Exactly. And calling it a television set would have been a logical extension from calling a radio a "radio set", or even a "wireless set", which would have been the military term for a transceiver used by the army. Ultimately this could be an example of our language being adapted to suit the times, with men returning from national service with a new vocabulary.
The other weird one is that many people of my parents' generation didn't refer to television channels, they called them programmes. So my dad would ask, "what programme is this?", and expect the answer to be BBC One, ITV, etc rather than Panorama or the Sooty Show. Again, I think it was a logical expression derived from the old names for the BBC radio networks such as Light Programme and Third Programme.
More to "TV set" than that. TV sets, in the sense of them being kits of parts in their earliest days, of experimental transmissions by JLB. And then again, after the war when the Government was selling off lots of surplus Army equipment.
We found some old newspapers from the early '60's a few years ago. Mostly the London Evening News (broadsheet). The TV listings had two columns: Channel 1 and Channel 9 - not BBC and ITV (as it would have been the local ITV company). They didn't even bother naming the broadcasters.
Though, looking: even then the programmes were mostly crap, too.
Plus ca change.
The old rose tinted view that television was somehow better in the good old days. Would anyone nowadays really want to sit through a sixties variety show, studio bound dramas and comedians like Charlie Chester? OTOH in 50 years time people will probably laugh at reality shows and Simon Cowell talent shows.
Yes Im too young to remember those controls, but I had already picked up on what they did.
I was kind of thinking you had a story about playing with these as a kid!
I do have a rather technical mind so I get it technically!
Sorry, by 'another story', I meant the subject was 'off the topic':)
And TV repairmen always carried a stock of replacement valves in their estate car, to effect a repair at home. Otherwise, they would take the set back to their shop to repair it there (usually involving a soldering iron).
That's it! It's another world today.
Getting back to the subject some old radios did have presets, (I have an old Marconi with presets) so it is possible that 'turning over' pre-dates television, but to be honest they they were far from the majority.
The term 'set' isn't such a big mystery since it would have applied to old radios which would consist of an accumulator, tuner, and a set of headphones. The term 'set' would likely have been used for any receiving equipment after that. It is much easier to say than 'receiver'. After all we still 'hang up' on a phone, which goes back to the 19th century, and has persisted over many changes in technology.
OTOH in 50 years time people will probably laugh at reality shows and Simon Cowell talent shows.
I have a horrible feeling that people in 50 years time will still be watching a lot of the stuff we see today
For example Dad's Army - still a BBC staple (though maybe not the B&W ones) will be "celebrating" its 50th anniversary in 4 years time. (And The News has been going even longer )
Likewise, shows like Friends (1994 and still acting as filler for channels all over the world) is so bland and inoffensive that, unless coffee gets banned as a drug or we all convert to radical Islam, could continue being re-run until the tapes wear out.
Could it be that we already have all the TV programmes we'll ever need?
I have a horrible feeling that people in 50 years time will still be watching a lot of the stuff we see today
For example Dad's Army - still a BBC staple (though maybe not the B&W ones) will be "celebrating" its 50th anniversary in 4 years time. (And The News has been going even longer )
Likewise, shows like Friends (1994 and still acting as filler for channels all over the world) is so bland and inoffensive that, unless coffee gets banned as a drug or we all convert to radical Islam, could continue being re-run until the tapes wear out.
Could it be that we already have all the TV programmes we'll ever need?
While there was some rubbish around in the sixties, there were some really innovaive series like Thunderbirds and the fantasy dramas like The Avengers will never be surpassed. Also the second half of the decade produced comedy gold like Till Death Us Do Part.
Yet these days there are so many disposable reality and talent shows around that are probably binned as soon as their run ends. I very much doubt anyone would want to watch a re run of The X Factor.
Yet these days there are so many disposable reality and talent shows around that are probably binned as soon as their run ends. I very much doubt anyone would want to watch a re run of The X Factor.
The 60's was also responsible for large amounts of execrable dross like It's a Knockout, which, for other reasons, will never be seen again - as well as some very good stuff. Every era produces some awful, awful television. However, as time goes on that get left behind and the good stuff gets brought along. We probably have enough "gold" to fill many channels (as all the repeats or "gold" channels exemplify), permanently. And since modern programming has to compete with these, it will become harder and harder to make commercially viable new programmes. Especially when the old stuff is so cheap.
