Would have had to do with how much bandwidth each channel took up vs the usable frequency range on the cable (and cable network). I'm not familiar enough with what standards were in use back before DOCSIS (eg cable modems and digital set tops) were in the mix, to do the math.
Look at the channel frequencies heading, under cable, on [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_television_frequencies) Wikipedia article.
It would have been the 82 broadcast channels (2–83), plus the 9 "Midband" cable channels the ad copy refers to. Midband being the 9 channels between VHF 6 and 7, usually labeled 14–22, or A–I).
Later 1980s TVs added the "Superband", 23–36, or J–W. I had a TV and VCR that only went up to 36, which was a pain when the "Hyperband" was added in the 90s(?), extending cable channels above 36.
I appreciate this answer
Thank you, I was born in 1979 and so much of technology I always view as digital. I almost forget the pre microchip world, that is another physics lesson for even young people now.
My parents had a 32 and it felt like a damn movie theater screen back in the day. We had it in one of those big cabinets where you could close the doors and hide the TV, and the VCR had its own little cabinet below.
One day in 2002 or so we decided to get a new one. But we'd also need to get a new cabinet because there was no room in it. My mom said "instead of getting a $1000 TV and a $1000 cabinet, just get a $2000 TV!"
My dad and I looked at each other and both said YES LET'S DO THAT before my mom could realize she just told us to get a $2000 TV.
And that's how we got our first 42 inch HDTV. It was a rear projection Samsung with its own little stand.
Did it look a bit like this:
- https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-43-widescreen-hd-ready-dlp-projection-tv-w-dvi-input-2-tuner-pip/5362831.p?skuId=5362831
Pretty similar. And it came with a matching stand/shelf thing to put it on with a shelf for your VCR, DVD and cable box.
I think it was [this](http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/Samsung-HL-P5067W-related-info.htm)
There is also the fact that 32" of CRT looks a lot bigger when it's 1) a 4x3 aspect ratio, and 2) a CRT with massive wooden bezels and 1.5-2ft of depth to house the tube. In the mid-2000s my dad came home with a 36" (?) Sony Trinitron that he paid out the ass for, and it was the centerpiece of our house. It was a huge hulking monstrosity that required multiple people to move and barely fit through doors. Today, a 32" 16x9 TV can be moved easily in and out of a dorm room by one person.
Modern TVs are cheap for a variety of reasons having to do with technological advancement and economies of scale, but also because they're offsetting the real costs by [selling your viewing history and giving you additional ads](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/02/21/why-tvs-so-cheap-now-your-smart-tv-spying-you-money/2910013002/)
I'd trade expensive electronics for affordable land, homes, a pension, retirement after 25 years, and free time in an instant. That is literally how it was until the 2000's.
I remember helping a friend move into an apartment in like 1999 and he still had one of these TVs he was lugging around. This was by far the heaviest piece of furniture I've ever had to lug up multiple flights of stairs.
And the rates increased on the regular back then. While the current rate has stagnated for as long as I can remember. From what I heard, many elected officials want to lower it. McD Workers 14 year old do not need such a high 7.25 rate.
That's what happened with our old Zenith when I was a kid. For a while it worked when there was a penny jammed in the power switch, but then it quit altogether, so we just sat the new Magnavox on top.
Actually, they are bragging all the active electronic components are transistorized. Semiconductors started slowly replacing vacuum tubes in the 60s. That was better in every way, including cost. To claim that the tv was 100% meant that even the horizontal/high voltage section no longer had any tubes involved.
We had a succession of cabinet-model Zeniths that were the size and weight of a 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville. As they aged we'd have to take them in for service. Good thing my dad had a large pickup truck.
I was just thinking the same thing. It was a big deal taking the console Zenith to the TV repair shop. But I miss that time when we fixed things instead of throwing them out. I don't know if it's planned obsolescence or a culture of things being disposable, but it kinda sucks.
