Posted on 01/02/2021 at 12:32 AM
| Filed Under Blogs
Our Heathkit TV was 27 inches, which was pretty big for a TV back in 1981. That was when 12 inch TVs were still pretty pricey and a lot of people still had black-and-white. The TV plus its wooden housing probably weighed at least 200 pounds. So it was a pretty big piece of furniture. It didn't have a remote control. You had to walk up to the TV and push a button on it to change the channel. In Arizona, Channel 3 was an actual TV channel, so you hooked video games up to Channel 4 instead.
My first big-screen TV was a 36 inch Toshiba TV I got when I was right out of high school. 36 inches was pretty close to the biggest tube TV ever made. If you wanted something bigger than that, you had to get a projection TV. That thing was an absolute monster to move, not only because it also weighed over 200 pounds, but because it was very wide and bulky. I kept it until HDTVs came out, then I splurged on one of Sony's earliest HDTVs in 2007 thanks to a zero interest financing deal from Best Buy. It was 720p/1080i and had a 25 inch screen, and was by far the most expensive TV I ever bought. My new 65 inch TV cost less than a third of what it did.
I know CRT TVs are supposed to be better for retro-gaming, but I'm not that dedicated. I like having a large TV that I don't have to have three people to move.