So I just found a North American NTSC TV with RGB.

This afternoon I was driving to a job with my truck and suddenly I see this funny looking TV on the sidewalk.
I decide to stop and take a closer look at it. It still had the cord. This is a good thing as around here those metal reseller guys compulsively destroy every CRT they find. They kill those tvs in order to scavenge 50 cents of metal.
Literally 80% of the TVs I see on the side walk are destroyed.

But this one was still intact, and it looked to be a special model.
I nearly chocked to death when I flipped it around and looked at the connections on the Back.
RGB

I insta-grabbed the thing and put it in my truck out of the rain. Yes it was raining, I dont know how long it spent outside but it was pretty wet when I found it. Hopefully the rain didnt damage anything. I will wait a while to make sure it is dry before I try it.

Once I got back home I Inspected it more closely and it is in very good condition, barely a scratch on it. I made some research on it and took pictures. This is not a monitor, It is definitely a TV as it has Channel selector and Integrated speakers.

It is a Toshiba FST BlackStripe.


This thing has many connections. It has Composite In and out right on the front.


But of course the interesting part is the back. That connector, I have never seen this before, ever. I thought North American Tv sets with RGB didnt exist!
It is not specified whether it is an Input or Output, but having a RGB output on it does not seem to make much sense so I guess ( and hope ) it is an input.


On the side there is a nifty little panel with all the controls, including the RGB button, which my guess is to select the RGB channel.


I also took pictures of the stickers with the Model number and stuff.
Model number for this Toshiba FST Blackstripe is CX2084C and it is made in the USA. If someone can find me a user manual for this thing it would be awesome as I didnt find anything about it.
I really found no info on the internet yet about this Television. There are some mentions of it and of the Blasckstripe Series here and there but not details. Nowhere that I found is the mysterious RGB connector mentioned or documented.
I am very surprised that such a feature would be undocumented. I wonder how rare it is.




So here it is, I am very excited about this intriguing piece of hardware. Ever since i found a N64 cart collection with Harvest moon 64 in it in a Box on the sidewalk, I keep wondering if sometimes the Holy spirit of Retro gaming is not dropping treasures on my way on purpose.
Well, I should not get my hopes too high yet though, I dont even know if it still works!

Any of you guys have heard or know more about these Tvs ?

 

Wow, that's a very interesting find. The only time I've ever seen a television/monitor with RGB support was when I took a television broadcasting class many years. I'm amazed this one was made in the US and hope it has some life in it yet. But considering its age, being discarded and wet, that might be a miracle if it does. Unfortunately I don't anything about this particular TV.

 

I still want to find a fully-functional RCA Dimensia. I believe it was their last flagship TV before RCA was bought out by GE.

They pop up on craigslist every now and then, but it brought RGB to the US as early as 1984-85. It also was one of the first TVs with a built-in "computer" and a massive remote called the "Digital Command Center": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dimensia_remote.jpg

Good stuff, good stuff.

 

very cool tv i love old 80s / early 90s tv sets.

but yeah these would probably have been for educational applications, and for other lab / studio use. never seen a connector like that either, still cool find, maybe you can open it up and wire up a more standard connector like SCART or something.

 

Forget the manual, you need some kind of service guide to figure out what the pins on that RGB port are for. Really doubt anyone has one of those anymore, probably not even Toshiba. The rain probably didn't kill it, but it may have been dead beforehand. I wonder what the port looks like under that rubber piece?

 

Made in the month and year I was born. Has to be golden.

Nice find. Must be so frustrating living in territories with no RGB.

 

Mine still have the piece of glass in great condition. I guess this RGB port was made with some sort of specialized equipment in mind.

I was not hoping for the user manual in order to find the pinout but rather infos about what this is expected to be connected to. And maybe this specific weird RGB port has a name that could help me find further more information about it. The service manual would be great too of course. Realistically I am not hoping of getting either though.

I can most likely find the pinout by inspecting and doing tests on the circuit board. I will start by seeing if it works well with a composite signal.

I have good hopes that it is still functional. The rain should not be too bad unless I try to power it while there is water in it. For this reason I will wait before i am extra sure it is dry before trying. I have a heating ceramic floor at home and I put it on the tiles to help it dry.
Another good sign is that it was not actually Garbage day and the set was put neatly against the wall with the cord tied up. It seemed that someone put it there not to trash it but hoping someone else would adopt it. I could be wrong but there is hope!


