Philco Predicta Tandem 1959

[@hebneh]

"Keep the set beside your chair Put the picture - anywhere! Take a look way over there It's the new - Predicta Tandem!" In the early 1970s I found an ad in a late '50s LIFE magazine for the Philco Predicta Tandem and was astounded, since I had no memory of anything as oddball as this contraption.

[@stevekosareff9891]

"Mom, don't trip over the cable!"

[@jimlocke9320]

Actually, while the NTSC standards for color TV were approved by the FCC in late 1954, new color TV set sales didn't overtake B/W set sales until the 1970s, well after Philco went out of business. Motel chains, Holiday Inn in particular, bought up many of the Predicta TV sets in warehouses. The screen swivel was a nice feature for motel rooms. In 1968, I stayed at a Holiday Inn with a Predicta in my room.

[@gcfifthgear]

The Predicta was the product that nearly drove Philco out of business. Trouble with keeping the wiring in the swivel working properly, much less that 25-foot cable on the Tandem, drove up costs and drove down sales. Ford Motor Company ended up buying Philco in 1961...mainly for its electronics expertise....

[@prestoncheapbtheadphoneste3010]

No wonder, philco went further downhill. Ford bought them. 😐

[@bandersentv]

Not even remotely true. Philco was a massive company with many divisions including semiconductors, appliances even computers by this time. There was a presentation and the early TV convention last year dispelling this long rumored issue. Ford bought them for the lucrative government contracts. Philco had a large part in building the command center for the Appolo missions for example.

[@teejaynumber13]

They neglected to mention the cable running along the floor that connected the two. You would think a regular predicta with a standard wired remote would be just as fine.

[@Captain_Char]

well this was pre-remote control if I recall, so having the console near your chair was likely only a dream when this tv came out

[@roberts459]

The first wired tv remote came out in 1950, by 1956 wireless remotes were being made by zenith and others followed there after.

[@hurricanefury439]

Imagine if they started making replicas of these with newer more modern tech

[@haweater1555]

Several years ago there was a company doing that.

[@sauluribe7082]

Amazing. Eight years later or more old sets would be chucked out as absolete. Not these Philco Predictas.

[@TechHowden]

People through these things out because they have low quality components and it was very expensive to repair

[@sauluribe7082]

@@TechHowden Also the sets would get old and awkward by modern times.

[@TechHowden]

@@sauluribe7082 and that

[@Petemonster62]

Philco probably suggested to run the cable along the wall & behind furniture.

[@UmmYeahOk]

That’s how I would do it, but then you lose the novelty of being able to move “the picture” from the living room into the dining area when dad and junior refuse to come eat dinner.

[@bobskie321]

They said RCA don't have style but it has quality while Philco has style but don't have quality that it's unreliable and difficult to troubleshoot.

[@sterlinsilver]

One of the most beautiful television sets ever!... The commercial conveniently leaves out the 20 some-odd foot cable that connects the two though!

[@skuula]

You can actually see it in armchair scene, across the bookcase to the left.

[@sterlinsilver]

@@skuula yeah I saw, but it isnt very obvious and I think many unsuspecting customers may have missed it

[@moonlightdreams911]

Oh I thought it was cordless, that kind of sucks

[@sterlinsilver]

@@moonlightdreams911 yeah, its easy to see why you thought that- heck, I had no idea either for a while!

[@Suddenlyits1960]

Your comment is ridiculous! ! You’re acting like they are guilty of deceptive advertising. The cable is visible in the commercial when the woman picks it up,and anyone with even the slightest of common sense would obviously know it has to be connected to the cabinet somehow. Maybe they should have mentioned the tv has an AC cord and it needs to be plugged into the wall to work too? 🙄

[@scotianbank]

Forgive my ignorance, but... isn't this just making the cable that connects the TV's inside components to the screen longer? Was it that difficult?

[@hydrolisk1792]

Yes, they had to add a booster circuit inside the picture unit in order to have a signal travel that far. Also another challenge was getting the high voltage lead that far from the set and safely doing it.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

​@@hydrolisk1792 It's to wonder why both deflection output circuits weren't inside the picture head. Relatively low voltage power and low level signals would then be all that would need to be carried there.

[@bobweiss8682]

@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 By the time you put the sweep and HV stuff inside the CRT housing, the CRT unit would be too big and heavy to be easily moved.

[@canadianradiotvguy1299]

Must be a pretty thick cable. You’d have run the Wires To The CRT Plug Plus The Convergence To The Yolk And The Anode

[@TechHowden]

@Captain Bunwarmer *25 feet

[@bobweiss8682]

Convergence? These sets were B/W. The cable carried H and V yoke drive, high voltage, B+, heaters, video and ground. There was a single video amp stage inside the CRT housing on the tandem sets that wasn't needed on the all-in-ones.

[@JENDALL714]

They had one of these in the Revenge of the Nerds movie, Wormser was playing video games on it.

[@aussiefurbymogwaifan6621]

Really! Is there a clip on KZbin?

[@kensherwood4866]

Weird, I assume the speaker was in the cabinet, by the chair, so you would need the sound up loud to hear it if you watch the tv in another room?

