-tools and camp chairs and so forth. My predecessor must have gotten the TV that way, as a promo item, and he left in on the big desk in the warehouse that I inherited. It was still in the box, which featured people camping and at ball games, places you could supposedly watch this TV. Of course, nobody in the pictures on the box is actually *watching* this TV, lol.
I still have a couple of these from my dad. He bought them for CCTV camera use but switched to a different system and kept them spare. I've used them for testing electronics but I mostly just admire these random little nuggets.
Those TVs made me remember my days I spent installing analog Cu band satellite dishes for a living during my teen years. This small TVs were very handy to fine tune the dish in the roof.
I remember having one of these in the early 2000's. My mom gave me one as a little Christmas present and I just remembered being amazed that it was a better powered TV. Now here I am watching movies on a phone lol. But I do remember having this thing during a series of really bad tornadoes in my county once and the comfort of watching the weather man reporting on the storm situation with my family when the power went out
I got one of those for $5 at a grocery store (new) in the late 90s, it fit perfectly between the dash and center console of my car, I also had a TV antenna that suction cupped to the roof.
There's something oddly nostalgic about these junky little TVs. Their tinny speakers, bad picture quality and radio buzz brings back memories of a time when my friend and I used to camp at an old shack out in the hills. It had one of these hooked to a car battery with a set of old stereo speakers. That coupled with the sound of steak cooking on a drum lid in the afternoon while we sat around the fire with a drink was the life.
I've got the Spectra TV, bought it for $12 at Kmart back in 2003. Came as part of a TV-flashlight set. The flashlight was one with a big-lens and uses 4 AA batteries. The TV was just a TV, no radio. I used it quite a bit in my bedroom back when I had a one-bedroom apt. Mostly watched sports or stuff like "Kojak" reruns. A few years back, I hooked it up to a digital converter box. It was kind of surreal, using a full-function remote control on a 5-inch B&W set.
The older CNC machines I repair at work still have CRT displays. Occasionally we've needed to replace them and surprisingly they're still serviced by some suppliers.
We used to replace CRT monitors for old phone systems till not too long ago. We only stopped because the company was no longer providing service contracts for older systems.
The last CRTs manufactured were for Airplanes (such as 737,757,767 and maybe even some older models) and some other vey niche uses. Toshiba made them until 2019/2020. These would of course start in the 50k$ range all in...
"Peter, show us how to us the special keys to unlock the Jetta's doors!" "Sure, Suzie! Remember, your Jetta comes with specially made keys that will only work with your car. Hold the key between your thumb and forefinger just like this. Now, raise you hand in line with the doorlock. Remember, don't raise your hand too high or you might damage the paintwork. Move your hand slowly forwards until the key engages with the lock. Keep pushing forward until it stops. See, just like this. It's easy!" 😆😎
To be fair, VolksWagen cars *does* comes with many great and inovative features - like the one enabling it to sense when it's being tested, so it can cheat on the emission test!
I used to date a woman years ago (mid 2010s) who had two of these at her house, one as second TV set and the smaller one (similar to those shown here) as CCTV monitor. I don’t know practically anything about image frequencies or electronics but I was aware that digital TV had rendered analog stations pretty obsolete, although here the official announcements weren’t made until 2020. I think the sets she had worked on input data through cable so that might have made them usable beyond their expected life span. As a kid in the 80s I had a b/w spare TV set which worked well on UHF and VHF frequencies and I could even get TV stations from neighbouring provinces. It’s quite impressive how we dealt with such primitive technology by modern standards and yet kept ourselves informed and educated on a daily basis. Greetings from south Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
I have one of these, it only has a TV tuner and the front is see-through on mine (it's branded by Bruneau, other than that... Nothing else.) I belive you can mod these to add a composite (Luminance really) just by cutting a jumper and inserting a CVBS/Luma signal on a pin of the main IC. I can confirm these are... A pain in the rear, on a lot of these the DC input jack is often flaky (it's a weak point on these!), on mine I had to readjust the yoke, and lemme say that these are usually filled with hot glue (or "hot snot"), the tuning indicator strip also often pops out and good luck trying to get it back together without the strip popping off... It's a whole other ordeal. But despite this, I like mine, and I would really love to find another one with the radio tuner and swap in a green or amber phosphor tube just for the Hell of it.
@@jaymercy224 Mine (got it from my uncle actually) already had the composite jack on its back.. I really should dig it up and see if it still works, I remember the last time I tested it I had to fiddle around with the power jack to make it work.
If it has a clear case it might be one that was sold for use by inmates in prisons (they were made clear to prevent them from being used to hide contraband.). Techmoan did a video last year on that type of thing.
I've owned three of these, although I think I may have thrown two of them away. I definitely kept the one with a composite input because I can connect it to a Raspberry Pi - they're great for things like ZX81/TS1000 emulators. I'm in the UK and these TVs still have the VHF tuning function, even though it's useless. The last VHF TV transmissions here were in 1985, and those were the old 405-line system.
As a card carrying member of the VWestlife Geek Club, I too had one of these. Actually asked for it for Christmas around 2005 or so from Walgreens around SE Mich Purpose was to use as a remote monitor via composite video input, which my version had Other geek uses nowadays besides retro-cool-ery could be period accurate Pong system gaming or other 70s era video games, arcade emulated or home systems that were bw, only or designed for use with bw tvs like the 2600 and similar Some monochrome arcade machines of the 70s used green screens
I used my Christmas money in 2002 to buy one ($35) Spent a lot of time playing video games on it. Good times being lazy in bed playing my SNES, N64 and GameCube. I’m in Los Angeles so it was always a fun activity to try and improve reception enough to try and watch the Mexican tv channels. just to watch the Spanish dubs of shows that were cable/satellite programs in the US. I threw it out in 2012 because I couldn’t find the right transformer to power it up… I still regret doing that (never tried eBay). I bought a 1979 set on eBay 2 years ago but it’s just not the same, no AV inputs and the crt isn’t as crisp as mine was….
The decade 2000-2010 was arguably the most rapid technological development in human history. In 2000, CRTs (1950s technology) were still in common use across the country. The Internet, while becoming quite popular, was still in its infancy. Cell phones were just that - cellular phones that could receive and make calls wirelessly. Camcorders and VHS, still using 1970s magnetic storage technology, were common, as were film cameras. By 2010, CRTs were all but extinct. The advent of smartphones allowed one to record videos, browse the Internet, read digital books, check the news, update social media, and so much more, all in the palm of one's hand. 2000 arguably resembled 1980 (or even 1970) more than 2010.
@@scottkrafft6830 this thought occurred to me too lol, especially in our household where we didn't gain internet access until 2007. So until then, we largely lived life like it was the 80s, except we had some better videogames with our PS1 and 2. Touchscreens and wireless tech really changed the game. If you showed 2002 me the tech such as smartphones, drones with gopros, VR sets, etc. that would be available just 15 years later, I'd think you were from the year 2050, not now
My family used this TV back in 2004-2005 during hurricanes. We lost power for an extended period of time but it was nice to watch TV without having electricity. I remember by dad used so many C batteries that he was complaining about having to constantly change them lol.
For 2002 that circuitboard was actually surprisingly decent. Higher tech manufacturers were beginning to use SMDs at that time, which were much cheaper but took more advanced manufacturing. They could have saved tons if they made the board SMD, the amount of time it would take to do through hole for all those components probably contributed to the cost a lot.
It's not necessarily true that the two models came out of different factories, it's just as likely that they were a few years apart and the company just replaced moulds as they wore out or sourced some components from different suppliers.
I had one of these. I think it was Curtis brand and it had composite input. I didn't think it was that bad besides being B&W? It was really really sharp hooked up to my GameCube. Decent for $30.