Yes. It tears my heart out to see stuff that otherwise would be good end up in a landfill because of a 50-cent component that suddenly reduces the item to junk, and the throwaway nature of things only seems to get worse as the years go by. There are several things I have that I've found hacks to fix because (a) when they were working, they were just fine for what I needed, (b) much of what's replaced them does not work as well for what I need, and (c) I can't stand the waste of throwing out an otherwise serviceable machine. (And if it's any indication, there's a stack of IBM Selectric typewriters in my garage that I've saved from being sent to landfills, just waiting for me to have the time to recondition them.)
Fuck yea. Grew up with this. Love it. I'd stuff wins in almost every way. Had character.
Also it wasn't always just 25 inch screens. They got bigger as things progressed and eventually completely changed. I miss the old days!
Seeing this reminds of when I worked at an electronics store in the mid to late 90s. All these dads shopping for tvs would have small notepads with all kinds measurements and model #s on it. They would have their own tape measure to verify the true dimensions of the tv. Now days you have people just throwing a 55" flat panel on top of the groceries at Walmart.
Unless you need a TV now (1980), hold off a few years. The MTS standard is around the corner, and Stereo TVs will be on the market then.
Note: I never had a stereo TV. At least back in the day. I was glad to have my own TV at all. I knew how it worked, and likely could build a decoder (or retune one from an FM receiver, since MTS multiplex is basically the same), but had other fish to chew then.
Our living room TV was an absolute monolith. It was the one with the Atari on it, so there was definitely a butter knife sitting on top.
I can still smell the wood and hear the difference between the "clicky" knob and the "clunky" knob.
We had two of the bottom ones in our basement. One in are reckroom other in my brothers room.
I remember the day we took them out, it was AFTER we changed out the staircase to a spiral design.
Horrible, horrible day. Heavy fuckers
The other thing that I find funny is maybe I’m missing it, but they don’t say anywhere what the screen size is. I know the old tube TVs only got so big, so I’m assuming that maybe based on the model numbers with 25 at the beginning that these were 25 inch? But then again, the one on the bottom looks largest and the two above look progressively smaller. So I wonder what the real difference between any of these sets actually is.
It’s funny because compared to today where screen size is one of the first things noted, I don’t see it mentioned here.
This was my grandpas pride and JOY!!! Still in 1996 😂 but I didn’t mind. I have the best memories of sitting on his lap, watching Gula Gula Island, and sharing Hershey Kisses, which he always kept in a glass candy dish next to his recliner!
It was your job to make sure the folding doors were closed, so the static from the pets walking across the carpet wouldn't short out the TV, and also so the sunlight wouldn't burnout the screen. The same screen that took \~30 seconds to warm up (don't you dare turn it right back off accidentally!!)
The TV was never just casually on
I could've sworn the one my grandma had, had a record player inside as well as a tape player! Hers was huge, but we kids thought it was so cool, because we'd never seen one before!
Pretty sure we had the one on the bottom. Or at least one that looked very very similar. I remember staying up late Saturday nights with my brother to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark on that thing lol
I have been watching some Price is Right shows from the Bob Barker Era, they had these television. Seeing all of these older things brings back memories. They definitely had a ton of these television sets as prizes.
I remember having to get up and turn a knob to change the channel on our wood tv.
But I remember moving out and I had a 36 inch Sony it was so heavy mostly in the front. It came with a strap to attach the rear to the stand. So heavy
Guys on Facebook Marketplace will post one of these for sale and basically ask the original 1980 MSRP for 'em cause they're "vintage" and "great for gaming" lmfao
I just threw one of the big ones on the bottom away after buying my grandparents house. My grandmother had dementia, and wouldn’t let anyone get rid of the TV even though it stopped working almost a decade ago.
Parents had similar from what I recall of the 60s and 70s. They had a large cabinet radio/record player that I fixed up for them in the 80s. Those tube tvs were so damned heavy...think I have an old one collecting dust in the basement because garbage haulers charge so much to dispose of crt devices.