The 60's was also responsible for large amounts of execrable dross like It's a Knockout, which, for other reasons, will never be seen again - as well as some very good stuff. Every era produces some awful, awful television. However, as time goes on that get left behind and the good stuff gets brought along. We probably have enough "gold" to fill many channels (as all the repeats or "gold" channels exemplify), permanently. And since modern programming has to compete with these, it will become harder and harder to make commercially viable new programmes. Especially when the old stuff is so cheap.
Not from the 60s - most of the good stuff was wiped
All of those episodes of Troughton-era Doctor Who, Top of the Pops, B&W Till Death us do Part etc.
The old rose tinted view that television was somehow better in the good old days. Would anyone nowadays really want to sit through a sixties variety show, studio bound dramas and comedians like Charlie Chester? OTOH in 50 years time people will probably laugh at reality shows and Simon Cowell talent shows.
People who got anything about them do laugh at these shows.
While there was some rubbish around in the sixties, there were some really innovaive series like Thunderbirds and the fantasy dramas like The Avengers will never be surpassed. Also the second half of the decade produced comedy gold like Till Death Us Do Part.
Yet these days there are so many disposable reality and talent shows around that are probably binned as soon as their run ends. I very much doubt anyone would want to watch a re run of The X Factor.
The difference then was that people did not watch as much TV as they do now. They would get out and about, read books, listen to the radio or even play board games and cards as a family. I wonder how many families do that now?
I don't even hear kids outside playing like when I was younger, they are stuck indoors, watching TV or playing on their game consoles.
Some people just have the TV on no matter what is on they watch it. We used to play board games like Mouse trap, monopoly and wildlife when I was a child.
I remember our old Tv with the large channel change dial, cluck, cluck cluck it went as it was turned. i also remember there was a outer ring that turned on the dial as well, not sure what that was for unless it was a sort of fine tuning.
Horizontal and vertical old, I remember, our black and white Tv was for ever going out of sync, normally when it was first switch on, once the hold was set it was fine until you switched it off.
I also remember the dot when the TV was switched off, I used to stand there and wait for that dot to vanish. Those was the days.
Our first colour Tv was a Mistubishi, it was a IC one as well, no valves, apart from the tube of cause. it lasted for years, it was still going about 5 years back, it had to be getting on for about 30 years old if not more.
i know technology have to move on, but sometimes I still think things was better back then, maybe it is just me being nostalgic.
Oh yeah, we used to say Television set and turn it over, what is on the other side.
My Dad still does
I don't even hear kids outside playing like when I was younger, they are stuck indoors, watching TV or playing on their game consoles
That's more to do with poor parenting and the view that "the streets" are full of rapists, child molesters and murders. A lot of people (esp. in cities) won't let their children out of their sight, these days.
I remember our old Tv with the large channel change dial, cluck, cluck cluck it went as it was turned. i also remember there was a outer ring that turned on the dial as well, not sure what that was for unless it was a sort of fine tuning.
Horizontal and vertical old, I remember, our black and white Tv was for ever going out of sync, normally when it was first switch on, once the hold was set it was fine until you switched it off.
I also remember the dot when the TV was switched off, I used to stand there and wait for that dot to vanish. Those was the days.
Our first colour Tv was a Mistubishi, it was a IC one as well, no valves, apart from the tube of cause. it lasted for years, it was still going about 5 years back, it had to be getting on for about 30 years old if not more.
i know technology have to move on, but sometimes I still think things was better back then, maybe it is just me being nostalgic.
Oh yeah, we used to say Television set and turn it over, what is on the other side.
My Dad still does
Oh yes - my memories exactly! That outer ring WAS for fine-tuning too.
The only extra-connection our TV had was a coat-hanger plugged into the aerial-socket! Worked wonders (only for black & white though).
In layman's terms the loss of 'Horizontal hold' resulted in the lines being out of sync with each other. The whole picture looked like jagged diagonal lines. A loss of 'vertical hold' resulted in the frame timing getting out of sync. The result was that the picture rolled up or down. The controls allowed you to adjust these values to get a watchable picture.