My mom use to have one of these in the kitchen for many years, we used it with cable TV, so the lack of analogue broadcast wasn't an issue. It got replaced with a small LED TV in 2015! I have something similar (as a novelty): Its a 80's boombox with with a small color TV (tube by Samsung). I refurbished about 2 years ago, replaced the capacitators, cleaned the switches, and replaced the belts on the cassette mechanism. It surprisingly also has a monitor input too, and a digital (red) clock that can turn on, or off the TV, or the radio!
I used one of these as the monitor on my satellite TV for my MythTV setup back in the day. Let me keep an eye on the satellite to make sure it hadn't done something strange. It was left turned on all the time on the server rack and if I passed by it and saw something strange on the screen I could clear it before any more recordings were scheduled. After about 5-6 years of continued use it just finally died and was replaced with a small LCD TV.
The converter boxes are still fairly common, so you could buy one of these and connect to your antenna port if you thought it was worth it. I do this all the time with my old restored tube sets.
I'd say their voracious appetite for batteries relegated more of these to forgotten storage areas more so than anything else. I don't think it's fair to cast these as complete pieces of junk. Sure, it's not world class engineering that went into these, but the design looks pretty clean and really, how can one complain for less than $20? You're not out a lot if something terrible happens to it, and it is far better than no TV or radio if you'd ever find yourself desperate for one. I bought one new in a grocery store for about $12, sold under the Coby name and equipped with the A/V input. (It even came with an antenna adapter suitable for twinlead.) The TV audio's rather buzzy, though I don't care since it only sees use as a video monitor.
I remember having a blue transparent version when putting things in transparent plastic was cool, and I even had a Coleman version you could crank for power and it was a TV, AM/FM/Weather radio, flashlight, lantern, siren, and a little storage space for stuff. I got it in 2003 thinking it was so cool lol.
I've actually used one of those, I was at my grandparents house after they passed away and there was no cable TV at their house, but we were cleaning up, and I was really bored, and I was able to tune in a single channel, I believe it was past the digital TV transition, so it must have been a low power station that was still broadcasting. It was some animated children's movie, maybe religious, I can't remember. I was just happy I got to watch a bit of TV.
If you can connect a VCR, why can't you connect an OTA digital TV converter box? And those picture adjustment verniers were likely intentionally placed high to make them difficult to inadvertently adjust and throw that crystal-clear picture out of whack. Notice they are slotted to accept a small flat screwdriver for adjusting.
I remember my parents used to run a grocery store in 2010 and I took one of these TV´s with me so that I had something to do while waiting for clients. Analogue TV was still a thing (At least in my country.) and smartphones and TH-cam weren´t as big as they are now.
Essa televisão tem algo a ver com o Brasil? Eu tinha uma exatamente igual, até assustei quando vi a thumb, e lembro de ver várias pessoas com uma parecida
We had a bad snow storm years ago. Our power was out for several days. I had one of these little TVs that also ran on battery power. I also had a hand crank radio. And I had a Coleman camp stove to cook on. I remember telling my wife that we were the only family in the neighborhood that could watch TV, listen to the radio, and cook meals.
Oh man, I had completely forgotten about these! I bought one new in the late 90s that I integrated into a go-kart I had built, along with a VCR and stereo. It was always a huge hit at the local car audio shops' weekend shows! Horrible little TV, but fun as heck. :)
Lol, I bought one of those for use as an emergency TV in storms. It lasted 90 days and I couldn't bring it back because the store I bought it from moved out of the mall lol.
We still have analog here in the Philippines and since we get hit by typhoons a lot, and it means power outages are very likely, this would be very handy too.
I'm in Australia, we had analog VHF/UHF TV much later than the USA, as late as 2013 in some areas. Before I retired I was a bus driver and the trips I used to do meant I'd be sitting in my bus for many hours after delivering the passengers to the show, match, wedding etc. that they were attending that evening. I used one of these little TVs for years powered from the auxilliary socket on the bus (there were 12 volt as well as a 24 volt sockets), it gave me AM/FM radio and TV which occupied my evenings. There's only so much bus cleaning or reading one can do and this little Black and White TV basically saved my sanity.
These seem like really good candidates for music visualizer conversions. I think I have a Memorex one of these laying around somewhere I might hack up...
I bought one sort of similar (different looking case) made by Jensen back in 2004. Still have it. The best part is mine has composite video and audio inputs. So it makes a great little monitor for game consoles and the like. I think I paid $29 for it at the time.
Woah
Hey! Love your channel!
Hey why dont you try to make a video about this jensen
Oh hello there!
I remember seeing friends parents using these in the early 2000s. I remember the picture quality being better.
“Daytime running lights are for daytime only. Remember to turn on your headlights at night for full power” People today could still benefit from hearing this
It’s worse than ever now!
My father learned this from the police...
It used to be obvious that the lights weren't on: the dashboard lights only came on when the headlights were on!
People are getting stupider by the day, and it shows most immediately in their driving. I'm working on a bad driver video which I will post before long.
Can't even drive at night anymore. So many people either have their high beams on all the time, or they do those stupid mods to their headlights, i almost have to wear sunglasses at night because of how bright and shine directly in your eyes, whether they're in front of you or in my mirrors
During the aftermath of Hurricane Ike - this little TV was the only functioning TV on my block. I rewired leads for a car battery. That, and my campfire coffee percolator, made us popular for the nearly 2 weeks we had without power. I still have it.
How much did you pay for it?
@@hrearden6993 my wife paid $14.99 at Big Lots lol
I had an even smaller screen B&W TV (battery powered) that I gave to my aunt and uncle so they could watch TV after Hurricane Ike - they were without power for about 10 days.
We had a similar thing going on during Hurricane Katrina. It came in handy to get the news running while all the power was off. It was also that year my mom decided for us to move up to East Texas closer to Dallas to avoid anymore hurricanes
A heartwarming story of tough people in tough times.
I had one of these in my big truck years ago. I bought it for $17.00 at Flying J somewhere in south east Missouri. When the nasty ice storm of Jan 2007 hit us, I pulled a battery out of one of the cars and had it going in the house for several days. Analog was still going strong then. I had news weather and more. No electricity for 10 days. I'm almost sentimental about those little pieces of junk really. It served me well in a moderate crisis event that will not be forgotten.
Rest in peace to the good old days
That's awesome dude. I reluctantly got rid of ours last year.
And it could still serve you in another moderate crisis
It is crazy to think that there are people who will probably never see static snow on a tv in their life.
or that color thing
@@LKonstantina915 how about adjusting the horizontal hold??? 😃
Only 80s kids can relate
Flatscreens show snow when the antenna is not working right, or it can’t bring in a channel. Then again, who uses antennae anymore? Everything is cable or stream XD
@@93Volvo240 You sure about that? Unless the TV in your country is still analogue (not sure where you are) then digital TV just shows a black screen with no signal. And if the signal goes poor it just freezes and breaks up - the "snow" is impossible because there is no analogue signal involved.
I owned one, bought as a TV for emergencies. When *three* hurricanes hit my area in the space of a few weeks in the 2000s, I was grateful to have it. It was infinitely better being able to watch the news and weather as opposed to just listening to the radio.
Unfortunately it became useless with the end of analog TV broadcasts. The last time a storm hit I lost power for a week and was forced to rely on very spotty internet. Sometimes simpler is better.
Maybe someone needs to hold office and require news shows broadcast analog in disaster prone areas when there is one occurring. I would want something like this if I was around hurricanes or tornadoes. Also have a rechargeable battery inside units. To help sell maybe give it in/out puts and possibly internet.
Evil Otto, you can check for DTV converters at thrift stores and garage sales. Quite common.
It also provides remote control functionality to a TV that never had it before.