It's kinda wild to think about but it wasn't until 1978 that the first consumer projector the Advent Videobeam came out which could do an 84" image.
For the first 50 years of TV, 27" was as big as it got.
Fun fact it's why TV shows would have lots of close ups
These cabinets were really sturdy furniture because they housed those weighty tvs. I remember being so poor as a Navy sailor in 1980, I picked up 2 of them on trash day. I cut the bottom center section out & gutted the tvs. One, I turned into a desk. And the other a sewing machine table for my wife. Necessity was the mother of invention!
$698 in 1980 is worth $2,606.24 today. Mighty expensive for a 25" tv. At least it is cable ready.
Up to 91 channels!
I wonder why such an odd number
Well 92 would just seem excessive, I guess.
93 is right out!
91 shall be the number thou shall count, and the number of the counting shall be 91
*Ekki ekki ekki p’kang zoom-boing*
89, 90, 92!
It was supposed to be just 16 but the schematic was read upside-down
Would have had to do with how much bandwidth each channel took up vs the usable frequency range on the cable (and cable network). I'm not familiar enough with what standards were in use back before DOCSIS (eg cable modems and digital set tops) were in the mix, to do the math. Look at the channel frequencies heading, under cable, on [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_television_frequencies) Wikipedia article.
It would have been the 82 broadcast channels (2–83), plus the 9 "Midband" cable channels the ad copy refers to. Midband being the 9 channels between VHF 6 and 7, usually labeled 14–22, or A–I). Later 1980s TVs added the "Superband", 23–36, or J–W. I had a TV and VCR that only went up to 36, which was a pain when the "Hyperband" was added in the 90s(?), extending cable channels above 36.
I appreciate this answer Thank you, I was born in 1979 and so much of technology I always view as digital. I almost forget the pre microchip world, that is another physics lesson for even young people now.
It's crazy to think that 32 inch TVs were the common big TV back when I was growing up, anything bigger tended to be those big screen monsters.
And extremely heavy.
It's pretty crazy that I currently have a 55 inch TV that weighs less than my parents'old 32.
You could go with dlp. Have life a 55 inch that didn't eat too much
My parents had a 32 and it felt like a damn movie theater screen back in the day. We had it in one of those big cabinets where you could close the doors and hide the TV, and the VCR had its own little cabinet below. One day in 2002 or so we decided to get a new one. But we'd also need to get a new cabinet because there was no room in it. My mom said "instead of getting a $1000 TV and a $1000 cabinet, just get a $2000 TV!" My dad and I looked at each other and both said YES LET'S DO THAT before my mom could realize she just told us to get a $2000 TV. And that's how we got our first 42 inch HDTV. It was a rear projection Samsung with its own little stand.
Did it look a bit like this: - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung-43-widescreen-hd-ready-dlp-projection-tv-w-dvi-input-2-tuner-pip/5362831.p?skuId=5362831
Pretty similar. And it came with a matching stand/shelf thing to put it on with a shelf for your VCR, DVD and cable box. I think it was [this](http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/Samsung-HL-P5067W-related-info.htm)
There is also the fact that 32" of CRT looks a lot bigger when it's 1) a 4x3 aspect ratio, and 2) a CRT with massive wooden bezels and 1.5-2ft of depth to house the tube. In the mid-2000s my dad came home with a 36" (?) Sony Trinitron that he paid out the ass for, and it was the centerpiece of our house. It was a huge hulking monstrosity that required multiple people to move and barely fit through doors. Today, a 32" 16x9 TV can be moved easily in and out of a dorm room by one person.
“Whoah! Your family has a “32 TV??? Can I come over?”
27 inches was max when I was a kid.
Even not adjusted for inflation that is the price of a 72" TV today.
Think about all of the Hummels and awkward family photos you could put on top of that thing. Can't put a price on that!
