On Tuesday, 18 July 2017 21:42:52 UTC+1, John-Del wrote:
On Tuesday, July 18, 2017 at 1:37:35 PM UTC-4, Ian Field wrote:
wrote in message
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On Monday, July 17, 2017 at 2:25:37 PM UTC-5, Ian Field wrote:
jamesgmail.com wrote in message
news:1a527a6f-6b49-454e-8fa1-dd1f71088fc4googlegroups.com...

What is a PIL tube ?

May have been a copyright dodge to avoid the Trinitron.

Perhaps, but I think most of Sony's engineering efforts were to avoid everyone else's patents. Their 70s power supply designs are a Rube Goldberg's nightmare wrapped in a chain saw wielding mass murderer's warm embrace. They weren't notably efficient or particularly well regulating, so my guess is that they were building a unique design with no patents (and really, who would patent such an abortion?).

I remember when NYC was reducing power during the 70s in an "energy saving" attempt. Well Sony power supplies committed harakiri at not much less than 100VAC, and lots of Trinitrons were blowing up during the brown-outs.

The Trinitron when it worked right produced some fabulous images, but I think the tube was very finicky and required far more stringent manufacturing tolerances than the typical tube, hence the cost. Give it a small nudge and the shadow mask would shift or one of the wires would snap. Early tubes had the coaxial second anode connector and those tubes would short internally.

Don't miss those days. (much)

I remember the PSU boards in 70s trinitron sets. Talk about unnecessarily complex. As an experiment I once replaced the PSU board with a lightbulb as a dropper. (I forget how I provided filament power.) It worked, though voltage instability caused picture height instability.

I liked those sets as they were well valued but CRT emission tended to go. No-one else had worked out how to get the emission back, I did.


NT