@@vickiegrant3325 Only problem is they need external power, so it kind of defeats the purpose of an emergency "no power" TV. I got a no-power needed cable to antenna adapter for mine and it worked great with cable during the period where my parent's cable company still sent an analog signal after the DTV transition, but that stopped being useful when their cable provider stopped broadcasting analog.
@@Saucy-ws6jc
About two weeks after the digital TV shutdown, Detroit's channel 2 station reactivated their analog transmitter to warn viewers of a severe line of thunderstorms.
@@AlphaCarinae
An emergency TV?!?
Any TV set made after 2008, by law, has a DTV tuner.
Back in the 2000s there were still analog cell phones, so you could eavesdrop on them using channels 70 - 83 with one of these TVs.
So you could hear conversations? What did the screen show? That sounds pretty weird. Lol... :)
@@thatguyalex2835 it just showed lines modulated by the audio.
@@jayrogers8255 Cool, like an oscilloscope?
@@thatguyalex2835 not as clean, but more-or-less, yes. Channel 77 was where I would get a lot of them.
By the way, the spectrum was reallocated in 1982.
@@jayrogers8255 Pretty neat stuff. :) I like technology.
I had the gray one as a teenager. My parents didn’t allow cable in our rooms so I saved up for this around 2002. It was cool that it was so portable in the pre-smartphone world, and super affordable by then.
How much was it?
@@FredJensen4745$15
@@FredJensen4745 Probably around USD 30-40 in early 2000s.
I had one of these as a kid. I loved it because it received one more channel than the TV in our living room. Every Sunday night I'd watch The Simpsons and Family Guy on it. Then one night I fell asleep with it on and woke up to my smoke alarm going off because it caught fire.
I miss that piece of junk.
Wow
I had this exact same tv for when i was in the bath. Ill never forget when they switched to analogue and i could no longer watch tv in the bath. These little relics were the mobile videos of its time. It was such a novelty to take it around anywhere and be able to watch it
He said the picture is horrible. Back in the 80’s, 90’s that was pretty rad to me. I watched star trek TNG in it
@@henryairconcepts2999 it's fault of jesus
Whoa
I got one of these for free from a south German brewery as a promotional item for the 2006 soccer world cup in Germany. The case was altered to vaguely ressemble a soccer ball.
It's funny because back in 2006 here in Berlin that was the exact moment terrestrial Analog TV was shut off in favor of DVB-T so it was available for the Worldcup in Berlin. First only in Berlin, then slowly all across Germany. If you wanted to watch that on a analog TV with antenna, you were out of luck then.
we got that one in the UK but i broke it
@@pyeltd.5457 Mine ist long gone, too.
A lot of arcade machine collectors are always on the lookout for "new" screens to replace their burnt out ones.
But I remember seeing these in purple in the late 90s over here in the UK, thought they were terrible even back then :D
It always amazes me how many things I like I find you beat me here.
Remember that one time you made this comment? I do.
im surprised i see you here maybe someday youll make a video about showing up in various comment sections
Based Larry.
I bought one some time ago, for almost nothing, and yes, it was a piece of crap. Is, probably.
I remember watching TV on one of these late into the night in secret way back in middle school. My parents were super strict about me watching any TV (even though they would turn on their variety shows as soon as they got back) so I used mine to catch a lot of late night movie showings on public access. I vividly remember watching all of Spaceballs and finally being able to talk to my friends about it. Thanks for covering this - definitely brought up some nostalgia for me!
Hah, snap! 😅 It's cool to know other people around the world shared that experience
Ludacris speed
For some reason I have an intense urge to play NES on one if those.
of*
I used to play gamecube on one of these lol, it was not great
Get you a 2000-in-1 system and you won't regret it
I am honestly surprised to see you here Vechs, but I think you could find a better retro portable unit, if you did some digging, that would still be fun as heck to play NES on.
This is exactly what i use mine for. Fun Fun
As a teenager in the 90's I would have loved one of these. Before I was old enough to get a job any option to get my own TV would have caught my eye. The small size would have fit nicely in my childhood bedroom. Sure, by every respect other than price it's junk, but to a kid with a weekly allowance of $3.50 I would have seen the device as punching above its weight.
That's 4 weeks of saving
I loved mine as a kid. Lived them so much I got two but this time a colour one. Always setup secret survellience stations or made dens with amenities
Cool, I have a phone. A mini computer :)
@@Jack-Shat EXACTLY!
@@MASTEROFEVIL that's real dedication for kid's standards lmao
I don't want a black and white TV, but I would love that Jetta with it's new fancy locking system, very cool.
Jetta or Vento, depending on your location.
Lovely times back then.
Learned a bit about 1990s VW convenience features, too!
100th like
Vas very hard
This might be of interest then:
th-cam.com/video/NJtWzlYYJgQ/w-d-xo.html
I had one of these in the early 2000s. My grandma bought it for me and I remember watching Nickelodeon shows in black and white. I was honestly really fascinated by it because I never saw a black and white TV before.
@Millennial Smark look at the date, analog tv was still going
@Millennial Smark it was along time ago so I can't remember. I feel like we were watching rocket power or something. It didn't have allot of channels like the big TV in our living room did though. I don't remember connecting our N64 to it so i think it couldn't do that but maybe we just never tried.
I kept one on my desk. Cartoons weren't much of an option, other than Saturday mornings, and the Fox Simpsons animation block. I had always wanted a black and white TV ever since my grandma told me about seeing the early models with screens as big as this one.
@@burp2019yea u only got the networks...abc,nbc,cbs,fox,pbs,...
Mostly installed on cars in the Philippines.
These things were the equivalent of "bringing your tablet to watch Netflix on the trip" back in the day
I remember someone bringing one to work for March Madness. Soon after, smartphones took over.
Mine is like an early pioneer tablet 😆 I can put rechargeable batteries in it, and slide it to charge on the power switch.
I never had to take the batteries out to recharge.
Watched the 2002 Super Bowl in mine, earlier as a kid my dad had a shoe box sized one from the 70s or 80s I remember we were watching COPS on one of our road trips.
I had a handheld TV in the early 90s. Used 6 AA batteries and gobbled them like a mofo. Also had terrible reception and a 2 inch screen. Fun toy as a kid but useless for sport.
"Stone" tablet lol.
I secretly bought one of these at Walmart, for about $50 (using Christmas money), when I was about 12-13 because I had terrible childhood insomnia. I hid it under my bed and brought it out when I couldn't sleep (almost every night) to watch the Simpsons, King of the Hill and late-night talk shows. Years later, my mom told me she knew about it, and even though we weren't supposed to have TVs in our room, she knew how much not being able to sleep fucked with me, so she let it slide. Watching this thing, while under a duvet, was an incredible relief to the stress.
Banger mother
Same here, except I used mine hooked to a game console and played to keep my mind busy until I got tired enough to sleep. Good memories, I will always love my $19 TV, saved my sanity more than once.
i wish they made replicas of thesebut with lcd screens and give them a crt-like effect
@@LKonstantina915 ooh so coolio ikr ykwis not cap either
W mom
I was given one of those in 2000. Right away I knew what to use it for: listening to cellular phone conversations on the high UHF channels. Made possible by the continuous analog tuning dial and ability to tune into frequencies long ago allocated to 1G cellular. Great entertainment!
Too bad you couldn’t join in on the conversation lol
I remember hearing those phone conversations on the high UHF band. I think you could only hear one side of the call.
1G was still a thing in 2000!?
1g is 1ghz band?
@@CrashCarson14 Could be lower lmao. There were wireless landline phones that used frequencies low enough you could tune into it with an FM radio... Happened to my parents with their phone a looong time ago.
I had a TV similar to this in the mid 2000s. My parents didn't want us having TVs in our room, but I was allowed this. It only picked up like 3 channels and my brain sort of filled in the colors.
The power of imagination.