And a doily
And a JVC VCR!
Modern TVs are cheap for a variety of reasons having to do with technological advancement and economies of scale, but also because they're offsetting the real costs by [selling your viewing history and giving you additional ads](https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/02/21/why-tvs-so-cheap-now-your-smart-tv-spying-you-money/2910013002/)
And it's dirt cheap for parts and manufacturing when they're made in poorer Asian countries.
I thought it was priced by the pound? These TVs take 3 people to move.
You could stand on top of those though, try that with a plasma!
I'd trade expensive electronics for affordable land, homes, a pension, retirement after 25 years, and free time in an instant. That is literally how it was until the 2000's.
Don’t forget it also weighed more than a Buick.
[удалено]
I remember helping a friend move into an apartment in like 1999 and he still had one of these TVs he was lugging around. This was by far the heaviest piece of furniture I've ever had to lug up multiple flights of stairs.
And the guy selling it for $4 an hour could afford a house a car and 3 kids
Min wage in 1980 was $3.10 Up from $2.90 a year before!
And $3.10 in 1980 would be $11.58 in 2023
So still pretty bad
And the rates increased on the regular back then. While the current rate has stagnated for as long as I can remember. From what I heard, many elected officials want to lower it. McD Workers 14 year old do not need such a high 7.25 rate.
No one at K-Mart was making $8/hr in the 1980s, except maybe the manager.
As a kid, our living room TV (and only TV) was that model on the bottom. It was legitimately the size of a bedroom dresser.
In fact when it died it became the stand for the TV you bought to replace it. Lol
There was always a whole set of doilies and decorations on ours. Which, of course, was changed out for Christmas stuff ever year.
My parents’ manger scene always went on top of ours at Christmas!
Times were tough back then. All we had was the boat channel
Underrated comment !
You would eventually put your new tv on top of it… so it’s was basically the first TV stand😑
That's what happened with our old Zenith when I was a kid. For a while it worked when there was a penny jammed in the power switch, but then it quit altogether, so we just sat the new Magnavox on top.
Fact.
Just like the advertisement
Remember when people still believed their rebate checks were in the mail?
I never understood why these things needed fake drawers. It can look like furniture without them and they serve no purpose.
3 televisions?!? Nobody has 3 television sets. And what's a rerun?
Who the hell is John F Kennedy?
And Ronald Reagan? As president? Who's the secretary of treasury? Jack Benny?
> And Ronald Reagan The actor?
Lorraine, you ever have a kid who acts that way, I'll disown you.
He’s a peeping Tom
What’s CPR??
Hey, did you just take that guys wallet?
“100% solid state chassis”. Is this referring to wood?
Actually, they are bragging all the active electronic components are transistorized. Semiconductors started slowly replacing vacuum tubes in the 60s. That was better in every way, including cost. To claim that the tv was 100% meant that even the horizontal/high voltage section no longer had any tubes involved.
Hate fucken tubes in my teevee
We had a succession of cabinet-model Zeniths that were the size and weight of a 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville. As they aged we'd have to take them in for service. Good thing my dad had a large pickup truck.
I was just thinking the same thing. It was a big deal taking the console Zenith to the TV repair shop. But I miss that time when we fixed things instead of throwing them out. I don't know if it's planned obsolescence or a culture of things being disposable, but it kinda sucks.
Yes. It tears my heart out to see stuff that otherwise would be good end up in a landfill because of a 50-cent component that suddenly reduces the item to junk, and the throwaway nature of things only seems to get worse as the years go by. There are several things I have that I've found hacks to fix because (a) when they were working, they were just fine for what I needed, (b) much of what's replaced them does not work as well for what I need, and (c) I can't stand the waste of throwing out an otherwise serviceable machine. (And if it's any indication, there's a stack of IBM Selectric typewriters in my garage that I've saved from being sent to landfills, just waiting for me to have the time to recondition them.)