To be fair these values only needed to be changed as the set wore out. Normally they could be left alone. If the holds needed adjusting on a regular basis it was time to call out the television repairman. I guess you wouldn't know about those either.
(I can't believe I'm having to explain this. I'm obviously a remnant of a bygone age! )
And of course, when those controls didn't quite settle the picture down, this was quickly followed-up, with a strategically placed slap, on the top or side of the "set":D!
If it wasn't called a tv set, you wouldn't get 'set top boxes' - boxes that go on the top of your set!
True, but has anyone here ever actually put a set-top box on top of their set? Apart from the fact that it would fall off a modern TV, it would look really weird if you had a Sky+ on top of your television.
True, but has anyone here ever actually put a set-top box on top of their set? Apart from the fact that it would fall off a modern TV, it would look really weird if you had a Sky+ on top of your television.
I really don't know why they are called Set Top Boxes, as, to my knowledge, all paraphernalia such as video recorders, satellite decoders, cable boxes etc were placed UNDER the television!
True, but has anyone here ever actually put a set-top box on top of their set? Apart from the fact that it would fall off a modern TV, it would look really weird if you had a Sky+ on top of your television.
No I always put my set-top boxes underneath the TV. Even when I had a CRT telly they went underneath.
I really don't know why they are called Set Top Boxes, as, to my knowledge, all paraphernalia such as video recorders, satellite decoders, cable boxes etc were placed UNDER the television!
Thats very true could you even put boxes on any sort of TVs?
Originally in the 30s (though I don’t go that far back) TVs were known as Televisores but this name did not stick. I remember the TV man drilling a large hole in the side of our TV to fit a turret changer. As quoted earlier in the blog BBC on 3 and the then new STV on 10. You also had to change the aerial when you changed stations or channels. The aerial was H shaped for BBC as the signal was vertically polarised and X shaped foe STV as it was mixed polarisation.
I still ask what is on the other side. We may have dozens of stations but BBC1 and ITV are still the ones I watch the most.
Could the expression set top boxes come from the fact they produced channels extra to or on top of the normal channels and not from physically being on top of the TV. Perhaps we should call them set bottom boxes. It actually trips of the tongue quite nicely.
We used to use the term tv set in the 80's and had wooden cased Philips with chunky square buttons on the front, you would flip the button part up and the wheel type switches for adjusting the vertical, horizontal would be accessed. We had a telly repair man to come out and change tubes and fuses once in a while. Then my dad decided we should have a new black plastic telly, and a toploading vhs..and I got the old Phillips and betamax in my room, my wooden telly lasted a few years longer than the new one, and the tv man couldnt repair circuit boards so he eventually retired anyway..my betamax gave up eventually but a while after the vhs toploader, my beta tapes were done anyway..!
Meh I still change to the other side, but I use the EPG, my telly is 3 years old, could only pick up about 60 digital channels, but youview box now, underset box
Also was the case with the Beeb transmitting on Band 1 405 line, and ITV on Band 3 - you needed an STB to remodulate the Band 3 signal to Band 1 in the very early days...
Now I just think "What else is on". I don't say it as I live alone and that would be talking to myself.
I'm old enough to remember our first rented TV in the 60s and it was very old even then. It was only black and white and just received BBC and ITV. It was also meant to get BBC 2 when it started and had a rotating selector switch at the side which (if my memory serves) switch it to 625 lines that BBC 2 required, so it must have been a 405 line TV. However it never worked and we asked every TV repair person who came to fix the TV if they could get it to work, but none were able. So we went without BBC 2 for quite some time. Wasn't till the 70s and years after most people that we finally got colour.
I wonder what people of today would think if on their 50 flat TVs all they got was a fuzzy black and white picture that roll around the screen every so often, requiring messing about with the vertical hold knob, conveniently impossible to get to on the back of the TV. And how many would put up with indoor aerials balanced on books and sometimes requiring adjusting again each time you changed channels? Oh what fun!
Thats very true could you even put boxes on any sort of TVs?