I like that my brain sort of filled in the colours 😅
Like ADX Florence.
This is giving me some childhood flashbacks that I nearly forgot about. When I was a kid, my family owned a house boat and the hull of the ship was this flat square area that was only 2 and a half feet tall with that 90s brown carpet, I had put a small cot down there and hooked up a tiny TV just like these ones and had my Ps2 playing Ratchet and Clank on this tiny black and white screen. It was something magical, 11 pm on a cold summer night, wrapped up in my blankets playing my game, the sweet rocking of the water going back and forth. Just me, living in the moment and enjoying myself, with nothing on my mind.
amazing memory
@@austinwilburn1772 epic vibe
When I was a kid in the 70s, my uncle had one of these TVs in his car. It was under the dashboard between the front seats and whenever we went somewhere with him, my cousins and I would sit in back seat and watch our favorite programs. Our uncle was so cool, like a rock star back then! I’ve never known anyone else with a TV in their car.
This sounds absolutely wonderful.
@@Maki-00, I had something similar but much more ghetto rigged. Have you seen those screens that latch on the back of the front seats head rests? They’re mostly for children to watch to distract them but I hooked one up and put a ps2 slim console inside the center glove department. Good times for people not driving lol.
There's a failing of virtually all monochrome TVs too: They have mean level AGC instead of gated which (nearly all) colour sets have. So dark scenes are always a murky grey colour, they never do real black even though the tube is perfectly capable of doing so.
I am wondering why these black and white portable tvs have a blue tint? 🤔
@@chrisdigitalartist Colour temperature of the CRT phosphor but also depends on how the camera was white-balanced before recording. Some first generation colour TVs in the UK had a relay (or similar) that made the picture more blue to match the appearance of a typical b/w TV.
@@HowardLeVert oh interesting! Thank you!
Yeah, I had a cheap black and white TV as a kid. When the picture should have turned completely dark, it went light grey instead. I remember wondering why, was it something wrong with the TV? I now understand that it wasn't, it was just a crappy design. :)
I'm not entirely sure of the design features of UK televisions but most B&W sets here in America had gated (aka, keyed AGC). It's certainly possible that corner cutting may have deleted this feature. But the main reason for the gray screen on dark scenes is lack of DC coupling in the video circuits. And unfortunately, most B&W sets were designed this way. A set without this feature will deliver an acceptable picture under most circumstances since most scenes have significant light and dark components (AC signals). But predominantly dark scenes are conveyed by a direct current voltage, which AC coupled video circuits cannot provide. Interestingly, the same problem occurs with bright scenes-- the picture comes out washed out. This generally does not happen with color sets, which require full DC video coupling to produce faithful color pictures.
One of the TVs he showed us was manufactured in 2005. Thé iPhone came out in June 2007. This means that TV could still been in a store shelf when the iPhone was out. That’s stunning
That would be like going to Walmart in 2015 and seeing both VHS tapes and DVDS.
@@hrearden6993 Agreed
Really? CRTs were still the majority of new TV sales around then. When it switched over it was abrupt but not far from then.
@@bangerbangerbro Excellent point.
@@bangerbangerbro Indeed, but _black and white_ CRTs wouldn't have been very common at that time.
These TV sets were very popular in Greek military outposts in the 2000's, before digital TV. I would have the TV set in a corner keeping me company as I was standing guard lol 🤣
Salute
🇹🇷
@@ColonelHax 🤡
Analog TV will always hold a special place in my heart. It will forever sadden me that I'll never have the joy of fine tuning a VHF/UHF TV ever again.
With SDRs it is easy to make TV transmitters.
I agree old school analog TV is part of the past😣
And getting those rabbit ears adjusted just right!
Better to have static than tiling.
In 1995, my family had a long car trip from Oklahoma to Virginia to move, and we had a tiny miniature black and white TV similar to this model, hooked up to a VCR to provide entertainment in the back seat. We got VHS tapes at a gas station, and when we arrived at our new house and hooked up our full-size TV, I was surprised the tapes were actually in color!
If there had been a service such as the FCC reception maps and Radio Locator back then with today's smartphone technology, you probably could have used the over-the-air functionality on your old portable TV while allowing those sites to track your location to pull in various stations to watch TV on as you passed in and out of the many various TV markets between Oklahoma to Virginia. This is, of course, on the possibly incorrect assumption that your model had an AM/FM radio tuner in it.
@@scratchpad7954 I was 5 years old at the time and while it did have an aerial the reception wasn't very good.
@@scratchpad7954 Back then it was simple. You just tuned around to see what you could receive. Sometimes you'd lose the signal before even hearing a station ID or broadcast city, and it would remain a mystery. I still tune around the radio dial on road trips. Nowadays of course, online tools are helpful for tracking down what mystery station I had received on a certain frequency in a certain region.
I have actually received high-power FM stations over 80 miles from the transmitter numerous times (line-of-sight reception, not E-skip). I did this too with a pocket radio in an airplane, and estimate reception over 100 miles.
I'm slightly embarrassed that 11 year old me wanted, and got, one of these for Christmas in 2005. But I'll hand it to it that it still worked fine when I donated it to the thrift store a decade later. Mine had the A/V jacks, which was nice.
I wanted one so badly at that age I went out and bought one the moment I had enough money for one c2002.wonderful times playing perfect dark, WWF Wrestlemania:the arcade game, and Ghost Recon on it… too bad I parted ways with it. loved when it picked up tv signals from Mexico
@@beerrox711 Badass
I still have one of these which I use in a somewhat novel application: I have a small equipment shed behind my garage, which houses some of my amateur radio equipment. I needed a way to monitor some of the operational parameters of one of the radios I had in this shed. So, since I ALSO had a Standard brand cable TV modulator that was agile, I rack mounted this modulator in the shed, and then added a video surveillance camera that has infrared LED illumination that is pointed at the metering of my radio. I then take the video out of the camera and run it to the video IN of the TV modulator. I set the modulator on old TV channel 13, and put a 1/4 wave whip on the modulator's RF output port. This B&W TV sits in my radio room in my house several yards away. And by careful focusing of the camera, in addition to careful tuning of the TV, I can quite easily read the metering of the radio. As for the annoying hum to which you referred, I found that could be largely mitigated by doing two things: 1) turning down the brightness control, and 2)carefully adjusting the RF tuning so as to SLIGHTLY offset the 4.5 MHz sound subcarrier . Like you, I paid a whopping $2 for my TV at a yard sale. But it came WITH the proper AC adapter, so I don't need to use batteries. Also, some of the audio hum noted when powering the TV from the AC adapter can be lessened by keeping the AC adapter as far away as possible from the TV, and running the DC input line through a toroid several times. Nearly all B & W TVs used a lot lower HV from the flyback, as there was no need for the 25 KV commonly found on color sets. Since I can turn the brightness up on mine until it nearly inverts the video, why waste money on the extra size and cost of a 25 KV flyback?
I still have one of those and it still turns on. That little TV got my family through Hurricane Ike back in 2008. As usual before a hurricane all the batteries in all sizes were sold out , so I went to Sam's Club and found a small 12 volt car battery, which lasted the entire 2 weeks we were without power. When we all went digital here in the states, I purchased a new color rechargeable battery operated TV and that battery swelled up and made it inoperable in less than a year. Those little sets were cheap as hell, but they worked amazingly well.
Same here. I remember when Hurricane Ike hit Houston, this little TV is what gave my family and I news information about what was going on. It was a God send during those moments.
I had some similar little TV, but it was officially on battery, I think it was for C or D size, I had some ni-mh cells from old notebook, so I made it rechargable. :-D
Hope you read my little story above and thank you for posting yours!
I used to have one of these around 2009. I remember hooking up a gamecube to it and thinking to myself "That's the sharpest Wind Waker I've ever seen" Even though it was monochrome, the game looked absolutely fantastic on it, like it was in HD or something. The clarity was unbelievable.
