Philips TF 2403 - old consoles need old TVs

[CatPix]

I had been looking for one of those in a long time. Vintage, black and white, simple and plain TV from the 60's and 70's.
Sadly here, they are getting rare, since no video apparel was sold with RF out since... 1995, including VCR. So since the switchover to digital, they are getting rare.

But I managed to find one, and it's in excellent shape for it's age (44 years old according to the seller, a nice ederly couple) 

(now with no more Photobucket of sh*t and with clickable links)







Everything is under control... and locked.









I rarely have seen such a plain TV back. There isn't even any Philips logo or name on it.
Interestingly, the TV feature an audio out for tape recorders and one for "auditive help".









Back in those days when EVERY part of your TV was made locally.




A tubes TV.











A convenient "map" of the TV, and even more conveniently printed in French.





I have yet to try the PC-Engine on it. There might be a chance that the TV takes 60 htz kindly. 

[Gypsy]

Gaming in black and white, that's something. Can't say I'd want to do it myself.

But yeah if you want something like this it can be tricky. Thrift stores won't even take most tube tvs, let alone older ones like this that are b/w or in a cabinet type thing.

[NecroPhile]

Kinda neat...  but why?

[CatPix]

I collect old electronics in general.
I have an even older TV, but the reparations on that model are a little over my abilities at the moment and the video standard it use was phased out in 1981 so recreating it is tricky.

Color TV started to outsold black and white TV in the mid 80's.
That mean that even if most of the systems released up to the mid 80's were color, most people enjoyed them in black and white (or green and white for old computers).
People that imported system from the US and plugged them on European TV would fidn out that almost none of them supported NTSC prior to the 90's so even on color TVs most people played in black and white too.
Black and white is part of video gaming and of television history.

Plus damn it's a cool looking TV. 

[SignOfZeta]

Nice!

My first gaming TV was b/w, from about 1977 probably. The only systems were junk like 2600 and Odyssey so it's not like anyone cared. Even arcade games were b/w in the beginning....

There are absolutely RF out devices made after 1995 though. Examples include, just from what I have around the house, my VCR/DVD recorder from 2006, my Sega Saturn RF switch, my cable box...some other shit, I'm sure.

[esteban]

I have yet to try the PC-Engine on it. There might be a chance that the TV takes 60 htz kindly. 

Comrade, I love that TV.



My parents always told me and my brothers to play outside or read a book—so, my Dad would only let us watch TV on special occasions.

An old B/W TV...the first 12-13 years of my life was in b/w:

Three's Company
Cartoons (anime)
Star Trek (original and TNG)
Dr. Who
Blake's 7
Atari 2600
Apple II

In 1987-88, we finally got a color TV (and NES shortly thereafter).

~20 years ago, I got this beauty:



RCA Victor 19"-20" b/w circa ____

...but, sadly, the cost of replacing the vacuum tubes and ______ were so crazy (even in late 90's), that I was unable to restore it.

So I did a horrible thing and gutted it (modern CRT, cable box hidden behind speaker grill, new speakers + subwoofer, DVD+VCR hidden underneath (on floor).



To play video games, I just plugged AV cables into RCA jacks on front of DVD/VCR.

[CatPix]

It's why I said "here". I know that in the UK they sold color TV without A/V input up to 2003 at least

But in France, nobody cared about providing SECAM L RF output. And in fact, nobody but a few brands cared about providing SECAM A/V devices after the mid 90's.
It's mostly because by law, all color TV sold after 1981 (and up to 2016) must have a SCART input. Or at least a video input (in theory, every TV should have one, but apparently no one cared to enforce that law for black and white TVs).

The last SECAM RF console were the Intellivision and Atari 2600 Jr (the Colecovision was RGB, the NES was PAL to RGB, the 7800 was PAL to RGB).

French Commodore importer sold SECAM C64, but they were replaced by RGB models rapidly that kept the PAL RF output, not a SECAM one. Atari computers were PAL, not SECAM, etc.

VCR stopped including an RF out modulator around 1995 yeah, you had to use a SCART cable.
Only ONE Digital TV tuner had a SECAM L output when they were released around 2005, and the quality was astoundingly low, barely useable.
Several digital tuner had SECAM options but most of them were of poor quality with heavy "SECAM fire" on it (for an A/V connection, it tell you how poor the quality was).
The last decent SECAM device I saw was a Samsung DVD player, the DVD 909, that could be set up for SECAM, PAL and NTSC... but since it also had RGB SCART out I only used it to see how it looked. And that was in 2002.

And you might say "But SECAM doesn't matter for black and white" and you'd be right. Except that SECAM L/L' is unlike every other TV system in the world. It's not SECAM color encoding at fault; if you take a TV set from Eastern Europe or overseas France, that used SECAM, and try to tune on PAL signals, you will get a black and white picture and sound.

