Video player looks like a 1-inch TV from the ’60s and is wondrous, pointless fun
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Memories of those vintage TVs:
Turning on Saturday cartoons at Mammaw’s house in rural horse country Kentucky while everyone else was sleeping. The knobs to change the channel made the loudest clunk in the world and I’d get yapped at to keep it down.
Turning on Saturday cartoons at Mammaw’s house in rural horse country Kentucky while everyone else was sleeping. The knobs to change the channel made the loudest clunk in the world and I’d get yapped at to keep it down.
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“What good is a school for children if they can’t fit in the building?!”
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Memories of the announcer saying, "Don't touch that dial!" near the end of the show...
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I had to laugh at the "compare to a Bic lighter for scale" image, because that is also my standard reference scale item when I am out in the woods or something and find something notable like a gigantic spider.
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This would look cool sitting at the bottom of a fish tank. With a bit of silicon and some ingenuity, I don’t see any issues.
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TinyCircuits is a really cool company and they have been tremendously supportive of the MakerSpace in their hometown of Akron, Ohio!
Very exciting to see them get some major attention like this
Very exciting to see them get some major attention like this
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The CRTs used in video camera eyepieces were even smaller than that little color TV mentioned in the article (but obviously were not full-fledged TVs). For better sharpness, they used little B&W CRTs. More expensive designs would run the CRT at triple the refresh rate, with a color wheel spinning in front of it, which would produce a pretty good color image while retaining the sharpness of a B&W image. Sharpness was an important element, since being able to tell whether the image is in focus is a key concern of the camera operator, while color fidelity of the eyepiece image was of much lesser concern.
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They work and kids love them, especially if preloaded with their favorite episodes or cartoons. The remote worked for me. Transcoding takes a bit of time. There is a helpful user forum if problems arise.
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Needs to support a Space Command remote for that real clicker experience.
Serious aside: I’ve been wanting to pickup one of these remotes for nostalgic reasons - it was at archaic when I had to use one - and to show people what a real “clicker” is. A little surprising how much these old remotes go for on eBay.
For those who have never seen/used one, it used mechanical buttons to produce high frequency tones. One advantage it had over modern remotes - no batteries required.
Serious aside: I’ve been wanting to pickup one of these remotes for nostalgic reasons - it was at archaic when I had to use one - and to show people what a real “clicker” is. A little surprising how much these old remotes go for on eBay.
For those who have never seen/used one, it used mechanical buttons to produce high frequency tones. One advantage it had over modern remotes - no batteries required.
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It's far from the dumbest or most egregious waste of resources, but man you have to wonder what the carbon footprint of a tiny novelty TV like this is, something that's going to get a "oh neat" for a few hours and then sit, forgotten, like all the other novelty tchotchkes out there.
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It seems neat but the lack of attention to detail bothers me. One of the knobs should also be the power button with one click to turn on and then adjust the volume, not have buttons on top. The cheap plastic case shouldn’t have a seam down the front and should have more detail, etc. It could have been done so much better.
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Growing up, we had something similar (different brand) but it only had 2 buttons. But a really ingenious device.
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I wouldn't use my own time watching anything on this, but it could make a heck of an addition to a period diorama, or even like some forced perspective backdrop in a movie or something.
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I feel like for maximum authenticity the image should be tinted green to simulate the improperly adjusted tint control that seemed to be universal when I was growing up
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"(The smallest CRT TV was Panasonic’s Travelvision CT-101, which came out in 1984 with a 1.5-inch screen and is rare today.)"
They aren't technically TVs, no tuner; but I'm pretty sure that older video recorder viewfinders were CRT based and had still smaller screens(though the tubes tended to be pretty long; because the ergonomics of having the viewfinder stick out a little from the body of the camera made hiding the length a nonissue).
Those tubes are probably turning into unobtanium at this point; but they were pretty neat.
They aren't technically TVs, no tuner; but I'm pretty sure that older video recorder viewfinders were CRT based and had still smaller screens(though the tubes tended to be pretty long; because the ergonomics of having the viewfinder stick out a little from the body of the camera made hiding the length a nonissue).
Those tubes are probably turning into unobtanium at this point; but they were pretty neat.
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"Afterward, conversion you add files to the TinyTV by connecting it to a computer via its USB-C port."
Typo? or was that martini I just finished really good?
Typo? or was that martini I just finished really good?
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I want this as my alarm clock, set to play Bugs Bunny. Make every morning a childhood Saturday morning!
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What do you mean those look alike? They look nothing alike.
This one on the other hand does look alike: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/moscowrew_start_3.html
This one on the other hand does look alike: https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/moscowrew_start_3.html
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A lot of TV shows used this as the remote control for the TV loooooong after it was no longer how TV remotes worked. Because it made a distinctive clicking sound that made it clear the actor had pressed a button. That audible click wasn't what the TV listened for, though, since as you point out the TV was listening for ultrasonic sounds. The mechanism worked by having a little hammer strike a little aluminum bar, that vibrated at an ultrasonic frequency. It worked like a little piano, where each button resulted in a separate hammer hitting a differently-tuned bar. Somewhere in the mechanism a click was produced, separate from the ultrasonic tone emitted by the aluminum bar.
EDIT: TV shows didn't necessarily use that exact model, but rather that type of "clicker" remote control.
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The first remote in our house was for our VCR. It was a mechanical pause button at the end of a 20-foot cable. That's all it did.
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Keith Tanner
Ars Tribunus Militum
What a fun little thing. Tiny version of old tech are always satisfying and this is fun whimsy.
I built a mini PET to basically operate as a case for a Pi Zero running Pihole. It could just as easily be a screen in a boxy case, but this gives it more character and makes me smile.
At the other end of the scale, I've modified a couple of old tube radios to work as AirPlay targets. This one's my bedside radio, complete with lighting that turns on when it's playing and a functioning off switch. I made sure all modifications were reversible, the old tube guts are still in there. Does it work any better than some modern connected gadget? No. Does it bring me joy both in the design and construction and use? Yes.
I built a mini PET to basically operate as a case for a Pi Zero running Pihole. It could just as easily be a screen in a boxy case, but this gives it more character and makes me smile.
At the other end of the scale, I've modified a couple of old tube radios to work as AirPlay targets. This one's my bedside radio, complete with lighting that turns on when it's playing and a functioning off switch. I made sure all modifications were reversible, the old tube guts are still in there. Does it work any better than some modern connected gadget? No. Does it bring me joy both in the design and construction and use? Yes.
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Looks like ewaste to me. Cool for a one-off Hack-a-Day project, but a product? I don't get it
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You can tell your grandkids, "When I was your age, you had to get up to change the channel!"
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