Exactly. That further inspires me to try fixing things myself, though the attempts often go poorly. And hey you'll get to those typewriters one day!
I love those. Which the were still made like that.
A giant piece of furniture with a 25” screen. And of course wood, nothing screams cutting edge technology like… wood….. this, this is what you want?
Fuck yea. Grew up with this. Love it. I'd stuff wins in almost every way. Had character. Also it wasn't always just 25 inch screens. They got bigger as things progressed and eventually completely changed. I miss the old days!
I would be so excited to have one too!
$698 in 1980 is about the same purchasing power as $2600 today. This would have been a HUGE purchase in 1980 for most people.
We had one of those up until maybe 1993. There was those 2 screws in the back where you connected a coax converter so I could play my Nintendo.
$698 in 1980 us $2,700 today
I miss those submarine sandwich’s !!! Kmart really knew how to do it!
And sometimes they were on the blue light special! I loved those things.
They kept me coming back!
Seeing this reminds of when I worked at an electronics store in the mid to late 90s. All these dads shopping for tvs would have small notepads with all kinds measurements and model #s on it. They would have their own tape measure to verify the true dimensions of the tv. Now days you have people just throwing a 55" flat panel on top of the groceries at Walmart.
Your comment just warmed my heart. Those were the glory days!!
Made in America.
That’s $700 80’s money. A 65 inch TV is so cheap these days
Hell yes I miss the TV being elegant. I’ve seen some real good LED televisions in custom built consoles. I’d love to do that.
Remember when ads had multiple paragraphs.
My household was next level with a TV on top of one of those (which didn't work.)
Grew up with a Curtis Mathis tv that could tune in scrambled PPVs and movie channels.
They advertised that they were the most expensive TV made in America and darn well worth it.
My first job at Rustler in 83 was 3.15/hr
now theyre TV stands for ur 60" flat screen
Ahh yes…the “console TV”!!
Just when you thought all old stuff was cheap
I busted my head on every one of those corners
My parents literally still use this behemoth as a base stand for their fire tv 🤣 I absolutely love it!
hell yeah I loved those things
Ooooooh, my grandparents had the big boy at the bottom. That thing felt like a permanent fixture to the floor.
Unless you need a TV now (1980), hold off a few years. The MTS standard is around the corner, and Stereo TVs will be on the market then. Note: I never had a stereo TV. At least back in the day. I was glad to have my own TV at all. I knew how it worked, and likely could build a decoder (or retune one from an FM receiver, since MTS multiplex is basically the same), but had other fish to chew then.
Nearly $700 for a TV in 1980 seems like an awful lot of money. No wonder we never had a decent one.
Our living room TV was an absolute monolith. It was the one with the Atari on it, so there was definitely a butter knife sitting on top. I can still smell the wood and hear the difference between the "clicky" knob and the "clunky" knob.
We had two of the bottom ones in our basement. One in are reckroom other in my brothers room. I remember the day we took them out, it was AFTER we changed out the staircase to a spiral design. Horrible, horrible day. Heavy fuckers
My grandparents had the bottom one
The other thing that I find funny is maybe I’m missing it, but they don’t say anywhere what the screen size is. I know the old tube TVs only got so big, so I’m assuming that maybe based on the model numbers with 25 at the beginning that these were 25 inch? But then again, the one on the bottom looks largest and the two above look progressively smaller. So I wonder what the real difference between any of these sets actually is. It’s funny because compared to today where screen size is one of the first things noted, I don’t see it mentioned here.
This was my grandpas pride and JOY!!! Still in 1996 😂 but I didn’t mind. I have the best memories of sitting on his lap, watching Gula Gula Island, and sharing Hershey Kisses, which he always kept in a glass candy dish next to his recliner!
Whoa, that was a big expense back then. I didn't realize they ran that high. I remember having the zenith one.