Played ghost recon on mine with my GameCube, it really did look great…though I had to use the night vision googles to fight enemies in the day time levels lol… Perfect Dark(N64) and Wrestlemania the arcade game (SNES) we’re flawless on it.
@@beerrox711 Such a fantastic little retro-gaming TV. being monochrome just adds to that retro feel. lmao
Now it sucks and looks horrible after seeing the good TVs
@@woozleification Pixel density. Game Boy Micro has such a small screen that GBA games look fantastic. In fact because of the classic NES series NES games look better on a Gameboy micro 144p screen than they did if you played NES games for the Wii U Virtual Console in 1080p
On sept 11 2001 I was working in a machine shop Here in St Louis MO. We heard a few radio interruptions decrying the goings on of that day. We had no tv's in the shop. I snuck out and went to a Walgreens next door and bought one of these and made it back in under 5 min. I threw the tv in a cabinet near my machine and started watching the news broadcast's. Within a few minutes there was 30 people staring at the little tv. We were all watching it when the send plane hit the 2nd tower..... I kept the tv in the cabinet until 2014 when we rearranged the shop. I tried it out but it was toast. I reluctantly through it away.
Omg 9/11 date
Should’ve enshrined it as an artifact
Alot of those old Analog and Portable TVs from the 1980s until the 2000s, both black and white and color, were pretty much the way many people were able to see alot of the then trending news events occurring in the United States at the time from the 1990s until the end of Analog TV on Full-Power TV stations in 2009.
0:24 I begged my mother to get this TV when I was a kid!! I still remember it was 99$ (Canadian) at the time! We weren't that rich but sure enough, she managed to get me one for christmas!!! And I still own it today!! I would bring it on Road Trips sitting in the back of our 1987 Hyundai Pony! Trying to find channels to watch as they would fade in and out as we drove along!! It's sad that there are no more analog stations.
I wanted my grandmother's black and white tv radio combo so bad when I was a kid in 95. She wouldnt give it up. I still love my grandmother for protecting me from disappointment.
This looks ideal if you want something resembling a period-correct experience when using a Timex Sinclair 1000.
But its not period correct these tvs are from the 2000s the Timex Sinclair 1000 is from the early 80s 2x older.
@@belstar1128 It would be period correct only in the sense the Sinclair ZX81 (UK)/Times-Sinclair 1000 (US) outputted a low res B&W image amend so a tiny decent 5” B&W TW would have displayed the image adequately (though maybe I suspect the text size might have been too small for many people on such a small screen). I doubt however you could get the Spectra shown in the vid to display the ZX81/TS-1000’s image adequately enough given how poor the VCR image looked on it. Unfortunately I no longer have my old 90’s era 5” B&W Colby TV or my 80’s TS-1000 computer to test this out.
@@Charlesb88 I think people would be metter off just hooking it up to a color crt.
@@belstar1128 but the idea would be that since the ZX81\TS-1000 is a very tiny computer it would just about fit the width of a 5” TV and would create a certain athletic look, at least for display purpose in one’s own retro computer collection. If you really wanted to use the computer then a better color CRT would make a better display but that computer is pretty handspring with limited resources and no sound anyways so there is better retro home micros IMO to play around with these days if you seriously want to do old school basic or assembly language programming or play retro games. I could see this combo being employed by a demo scene programmer wanting to turn their ZX-81/TS-1000 into a art piece maybe.
@@Charlesb88 I guess but the silvery color this tv has looks like typical 2000s not really similar to what people used with the zx 81.
The last CRT I remember seeing was being used as a security camera monitor, it was a small B&W not much bigger than those TVs. The image quality wasn't much better either, even Sasquatch could make an appearance without fear of being recognised.
My local Big Lots just got rid of theirs last year with the store remodel. It was a massive 32" hooked up to a camera that hung right over the cash register from the ceiling.
I think a saw Sasquatch fancing with Chupacabras on one of those TVs. But I mistook for some America's Got Talent show
I see them sometimes in stores. My dentist has one playing over the air channels. They’re actually really easy to notice now, as they usually have decent forward facing speakers, and good color/contrast. Cheap small LCDs look worse and sound worse too. There’s some level of comfort from watching an analog tv.
There's a CRT computer monitor still at my local Kohl's. And my local small grocery store had CRT monitors and Windows 2000 Professional towers until it closed in like 2018.
my grandparents still had CRT TV with settopbox not so far time ago, I also had one just for fun when I had retro mood :-) it's sad that TV died, I planned buy some PS1 or PS2 and play on that
The one I had back in the 80s was built like a tank - small, B&W, with a built in radio with tuner specifically for broadcast TV. Had it on my desk next to my Atari which was running on a full color JVC box monitor similar to the Commodore 64 monitor. Could watch TV while playing around with my BBS.
I still remember my Atari and commodore 64 with cassettes ❤️
Go Sabres! Hello from depew.
I loved these little tv's. As a kid living on a boat in an anchorage back when solar was less efficient and more expensive, these were incredibly battery efficient and connected to older and newer gaming consoles alike. It wasn't fancy but it sure was dependable. Camping too. And the AM/FM radio was very much appreciated too. And the manual tuning is superior to digital where digital omits less than perfect signals completely.
I can imagine its hard to get a perfect digital signal in anchorage too, lol
They even had a built in radio which
Was cool.
A radio and t.v. all in one.
Neat.
These t.v.s were only great if you couldn't
Afford to get a t.v.
Gaming on a boat in anchorage Alaska…. you had a heck of a childhood! Hope it was good, it sounds like an adventure.
Kept one of these around for hurricanes.
My one in Europe (Czech Republic) does have VHF TV :).
Nice 👍
Mine had that, too. (Hungary)
(I no longer have mine.)
europe got rid of vhf not in mid 80s, but after dvb-t adoption, after 2000, and not immediately, europe was slower to adopt dtv than usa...
@@ivok9846
Dude, "Europe" is not a country.
Only some European countries, such as the UK, got rid of VHF in the mid-1980s. Most kept it.
In the late seventies, we had our last b&w tv.
It had a very common feature at the time: both the remote and the antenna were the same object: me, the youngest sibling.
We bought some to use as a monitor for our security cameras. Still have one for over a decade connected to a camera. They work great if you wanted to keep an eye on an area. I also used them as a cheap portable monitor when I would film, to get see if I was recording to my DVR and the position of the image if I need to adjust the camera.
Cheers from Italy, I have a completely unbranded one very similar to the "spectra" you showed in the video. My grandfather won it playing cards and gave it to me once he quickly bored of it. It does have VL, VH and UHF sintonizations. Since Italy switched to digital only in 2012 I got quite a bit of use out of it.
When I lived in China I recall seeing Taobao sellers selling CRT retro TV's from Korea. This was back in 2010 or so. They looked pretty nice and were digital ready. I think they were color too. I should have bought one.
That would’ve been so cool!
I think I know the type you are talking about. Yes, Samsung did release a retro style CRT TV in 2010 with the dials and everything. Extremely difficult to find nowadays tho. Not even eBay or most online market places have it. And TH-cam videos on it are rare and mostly not in English.
@@Alistaire1985 LG made them too
Gamerlafan has it in action
@@bitelaserkhalif Yes! The ones on Taobao were LG.
Same in Thailand
In the early 2000's we got one of these to use in the car. We plugged it into an inverter and hooked it up to a VHS player or an Nintendo to keep the kids occupied as we drove up to Maine or on camping trips. It was one of the best $25 investments I ever made!
I think you could have got one for less than $25.
@@hrearden6993 probably!
This video was particularly insightful for me, as I currently drive a ‘98 Volkswagen Jetta.