Any way i will probably take the back cover off to take pictures and make a visual inspection of the insides and make sure there is no water. Yes I will be carefull not to zap myself
Stay tuned!

 

This might be a little far fetched but Toshiba also made portable computers back then that had a video out labeled just "RGB".



Maybe this RGB port on your TV was ment to connect to a computer made by Toshiba?

 

^I do not know these Toshiba computers, are they PC compatibe?
This db9 is probably CGA style RGB but yes that is possible. If that was the idea I wonder why they would have used that weird connector instead of the standard db9 though.

 

Well I think you should get a multimeter and check which pins are connected to ground and then plug in a cga(R/G/B/HS/VS) signal to the remaining pins.

 

Well, someone on another forum found out what those plugs are called. They are EIAJ and apparently it is TTL RGB so not readily compatible with Console RGB and scart.
It is something older computer used and this indicated that this TV is likely CGA compatible. Pretty interesting!!

http://wouter.bbcmicro.net/hardware/monitors/index.html

 

Fortunately, you should be able to build a level shifter and use that RGB input.

 

Ok now for some good news, This baby still works!!

I took the back cover off and confirmed it was fully dry inside, it seemed all right so I fired it up and it works!

I plugged le good old stereo NES in it and figured I would play some adventure Island II!
There was something cool and authentic about how the small speakers in that thing made the NES sound. I am used to my big hi-fi system and this reminded
me of my youth when we were playing Adventure Island II on the crappy TV at my cousin's place.




The Image is a bit wonky but the colors look good. Actually they look like crap on that picture but thats because of my camera and the lighting.
The centering is a bit off, the image is compressed vertically and its a little shaky ( like most old crt ). There also seem to be some interferences in the form of of slight jailbars.
But on the bright side its still pretty sharp and the colors are vibrant.
It seems to be a good candidate to practice CRT adjustments. There seems to be alot of stuff going on the inside and I saw trimpots here and there. There are a lot of writings and indications on the Massive circuit inside.
Seems to me it was designed with ease of service in mind, like the good hi-end mid 80's piece of equipment that it is.

I took some pictures when I took the cover off. From the smell inside I can tell the previous owner was a smoker.


Here is a close view of the tube:


There are Red Green Blue Bias trimpots on the electron gun PCB:


But seriously the inside of this thing is a huge jungle of many PCBs screwed everywhere about the chassis and connected with a mess of wires, I can barely see a thing.








I really wish I had a service and User manual for this thing...
I also wish I could find a connector for that weird RGB plug, so experimenting with it would be easier without hacking the thing. So far nothing on Ebay but ill keep looking.
In any case I think I should try to get some use out of that RGB port first thing. Then explore how to adjust it and calibrate.
And finally see about the possible mods I could make on this.

There is also this older dude ive heard about in my city. Supposed to have been fixing tvs all his life and is kind of an independent worker with his business based off his home and selling TVs in his basement.
Sounds like the type of guy that could help me, especially considering im starting to have quite a collection of CRT. These type of guys are a dying race and I should probably try to contact him before he retires or something.
In a few decades CRT are likely to be considered alien technology by most technicians.

 

EIAJ - E8M 8 pin rectangular connector used apparently on computers from 1982-1987 little more info

http://wouter.bbcmicro.net/hardware/monitors/index.html

link to place selling male connectors

also apparently used in cameras and video tape players from the era

http://www.markertek.com/Connectors...tors/8-Pin-Camera-Connectors/TecNec/E8M.xhtml


hope that helps some

 

Thanks for sharing those pictures MaxWar. It's like I'm sharing your adventure with you, fascinating stuff!

 

Replace all resistors? o_o
There is like hundreds of em in there and while i have recapped various stuff before I never bothered to replace resistors, that seems a bit over the top to me.
Without replacing any parts I wonder how far simple adjustments would get me.

Anyway, you seem to know a bit about those units. As you said, looks like they are repair friendly. Everything seems modular and rather easy to take appart. Its like many PCBs connected togeter with detachable cables and every individual PCB can be removed easily with a few screws. Seems like a well designed unit.

 

i'd only bother changing the resistors if they looked stressed, but recapping would probably be a good idea given the age of the unit

 

Resistors dont need replacing, only if damaged/blown.