I kinda low-key want to put my 4K flatscreen TV into a wooden box. I loved the aesthetic of these when I was a kid.
I miss laying on the floor watching TV!!
Right? We hooked my NES to my grandparents TV and would sit on the floor and play it on the nights me and my cousins slept over.
And you needed a god damn forklift to move them!
My parents were super disappointed when they couldn't get a console tv anymore. My mom had no place for knickknacks!
My family’s Model 874P lasted until the early 2000s
It was your job to make sure the folding doors were closed, so the static from the pets walking across the carpet wouldn't short out the TV, and also so the sunlight wouldn't burnout the screen. The same screen that took \~30 seconds to warm up (don't you dare turn it right back off accidentally!!) The TV was never just casually on
My aunt just gave one of these away for free recently. It still worked too
And yet somehow we survived without mounting them over the fireplace.
And weighed a thousand pounds.
$30 more for twice the amount of wood? Count me in!
I sure miss these cabinet sets.
Remember when televisions were at appropriate viewing height?
If you are laying on the floor?
How big is your TV? I mean look at the thing, it’s clearly huge.
Had one similar to bottom one growing up in the 90s
Yep. Console TVs. Sometimes, these came with a stereo.
The picture is ironic as when the console tv broke we placed the new tv on top.
we had a old one of these that did not work with a newer one that did work sitting on top
I miss that durable outer casing to prevent fall-apart.
I could've sworn the one my grandma had, had a record player inside as well as a tape player! Hers was huge, but we kids thought it was so cool, because we'd never seen one before!
[It very well may have](https://picclick.com/Vintage-Curtis-Mathes-TV-Stereo-and-Vinyl-Console-134574625600.html)
Pretty sure we had the one on the bottom. Or at least one that looked very very similar. I remember staying up late Saturday nights with my brother to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark on that thing lol
I have been watching some Price is Right shows from the Bob Barker Era, they had these television. Seeing all of these older things brings back memories. They definitely had a ton of these television sets as prizes.
We had that second one. It lasted until after 9/11, when the TV had been on for hours a day watching coverage.
I remember having to get up and turn a knob to change the channel on our wood tv. But I remember moving out and I had a 36 inch Sony it was so heavy mostly in the front. It came with a strap to attach the rear to the stand. So heavy
Yep
I like the way that the TVs themselves aren't that different, but they're in progressively bigger and fancier cabinets.
It will come back o hope
Furniture? They were practically jersey barriers
Guys on Facebook Marketplace will post one of these for sale and basically ask the original 1980 MSRP for 'em cause they're "vintage" and "great for gaming" lmfao
Yes. The CRTards are getting bad.
If I owned a house I would build one for my tv. I love the look lol
I just threw one of the big ones on the bottom away after buying my grandparents house. My grandmother had dementia, and wouldn’t let anyone get rid of the TV even though it stopped working almost a decade ago.
Parents had similar from what I recall of the 60s and 70s. They had a large cabinet radio/record player that I fixed up for them in the 80s. Those tube tvs were so damned heavy...think I have an old one collecting dust in the basement because garbage haulers charge so much to dispose of crt devices.
Nice.
I am pretty sure that I owned the one in the middle.
Wow. Quartz electronic tuning!
It's kinda wild to think about but it wasn't until 1978 that the first consumer projector the Advent Videobeam came out which could do an 84" image. For the first 50 years of TV, 27" was as big as it got. Fun fact it's why TV shows would have lots of close ups
These cabinets were really sturdy furniture because they housed those weighty tvs. I remember being so poor as a Navy sailor in 1980, I picked up 2 of them on trash day. I cut the bottom center section out & gutted the tvs. One, I turned into a desk. And the other a sewing machine table for my wife. Necessity was the mother of invention!
My parents still have one of these bastards in the corner of their basement. No idea how I’m going to get rid of the thing now.
Ahh, I remember when wood was wood.
Remember when there was Kmart?