Turning off an old (80s) TV set

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
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Sunny Stafford
I was a child in the 80s and early 90s, and I remember that when one turns off a TV set, the image shrinks to a line or dot before it disappeared completely. When the living room light was off, the process was often more vivid, briefly generating a kaleidoscope pattern. I was fascinated as a child, but it quickly manifested itself as a phobia, even to this very day, where I "think" that (unpowered) modern TVs will do the same thing, even though I know they don't do that. I was wondering if you guys remember it, and if there was a name for the process. I typed "image burn" into Google and most results pointed me to plasma TVs which wasn't what I was after. Cheers!
 
Lots of volts stored in them thar capacitors... someone told me 20k but i'm not sure...
 
used to love that, in fact I think they(Barry Manalows Elf Slaves) should implement it digitally in new TVs
 
Aye - old enough to remember the National Anthem, followed by the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep as TV shut down for the night.

I was also fascinated by the dot when the Tv was turned off. I wouldn't leave the room until it had gone compeltely.
 
80's tv's where awesome with the big buttons. You pushed one in and the other sprung out with a big clunk.

I remember covertly watching tv in bed as a nipper and using a pool cue as my remote to hit the off button when the old man came up stairs.

Snooker was also so much more interesting in black and white.
 
I used to love our TV with an ultrasonic remote control (with 4 buttons on it) - around 1980 I think.

If you threw a pile of coins on the floor - it would turn off or change channel :p .......... I just die now if I have to watch a TV with no remote.
 
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Depending on what they were made of (many different things back then) - and what they were connected too (and the outside temp and humidity) - they would indeed hold the charge for either days or years. From experience - I would say a hell of a long time (as they were a lot more robust back then, and very big and dangerous)

So everyone is right :p
 
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ordinaryjoe said:
Okey dokey... I guess the capacitance of a resuscitator thing at a hospital is probably much lower than a monitor, hence the lack of lethality?
Click to expand...

Ever tried shocking yourself with a defibrillator when you're not clinically dead? It can do strange things to your heart, like stopping it. :p
 
I can remember when I was about 9 my Dad took out an old for new insurance policy. We had a 1972 television and my dad thought hang on a mo, I'll "accidently" chuck it down the stairs and claim it was an accident and get a new TV. The old TV went down the stairs with a bump but stayed in tact and was working perfectly.

Dad's next plan was to take the TV into the back yard and sledge hammer the screen. Yep the thing went off like a bomb and my Dad came running in shouting to my mum "Quick turn the lights off and hide". I think I spent 30 minutes under the dinning room table that day.

The insurance company paid out and we ended up with two new Redifussion TVs.
 
Remember getting a JVC VHS recoreder and it had a remote but it was on a plastic wire, it was not infra red, to this day never understood why, then it broke and you had to do it manually.

AC and DC are lethal, human body is run off electro, not sure if its the current but you can either get blown away or just zapped, say touching a door handle if it was hooked up to electricity, one would blow you away the other would make your muscle clamp and you get fried.

I aint a spark so dont know if its true or not.
 
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