I have a black & white portable TV called the Ambassador, saw it on a shelf in Savers. In the store I barely touched the volume knob, it went off at FULL volume saying "Do you have chronic diarrhea!?" Bought it on the spot. In 2015 when it was brought home playing with all the knobs and dials it actually picked up a TV station with a land rover commercial and then a dancing show! I live in MN.
tf2
@@jenniferdunbar4899 this has nothing to do with team fortress 2
Haha! Great story!
Who the hell is MN ?
@@TheFalseShepphard Minnesota?
I remember when I bought in in 2007, to use it in a case of war (do not be laugh, I am from Bosnia and Herzegovina) hospitalization (and it was used for this purpose) and for camping and vacations (never used for this purpose, because neighbour Croatia shut down analogue TV, Bosnia in 2021 still uses analogue TV). However, this TV did not last for a long time, but it is not strange for this price.
Would the TV have been used to keep up to date on things happening in case of needing to move around quickly? Similar to the way a radio might have been?
@@JimJamTheAdmin could be
Bosnia still uses analog television? I didn't know that since Serbia shut it down just like Croatia a few years ago, to comply with EU regulations. That's very interesting, one of the rare places in Europe I assume! Maybe I can catch some channels since I live close to the border? That would be pretty cool!
@@JimJamTheAdmin yeah, since analog TV is still up you could just connect your TV to a battery and you'd have access to the channels with national and regional frequencies
I had one of these as a kid. Keep in mind that this was the first time truly portable video was available to the masses. The fact that you could watch TV in the car, even if it was a staticy picture and even if you could only pick up two or three stations in any given area, was revolutionary in the 90s. (Yes, there were color sets with larger screens that could be hardwired to a vehicle's electrical system, but you'd typically only see them on coach buses and such as these systems were well beyond the price range of the typical consumer.)
There were smaller handheld TVs available at that time.
@@johnjacob688 yes, like the size of a gameboy. I had one and loved it.
I like how hes like "These were garbage" and all the comments are "I remember these so fondly!"
4:56 you were supposed to use a flat head screw driver to adjust those settings (I worked for RCA/GE Thompson Consumer Electronics in the late 90s-early 2000s - we had a GE version of this - it looked exactly like the Memorex except white & a color variant) - they were designed that way so they didn't accidentally get bumped in the back and you had to purposefully adjust them. I used one for my camper - it worked fine. You can get the HDTV adaptor at Walmart for like $10 to use on these old TVs. I have one for my old 13 inch RCA ColorTrak.
You made me laugh when you mentioned the flat head. I did not realize those antennas would work on adapting the old tv's! Thanks for the tip!
We really have come quite a long way since I was small, watching a 12" black & white TV in my bedroom, venturing through to the lounge which boasted the HUGE 24" colour TV set. If nothing was on we'd stick a copied cassette into the Betamax! What a time to be alive!!
I got one of these at a goodwill for 2$ in 2019. It was missing the battery cover so I nearly didn’t get it. Then I found it at the cash register being used as a coaster by the employee.
Lol that’s funny
One of the best things about this channel is not only learning about old and unique tech, but also about the features of the 1997 Jetta. Keep up the good work.
Didn’t expect these to be so cheap when they were new, but it does make sense when it has been designed to cut costs. It would be a nice set to try and “upgrade” or modify with additional inputs or to receive digital broadcasts since they can be easily obtained, but it might be a bit tricky due to the integrated chips.
It's looks like it's basically a security monitor with the camera inputs removed, so I'd bet it would have been cheap as hell to manufacture
Yeah, it was made at the point where the circuitry was all integrated and the CRT factories were still in operation. Plus the B&W tubes need less than color sets to work. The only thing different with these sets is really down to the cosmetics of the housing and what brand it was sold under.
you can. go buy a cheap DTV external box take the external antenna port on the TV hook it to the box set the tv to 3 or 4 hook an antenna up of your choice and do a channel search i tried it when DTV was first coming around and it was cool also i used to have cable TV from Comcast so i used to flip between vhf and UHF with the cable from the cable system and watch TV that way to no digital cable just straight from the wall cable
It would be interesting if the DTV box circuitry could be combined within the tv itself so it could work like it did with analog, but it’s nice that the DTV boxes can still be obtained easily and that they work great.
Maybe break apart one of those HDMI to composite adapters, and cut the traces to the tuner and solder the composite wire to it. Then do the same with the audio line, but solder both stereo wires to the mono trace. Finish it off with a panel mount HDMI so it can stick out the back... Then it would be a perfect monitor for piping a terminal emulator into, especially with something like bb running.
I remember seeing these for sale at an outlet store between 2010 and 2014, for $10, advertised as an emergency radio with monitor.
Can you possibly connect these with an inverter box
That is about all they are worth and good for.
I have no doubt you've been told this already, but it's mostly just the UK that only used UHF. Ireland had VHF analogue until it was shut off last decade, as did France, though only for Canal+. It's true that most of Western Europe only uses UHF now though.
Yup. We had one low band VHF transmitter in the Netherlands until the analog switch off in 2006. Apart from that everything was on UHF
The UK did use VHF up until 405-line was abolished. I have childhood memories of being able to listen to the audio off BBC 2(?) on a radio I had.
I still remember when Argos here in Ireland had "Not available in the Republic of Ireland" stamped on most of the TVs in its catalogue due to lacking a VHF tuner. We picked up RTÉ One and (formerly) Network 2 on VHF channels 9 and 11 from what I recall, right up until the October 2012 analogue switch-off.
Same in Germany: VHF Channel 9 was in use as long as I can remember till the end of analog TV. Analog cable even had the whole VHF Band in use.
We in the UK used VHF channels for 405 line black and white TV broadcasting. It was discontinued in 1985 and VHF hasn't been used for TV since. 625 line TV and later colour was always UHF only here.
I had one of these on my desk in college. It was handy for some noise as a I studied. My model had an analog channel selector, and if you put it halfway between channels 13 and 14, it would sometimes pick up analog cellular calls (this was early 90s), at least the half being sent out from the car. My buddy and I had some fun with that.
These TV's aren't that bad and I actually love their portability. I have one in my house and it holds a special place in my heart cause nostalgia, btw I'm 2000's kid
omg wtf u r so old lmao😂
My dad used to have one of these.
Im also a 2000s kid. This things bring so many memories. I remember my dad watching the news on one of this in a tiny hotel room with no tv circa 2009-10. I think that was when blackberries were still popular, i dont remember. Ah, the nostalgia...
We had one in our kitchen during the 2000s for hearing the local news while my parents cooked dinner. Being a 90s kid and a teen during the 2000s led me to see so many old world tech still exist as digital began to take over. We still had one of these when the main family TV and my TV had been converted to flatscreens
@@michaelj8582 black pfp, name is Michael, invalid opinion.
@@fbi1307 its a joke. wooosh
Man, her shorts were about the most "90's American tourist" thing I've ever seen.
All she's missing is the visor and big ass camera around her neck.
If you happen to have a Jetta with power windows, or power sunroof, you also get the convenience of a closing feature built into the system.
By holding the key in the locking position, your power windows and sunroof will automatically close.
Welcome to the "watch to the end" club.
@thevacdude
I have the same version of this car but in a hatchback version called the VW Golf from 1995.
I saw that part and thought, huh, I wonder how many cars have this feature and people just don't know about it. I suppose it's likely this either never caught on or was phased out after people started using keys that can unlock from a distance, but it still makes me wonder.
@@TheOneGuy1111 True there really isn't much need for it since that feature is included in the key fob today on many cars.
@@TheOneGuy1111 A lot of cars have this feature nowadays. Just hold the close button for a few seconds and it's likely that all the windows will close.
