Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/27/this-tv-only-looks-old-its.html
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For the extra-authentic feel, maybe they should have it randomly go on the fritz and require you to open it up to solve a devious puzzle before you can keep watching. (There is surely a market for such things.)
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To be pedantic, the white plastic used in the sixties wasn’t Bakelite, it was styrene. Bakelite was used earlier (30s to 50s) and is brown or black, and was made with walnut shells and other organic materials.
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The “won’t work here” is a bit of an overstatement as well. The internal tuner won’t work outside of Japan (different broadcast standard), so you’ll need a seperate ATSC tuner to watch antenna broadcasts, but all the normal accessories you’d plug in: cable box, Roku, game console, etc, will work just fine on it.
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I do have a deep memory of watching Six Million Dollar Man and having our big wooden color tv die on us. It did have tubes and we tried to get it fixed but ended up eventually upgrading to something a bit newer.
Or just give it a good whack on the side.
Also, it needs to come with a clicker.
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16x9 screen format is a dead giveaway to it’s not-old-ness. Flat panel too.
It really is seriously hard to make new tech look authentically old.
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Not really. Chances are it will work just fine as long as you don’t plan on watching TV on it without any additional hardware. It only supports B-CAS which is Japan-only. But if you don’t care about that, it has 2 HDMI ports and even a composite(!) port on it so you can basically hook just about anything into it and use it. Japanese electronics are also (generally – not always) plug and play in American power receptacles without adapters.
What may be more daunting is all the menus are probably in Japanese which may make it challenging to set up.
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I actually like the ability to stuff all your tech in the back of the set. It also fixes the need for a separate table or media center or mounting hardware to set the screen up when you want a small TV in a room.
Older style for solving newer problems.
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Dump in a chromecast/firestick/homebrew small media center PC and it could be a fun little monitor in a den or craft room.
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Good point! Still… it’s so pricey.
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Needs fake rabbit ear antenna. And a tacky, deer ceramic.
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And some makeshift aluminum foil enhancers on the antenna.
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Needs a cocktail cabinet insert
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what price style?
Approximately 700 dollars.
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Needs a penguin on the top.
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(!!!) That comment could have been made by the props people who worked on 2010: The Year We Made Contact.
The ‘futuristic’ screens in 2001: A Space Odyssey were flat. Images were beautifully back-projected onto those screens, nicely mimicking what would eventually become LCD screens. But in 2010, all the screens were all too obviously bulging CRTs (with horribly painted frames around them; even the displayed graphics paled in comparison to 2001’s).
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The Russians had more marginal tech.
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True. The great Syd Mead did the Russian craft, so his design skills and wonderful creativity were reflected in the Russian craft which he designed in whole. Things looked cohesive.
The production folk were locked into what the Discovery interiors had to look like, so…
I’ll have to pay attention to that next time I watch 2001. Not surprising that 2010 wouldn’t touch Kubrick’s fantastic work in 2001 though.
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