But with French L/L' system, it's a different system.

It's based on older video standard that were used in the 1930's, so it's incompatible with all other
RF video standards. System L use positive video modulation, all other use negative.
System L use AM sound, all other use FM sound (which provide an interesting thing : when you are out of tune on a channel, or on a blank channel, you know that familiar hissing sound? On French TV, it doesnt' exist. We don't get hissing because of the AM sound, somehow.)

Because of those technical considerations, devices sold in France were converted to RGB, to SECAM A/V for older ones, and RF was dropped out very fast.
By the mid 90's most TV were multistandards anyway so new generation consoles (SNES, Megadrive II and all later systems) were PAL. (yes, on the French NES, there is no composite output, and neither there is on the Frnech Master System and Megadrive I. The composite chips were totally removed, so if you had a SCART color TV BUT it was one of those rare that didn't had RGB, then you only had a dark screen.)

[CatPix]

Comrade, I love that TV.



~20 years ago, I got this beauty:



RCA Victor 19"-20" b/w circa ____,
So I did a horrible thing and gutted it (modern CRT, cable box hidden behind speaker grill, new speakers + subwoofer, DVD+VCR hidden underneath (on floor).



To play video games, I just plugged AV cables into RCA jacks on front of DVD/VCR.

Thanks you, and cool thing you have.
Those floor models are uncommon here, It seems we switched to table models by 1955, and with the few exception of early colors TV with legs, in the late 60's (first color broadcast in Europe in 1967) and of 1990's retroprojectors TV, floor models were never again a thing.

I debate about doing that to a TV, but there are several models out there with dead tubes, that I'll take a dead one with a nice outer shell to do that.

[crazydean]

Pretty neat, but why would you want to lock access to the controls? Is that the old, French way of hiding the remote from your spouse?

[CatPix]

No idea. It was a thing in the late 60's and early 70's.
The sellers did told me they used that to stop their childrens to watch TV, so it had a use.
I assume that it also was used for TV in public spaces like bars.

Some older models would hide completely to look like ordinary furniture. I guess?
And you could lock them, too.

[xcrement5x]

No idea. It was a thing in the late 60's and early 70's.
The sellers did told me they used that to stop their childrens to watch TV, so it had a use.
I assume that it also was used for TV in public spaces like bars.

Some older models would hide completely to look like ordinary furniture. I guess?
And you could lock them, too.

Yeah, the old console TV my Grandma owned had a latched panel that would hide/show the controls.  The TV my parents had (and were using up until maybe 8 or so years ago) had an epic chromed panel that would flip down to show the controls. 

[ccovell]

I just like the << OUI OUI NON NON OUI NON >>.

[esteban]

 

[CrackTiger]

My first TV that I played my first very own console (NES) on was a 7"(?) b&w with a knob missing that I bought at a flea market for $5. I kept a pair of needle nose plyers nearby to change the channel.

[NecroPhile]

"Please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting."

Another victim of photobucket's shit. 

[esteban]

My first TV that I played my first very own console (NES) on was a 7"(?) b&w with a knob missing that I bought at a flea market for $5. I kept a pair of needle nose plyers nearby to change the channel.

I use a pair of regular pliers for my current clothes dryer.



The silly plastic knob cracked a few years ago, despite my tender, tender touch.

[xcrement5x]

My first TV that I played my first very own console (NES) on was a 7"(?) b&w with a knob missing that I bought at a flea market for $5. I kept a pair of needle nose plyers nearby to change the channel.

I use a pair of regular pliers for my current clothes dryer.



The silly plastic knob cracked a few years ago, despite my tender, tender touch.

Lol, that reminds me of when I made a replacement power button for an old PC tower out of wood. 

[CatPix]

"Please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting."

Another victim of photobucket's shit. 

Yep. That's the final straw in that bucket of shit.
Photobucket have been annoying me more and more over the year, but I stick to it because I have about 100 pics I posted on forums, many of them in topics that are still used.
But now, I no longer have any good reason to use tht crap of a site.
I'm looking for another site, but all of them seesm to deal with the same crap that bothered me with Photobucket. Might take me a few days to come up with a replacement.

[Gypsy]

imgur

[esteban]

My first TV that I played my first very own console (NES) on was a 7"(?) b&w with a knob missing that I bought at a flea market for $5. I kept a pair of needle nose plyers nearby to change the channel.

I use a pair of regular pliers for my current clothes dryer.



The silly plastic knob cracked a few years ago, despite my tender, tender touch.

Lol, that reminds me of when I made a replacement power button for an old PC tower out of wood.

One of the reasons why I love Nulltard is because he notices little details, like the fact that my dryer was missing the main dial (LeDoodle Desert). I can't remember if the pliers are on the dryer in one of the shots, but I think they were.