[@cheesemanthe2nd]

Youre asking too many questions buddy

[@Suddenlyits1960]

No,you wouldn’t! The round base on the picture tube assembly has an RCA jack on it,philco sold an optional accessory speaker that plugged into it.

[@jimlocke9320]

You are correct that the standard arrangement was for the speaker to be in the chairside unit, not next to the CRT. It would have been weird to see the mouth moving across the room and the voice coming from a different location. I experimented with that, years later, by turning down the sound on the TV set and listening through a TV sound radio near my easy chair. Philco addressed the issue with an auxiliary speaker that could be located near the CRT.

[@thomaslucas6079]

What I understand from the people who restore them is they don't get as good a picture because of the short gun on the back of the CRT. I have worked on TVs desperately trying to get one to work when I was a kid. Most kids in them days didn't have a TV in their bedroom.

[@jimlocke9320]

When I grew up, just having an AM table radio in your bedroom was a luxury. I didn't get one until someone gave me a non-working radio to repair. I was given a non-working 17" TV set later on. It had given them trouble ever since they bought it. I got it working and had the luxury of a TV set in my bedroom through high school and in my dorm room through college.

[@hydrolisk1792]

Keep the set beside your chair! Pit the picture, Anywhere!!!

[@brownfranklin]

Someone was restoring one of these and had video of it on KZbin. I noticed that the flyback transformer was inside the cabinet and not in the picture tube housing. The flyback transformer put out 15,000 volts. People were killed by working on sets by touching the wire between the flyback transformer and the picture tube. I am wondering if there was any type of warning about touching the cable when the set was running. What if a cat decided to chew on one?

[@Fridelain]

I had a cat chew the permanently attached VGA cable of my LCD display (carries harmless low voltage signals) all the way though, but ignore the AC in.

[@MrHBSoftware]

people were killed on Mains derived eht sets...flyback eht is NOT lethal if you are healthy, the currents is too low to cause heart fibrillation.

[@TechHowden]

There is plenty of insulation in the cable the cable was perfectly safe to touch also I believe there was a lead Coating around the high voltage Conductor

[@jimlocke9320]

It certainly seems that it would have been a better design to put the high voltage and deflection circuits at the CRT and just run lower voltage signals between the easy chair unit and CRT unit. I recall that, as a way of achieving early remote control, there were enterprising engineers who removed the tuner and controls from standard TV sets and put them in a control box next to their easy chairs, connected by long bundles of wires to the TV set. TV sets of the day had vertical and horizontal hold controls, fine tuning, brightness and contrast controls, as well as the volume control, so there were many wires in the bundle. (Some of these controls were probably left at the TV set.) The signal from the tuner to the IF strip was already carried through a coaxial cable and could be carried by a longer coaxial cable. All voltages would be low except for vacuum tube plate voltages in the tuner, which could have been obtained from a power supply in the control box. The same supply could have provided filament power.

[@VAULT-TEC_INC.]

@1:18 and just like that, dinner conversation was killed.

[@stevehoward3049]

Now they have to walk all the way back over to the set to change the channel

[@jonpeter5798]

Alright, who's the jerk that gave this video a thumbs down?

[@TechHowden]

Somebody who can’t appreciate innovation

[@ВиталийБаландин-ъ4ъ]

Вооще крутой телик !

[@Enochthehammer]

They don’t show you the 25 foot ribbon cord. Lol

[@hydrolisk1792]

This may just be me, but wouldn't have been easier for Philco to "Keep the controls by your chair, Put the set anywhere"?

[@stevehoward3049]

Yes no need for huge cable and think of the danger of dropping that vaccuum tube on the floor.

[@tomfranco4866]

That's funny they're not showing you much of the big heavy cord that went from the chassis to the tube

[@ST0RMSHAD0W_117]

Bruh my dumbass almost thought this shit was Bluetooth back then Till I did more research and the screen connects via a long ass cable

[@davidjames666]

They should hang it on the wall. Someone build a time machine, go back in time and tell them. While you are at it, tell them that this was a stupid idea that will not sell many sets.

[@Thomas-yr9ln]

It was never as good as other TVs because the picture tube had a short gun on the back of it giving it poorer resolution.

[@stevehoward3049]

I think wireless remotes came out about 1 year after this lol

[@roberts459]

The first zenith "clicker" came out in 1956.

[@gacha_skylerwolf6151]

This tv is cool they do things

[@NickG123]

Idiot.

[@AgentPepsi1]

Weird!! How ugly to with that giant cable snacking over everything. No, I think, just for the time being, I will keep my 65" TV, that is just 1" thick.

[@MrHBSoftware]

yeah barbie that cable is really ugly

[@josericardogs1435]

If a person drops it, the picture tube will be imploded and may cause a shock of 14Kv

[@skuula]

It was pretty heavily shielded, also towards the front with a heavy plastic safety lens - which has decomposition problems today. The 14kV could only source one or two milliamps.

[@couryhouse]

yepper it is a death machine!

[@josericardogs1435]

@@awesomeone2979 If a person drops it, the picture tube will be imploded and may cause a shock of 14 thousand volts

[@TechHowden]

Not really