I made a little computer with one of these, and some more information about them: The components are quite bad, and some spots aren't even soldered all the way so you can increase the quality a bunch by just resoldering everything and replacing shotty parts.
I have a blue one of these from my old job. Basically, when you work in shipping and receiving, vendors often send some kind of weird free gift. I have free multi-tools and camp chairs and so forth. My predecessor must have gotten the TV that way, as a promo item, and he left in on the big desk in the warehouse that I inherited. It was still in the box, which featured people camping and at ball games, places you could supposedly watch this TV. Of course, nobody in the pictures on the box is actually *watching* this TV, lol.
Is it an old Coby? They made a few but the blue ones where quite rare
I still have a couple of these from my dad. He bought them for CCTV camera use but switched to a different system and kept them spare. I've used them for testing electronics but I mostly just admire these random little nuggets.
Those TVs made me remember my days I spent installing analog Cu band satellite dishes for a living during my teen years. This small TVs were very handy to fine tune the dish in the roof.
My kids will never know the small pleasure of running your fingers over the screen to feel the tingling static.
And then touching a doorknob and getting shocked lol.
I don't even think most of Gen Z knows that feeling.
I have that exact model from Radio Shack under the Curtis brand. It was great to use on road trips if I could get a TV signal on the interstate
I remember having one of these in the early 2000's. My mom gave me one as a little Christmas present and I just remembered being amazed that it was a better powered TV. Now here I am watching movies on a phone lol. But I do remember having this thing during a series of really bad tornadoes in my county once and the comfort of watching the weather man reporting on the storm situation with my family when the power went out
Dude that story transported me into it.
@@coffeepot3123 same 😂
If I remember my mom sold one TV in around 2015 the worst part is the TV was getting better with the time
I got one of those for $5 at a grocery store (new) in the late 90s, it fit perfectly between the dash and center console of my car, I also had a TV antenna that suction cupped to the roof.
Which grocery store was it?
@@hrearden6993 King Soopers (Kroger)
"a TV antenna that suction cupped to the roof." I keep forgetting how stupid 90s tech looked.
@@YokiDokiPanic Look up the Sony VCA-4, that is what I had.
There's something oddly nostalgic about these junky little TVs. Their tinny speakers, bad picture quality and radio buzz brings back memories of a time when my friend and I used to camp at an old shack out in the hills. It had one of these hooked to a car battery with a set of old stereo speakers. That coupled with the sound of steak cooking on a drum lid in the afternoon while we sat around the fire with a drink was the life.
I've got the Spectra TV, bought it for $12 at Kmart back in 2003. Came as part of a TV-flashlight set. The flashlight was one with a big-lens and uses 4 AA batteries. The TV was just a TV, no radio. I used it quite a bit in my bedroom back when I had a one-bedroom apt. Mostly watched sports or stuff like "Kojak" reruns. A few years back, I hooked it up to a digital converter box. It was kind of surreal, using a full-function remote control on a 5-inch B&W set.
The older CNC machines I repair at work still have CRT displays. Occasionally we've needed to replace them and surprisingly they're still serviced by some suppliers.
We used to replace CRT monitors for old phone systems till not too long ago. We only stopped because the company was no longer providing service contracts for older systems.
The last CRTs manufactured were for Airplanes (such as 737,757,767 and maybe even some older models) and some other vey niche uses. Toshiba made them until 2019/2020. These would of course start in the 50k$ range all in...
"Peter, show us how to us the special keys to unlock the Jetta's doors!"
"Sure, Suzie! Remember, your Jetta comes with specially made keys that will only work with your car. Hold the key between your thumb and forefinger just like this. Now, raise you hand in line with the doorlock. Remember, don't raise your hand too high or you might damage the paintwork. Move your hand slowly forwards until the key engages with the lock. Keep pushing forward until it stops. See, just like this. It's easy!"
😆😎
Exactly how my brother got pregnant... it started in a car commercial like this one.
@LaSanye West good times
There is something special in this idiot friendly approach for which the US is so famous, be it good or bad. :)
To be fair, VolksWagen cars *does* comes with many great and inovative features - like the one enabling it to sense when it's being tested, so it can cheat on the emission test!
@@baardkopperud the US made the phone smart and we germans make our cars smart enough to cheat emission testing 😂
I used to date a woman years ago (mid 2010s) who had two of these at her house, one as second TV set and the smaller one (similar to those shown here) as CCTV monitor. I don’t know practically anything about image frequencies or electronics but I was aware that digital TV had rendered analog stations pretty obsolete, although here the official announcements weren’t made until 2020. I think the sets she had worked on input data through cable so that might have made them usable beyond their expected life span. As a kid in the 80s I had a b/w spare TV set which worked well on UHF and VHF frequencies and I could even get TV stations from neighbouring provinces. It’s quite impressive how we dealt with such primitive technology by modern standards and yet kept ourselves informed and educated on a daily basis. Greetings from south Buenos Aires province, Argentina.
I have one of these, it only has a TV tuner and the front is see-through on mine (it's branded by Bruneau, other than that... Nothing else.) I belive you can mod these to add a composite (Luminance really) just by cutting a jumper and inserting a CVBS/Luma signal on a pin of the main IC.
I can confirm these are... A pain in the rear, on a lot of these the DC input jack is often flaky (it's a weak point on these!), on mine I had to readjust the yoke, and lemme say that these are usually filled with hot glue (or "hot snot"), the tuning indicator strip also often pops out and good luck trying to get it back together without the strip popping off... It's a whole other ordeal.
But despite this, I like mine, and I would really love to find another one with the radio tuner and swap in a green or amber phosphor tube just for the Hell of it.
I have those 5 or 6. For most, I have made a modification to how the composite video signal works. They can be used as a cheap surveillance monitor.
@@jaymercy224 Mine (got it from my uncle actually) already had the composite jack on its back.. I really should dig it up and see if it still works, I remember the last time I tested it I had to fiddle around with the power jack to make it work.
If it has a clear case it might be one that was sold for use by inmates in prisons (they were made clear to prevent them from being used to hide contraband.). Techmoan did a video last year on that type of thing.
@@thesledgehammerblog Well it's not fully clear, only the front is (partially see-through but not clear), but the back of the TV is fully solid ^^
I've owned three of these, although I think I may have thrown two of them away. I definitely kept the one with a composite input because I can connect it to a Raspberry Pi - they're great for things like ZX81/TS1000 emulators. I'm in the UK and these TVs still have the VHF tuning function, even though it's useless. The last VHF TV transmissions here were in 1985, and those were the old 405-line system.
As a card carrying member of the VWestlife Geek Club, I too had one of these.
Actually asked for it for Christmas around 2005 or so from Walgreens around SE Mich
Purpose was to use as a remote monitor via composite video input, which my version had
Other geek uses nowadays besides retro-cool-ery could be period accurate Pong system gaming or other 70s era video games, arcade emulated or home systems that were bw, only or designed for use with bw tvs like the 2600 and similar
Some monochrome arcade machines of the 70s used green screens
I used my Christmas money in 2002 to buy one ($35) Spent a lot of time playing video games on it. Good times being lazy in bed playing my SNES, N64 and GameCube. I’m in Los Angeles so it was always a fun activity to try and improve reception enough to try and watch the Mexican tv channels. just to watch the Spanish dubs of shows that were cable/satellite programs in the US. I threw it out in 2012 because I couldn’t find the right transformer to power it up… I still regret doing that (never tried eBay). I bought a 1979 set on eBay 2 years ago but it’s just not the same, no AV inputs and the crt isn’t as crisp as mine was….
I remember those green-screen arcade machines - I think they used vector scanning, rather than raster. Very sharp images.
It's crazy that the production of the last black and white tube TV and the first smartphone were only about one year apart.
