Hardware 1950s-70s
In the days before remote controls you had to get out of
your seat to adjust the volume, change channel, etc.
However these manual controls often had a great tactile
feel to them - especially the VHF channel selector which
often clicked when the knob was turned.
So what were the shops that sold televisions like in the
1950's? The pictures above show a typical example - this
was the era before the advent of the big superstore, so
lots of receivers were packed into a relatively small shop
space (though some department stores also sold televisions,
of course). The brand names are mainly unfamiliar, and
there's a complete absence of anything resembling a video
recorder. Only one set is showing a picture, and it is Test
Card C which was a very common daytime sight in this
period.
The dawn of commercial television (ITV) in 1955 - TV
shops in the London and Midlands had signs like this one in
the window as retailers promoted the forthcoming
ITV service.
If you already had a TV set and wanted ITV as
well...prepare to be converted - at a price, of course! In
front is a card promoting Ferguson TV's. "Fine sets those
Ferguson's" was the slogan used at the time.
Talking of Ferguson, here's a selection of Ferguson
TV's and radio's from the mid 1950's. Ferguson were taken
over by the Thorn-EMI empire, which then sold the brand to
Thomson (100% owned by the French government).
There were many more brands of television prior to
the 1980s, some of which have long since disappeared
altogether or absorbed into multinational companies. Here
is a picture of the innards of an Ekco television of the
mid-1950s.
Moving forward ten years to 1965, and the
introduction of one of the first 'affordable' video tape
recording machines - the Philips EL3400. It was bulky and
used an exposed reel of tape, plus it only recorded in
black and white despite colour transmissions being
available not long afterwards. It also had no tuner or
timer facility, so it was only useful with (sometimes)
expensive external ancillary equipment such as a separate
television tuner or video camera.
However the EL3400 certainly had its uses, as a group
of dancers watch themselves perform on a large video
projection screen. This sort of equipment did not come
cheap, so it was typically found only in large education
establishments or used for industrial applications. Also
Japanese companies such as Sony were starting to make their
presence felt at this time, and the soon to be launched
U-Matic video cassette was to prove popular in the
industrial and commercial markets.
The common face of television in the mid to late
1960's - black and white, dual standard (though lots of
single-standard 405 line VHF-only televisions remained in
use until the mid 1970's) with separate controls for
405-line VHF and 625-line UHF transmissions. This was
required since from 1964 the new
BBC2 service was only available on
UHF.
1967 saw the arrival of the first mass produced
colour TV's for the UK market, though their high price and
initial lack of colour programming (BBC2 only until 1969,
few transmitters provided a colour signal and not all
programmes were in colour) ensured slow sales to begin
with. The picture shows an HMV Colourmaster which was
typical of the sets produced in the late 1960s. Find out
more about early colour television on the
Colour Television page.
Fast forward to 1972, and the launch of the first
'proper' 'home' video recorder with an integrated tuner and
timer, the Philips N1500. This close-up view (disregard the
Sony machine just visible) shows the sloping front panel
with (from left to right) a recording level meter, tape
transport controls, and the 1 day, 1 event 'egg timer'
clock. Each large Philips VCR cassette could record up to
30 or 60 (later 80) minutes; the six channel selector
buttons are visible above the transport controls. The only
thing to put off a potential purchaser was the steep price
tag! The N1500 was however not generally available until
the end of 1973; earlier it was only sold to schools and
corporate customers, but was replaced by the N1502 which
looked very similar to the N1700 that came later in the
decade (1977) and offered over 2 hours of recording time
per cassette (later 3 hours), though both VHS and Betamax
were finally launched in the UK in 1978.