The decade 2000-2010 was arguably the most rapid technological development in human history. In 2000, CRTs (1950s technology) were still in common use across the country. The Internet, while becoming quite popular, was still in its infancy. Cell phones were just that - cellular phones that could receive and make calls wirelessly. Camcorders and VHS, still using 1970s magnetic storage technology, were common, as were film cameras.
By 2010, CRTs were all but extinct. The advent of smartphones allowed one to record videos, browse the Internet, read digital books, check the news, update social media, and so much more, all in the palm of one's hand.
2000 arguably resembled 1980 (or even 1970) more than 2010.
@@scottkrafft6830 this thought occurred to me too lol, especially in our household where we didn't gain internet access until 2007. So until then, we largely lived life like it was the 80s, except we had some better videogames with our PS1 and 2. Touchscreens and wireless tech really changed the game. If you showed 2002 me the tech such as smartphones, drones with gopros, VR sets, etc. that would be available just 15 years later, I'd think you were from the year 2050, not now
My family used this TV back in 2004-2005 during hurricanes. We lost power for an extended period of time but it was nice to watch TV without having electricity. I remember by dad used so many C batteries that he was complaining about having to constantly change them lol.
Love ur pfp
For 2002 that circuitboard was actually surprisingly decent. Higher tech manufacturers were beginning to use SMDs at that time, which were much cheaper but took more advanced manufacturing. They could have saved tons if they made the board SMD, the amount of time it would take to do through hole for all those components probably contributed to the cost a lot.
It's not necessarily true that the two models came out of different factories, it's just as likely that they were a few years apart and the company just replaced moulds as they wore out or sourced some components from different suppliers.
Let’s all appreciate the hard work that goes into making these videos!
I had one of these. I think it was Curtis brand and it had composite input. I didn't think it was that bad besides being B&W? It was really really sharp hooked up to my GameCube. Decent for $30.
I did the same! lol
Really? I just seen a Curtis model one at the thrift store today. I may have played around with it had I known it had composite lol
@@DJStKittz I soldered my own onto it.
Same GameCube and Ps2 used to LAN play
Yes I had an N64, SNES, and GameCube on regular rotation with mine… good times
My mom use to have one of these in the kitchen for many years, we used it with cable TV, so the lack of analogue broadcast wasn't an issue. It got replaced with a small LED TV in 2015!
I have something similar (as a novelty): Its a 80's boombox with with a small color TV (tube by Samsung). I refurbished about 2 years ago, replaced the capacitators, cleaned the switches, and replaced the belts on the cassette mechanism. It surprisingly also has a monitor input too, and a digital (red) clock that can turn on, or off the TV, or the radio!
Crazy to think that your mother abandoned her own child just to fit another TV in the kitchen, I hope things are better for you now.
@@OstrichNipples ???
@@TomPrickVixen You edited that I to an it to make me look stupid, I'm on to you brother man
@@OstrichNipples Than don't make stupid jokes! + u can delete it.
And if u want to hurt, or kill my brother I'll help!
@@TomPrickVixen 😒
I used one of these as the monitor on my satellite TV for my MythTV setup back in the day. Let me keep an eye on the satellite to make sure it hadn't done something strange. It was left turned on all the time on the server rack and if I passed by it and saw something strange on the screen I could clear it before any more recordings were scheduled. After about 5-6 years of continued use it just finally died and was replaced with a small LCD TV.
The converter boxes are still fairly common, so you could buy one of these and connect to your antenna port if you thought it was worth it. I do this all the time with my old restored tube sets.
Am I alone in wanting to learn more about the features of the Jetta after watching this...?
It may be my next VHS Night video.
I'd say their voracious appetite for batteries relegated more of these to forgotten storage areas more so than anything else. I don't think it's fair to cast these as complete pieces of junk. Sure, it's not world class engineering that went into these, but the design looks pretty clean and really, how can one complain for less than $20? You're not out a lot if something terrible happens to it, and it is far better than no TV or radio if you'd ever find yourself desperate for one.
I bought one new in a grocery store for about $12, sold under the Coby name and equipped with the A/V input. (It even came with an antenna adapter suitable for twinlead.) The TV audio's rather buzzy, though I don't care since it only sees use as a video monitor.
I remember having a blue transparent version when putting things in transparent plastic was cool, and I even had a Coleman version you could crank for power and it was a TV, AM/FM/Weather radio, flashlight, lantern, siren, and a little storage space for stuff. I got it in 2003 thinking it was so cool lol.
My dad owned one of those small b&w TVs, the fact that a TV could run on batteries never failed to blew me away.
I've actually used one of those, I was at my grandparents house after they passed away and there was no cable TV at their house, but we were cleaning up, and I was really bored, and I was able to tune in a single channel, I believe it was past the digital TV transition, so it must have been a low power station that was still broadcasting. It was some animated children's movie, maybe religious, I can't remember. I was just happy I got to watch a bit of TV.
If you can connect a VCR, why can't you connect an OTA digital TV converter box? And those picture adjustment verniers were likely intentionally placed high to make them difficult to inadvertently adjust and throw that crystal-clear picture out of whack. Notice they are slotted to accept a small flat screwdriver for adjusting.
I remember my parents used to run a grocery store in 2010 and I took one of these TV´s with me so that I had something to do while waiting for clients.
Analogue TV was still a thing (At least in my country.) and smartphones and TH-cam weren´t as big as they are now.
Essa televisão tem algo a ver com o Brasil? Eu tinha uma exatamente igual, até assustei quando vi a thumb, e lembro de ver várias pessoas com uma parecida
I miss those TVs with the DVD player and/or VCR built in... Those were hardcore.
@@walmarp Love those things as well, I still have a tv vcr combo with my old video game consoles connected.
We had a bad snow storm years ago. Our power was out for several days. I had one of these little TVs that also ran on battery power. I also had a hand crank radio. And I had a Coleman camp stove to cook on. I remember telling my wife that we were the only family in the neighborhood that could watch TV, listen to the radio, and cook meals.
Oh man, I had completely forgotten about these! I bought one new in the late 90s that I integrated into a go-kart I had built, along with a VCR and stereo. It was always a huge hit at the local car audio shops' weekend shows! Horrible little TV, but fun as heck. :)
Lol, I bought one of those for use as an emergency TV in storms. It lasted 90 days and I couldn't bring it back because the store I bought it from moved out of the mall lol.
You're not supposed to take them back to the store. Besides, the warranty is only 90 days, anyway.
We still have analog here in the Philippines and since we get hit by typhoons a lot, and it means power outages are very likely, this would be very handy too.
not going to be atleast in 2023
I'm in Australia, we had analog VHF/UHF TV much later than the USA, as late as 2013 in some areas.
Before I retired I was a bus driver and the trips I used to do meant I'd be sitting in my bus for many hours after delivering the passengers to the show, match, wedding etc. that they were attending that evening.
I used one of these little TVs for years powered from the auxilliary socket on the bus (there were 12 volt as well as a 24 volt sockets), it gave me AM/FM radio and TV which occupied my evenings. There's only so much bus cleaning or reading one can do and this little Black and White TV basically saved my sanity.
These seem like really good candidates for music visualizer conversions. I think I have a Memorex one of these laying around somewhere I might hack up...
That's why I drove 30 miles to get the one for free that I did. That was about 5 years ago and it's still on a shelf untouched.
@@awesomeferret Ha! You sound like me!
My TVs are so old, they all go up to channel 83.
Civic TV: the station you take to bed with you =D
My TV is so old it only goes up to channel 13. It also goes all the way down to 1.
As a kid I always wondered why I never saw any stations up that high.
No idea why YT deleted my comment that there was a channel 68 reachable from rabbit ears many years ago.
6:08 "How the world connects!" *Starts lawnmower
LOL! Not sure what lawnmowers have to do with global communication, but I'm listening...
🤣🤣🤣