The first thing I remember pluging in to a TV was the TV tennis game with the two paddles and the realistic "blip" noise. That was in the 70 and then in the 80s I had a ZX81 that annoyed my parents so much keeping on hogging the only TV we had, so they brought me a 14" portable for me to use in my room.
Comments
More to "TV set" than that. TV sets, in the sense of them being kits of parts in their earliest days, of experimental transmissions by JLB. And then again, after the war when the Government was selling off lots of surplus Army equipment.
Sorry, by 'another story', I meant the subject was 'off the topic':)
That's it! It's another world today.
Getting back to the subject some old radios did have presets, (I have an old Marconi with presets) so it is possible that 'turning over' pre-dates television, but to be honest they they were far from the majority.
The term 'set' isn't such a big mystery since it would have applied to old radios which would consist of an accumulator, tuner, and a set of headphones. The term 'set' would likely have been used for any receiving equipment after that. It is much easier to say than 'receiver'. After all we still 'hang up' on a phone, which goes back to the 19th century, and has persisted over many changes in technology.
I think Charlie Chester is a bad example, but choose some of the great talent of that period, and yes - I would.
For example Dad's Army - still a BBC staple (though maybe not the B&W ones) will be "celebrating"
Likewise, shows like Friends (1994 and still acting as filler for channels all over the world) is so bland and inoffensive that, unless coffee gets banned as a drug or we all convert to radical Islam, could continue being re-run until the tapes wear out.
Could it be that we already have all the TV programmes we'll ever need?
While there was some rubbish around in the sixties, there were some really innovaive series like Thunderbirds and the fantasy dramas like The Avengers will never be surpassed. Also the second half of the decade produced comedy gold like Till Death Us Do Part.
Yet these days there are so many disposable reality and talent shows around that are probably binned as soon as their run ends. I very much doubt anyone would want to watch a re run of The X Factor.
The 60's was also responsible for large amounts of execrable dross like It's a Knockout, which, for other reasons, will never be seen again - as well as some very good stuff. Every era produces some awful, awful television. However, as time goes on that get left behind and the good stuff gets brought along. We probably have enough "gold" to fill many channels (as all the repeats or "gold" channels exemplify), permanently. And since modern programming has to compete with these, it will become harder and harder to make commercially viable new programmes. Especially when the old stuff is so cheap.
Not from the 60s - most of the good stuff was wiped
All of those episodes of Troughton-era Doctor Who, Top of the Pops, B&W Till Death us do Part etc.
People who got anything about them do laugh at these shows.
The difference then was that people did not watch as much TV as they do now. They would get out and about, read books, listen to the radio or even play board games and cards as a family. I wonder how many families do that now?
I don't even hear kids outside playing like when I was younger, they are stuck indoors, watching TV or playing on their game consoles.
Some people just have the TV on no matter what is on they watch it. We used to play board games like Mouse trap, monopoly and wildlife when I was a child.
Horizontal and vertical old, I remember, our black and white Tv was for ever going out of sync, normally when it was first switch on, once the hold was set it was fine until you switched it off.
I also remember the dot when the TV was switched off, I used to stand there and wait for that dot to vanish. Those was the days.
Our first colour Tv was a Mistubishi, it was a IC one as well, no valves, apart from the tube of cause. it lasted for years, it was still going about 5 years back, it had to be getting on for about 30 years old if not more.
i know technology have to move on, but sometimes I still think things was better back then, maybe it is just me being nostalgic.
Oh yeah, we used to say Television set and turn it over, what is on the other side.
My Dad still does
That's more to do with poor parenting and the view that "the streets" are full of rapists, child molesters and murders. A lot of people (esp. in cities) won't let their children out of their sight, these days.
Oh yes - my memories exactly! That outer ring WAS for fine-tuning too.
The only extra-connection our TV had was a coat-hanger plugged into the aerial-socket! Worked wonders (only for black & white though).
And of course, when those controls didn't quite settle the picture down, this was quickly followed-up, with a strategically placed slap, on the top or side of the "set":D!
True, but has anyone here ever actually put a set-top box on top of their set? Apart from the fact that it would fall off a modern TV, it would look really weird if you had a Sky+ on top of your television.
A very good point!
I really don't know why they are called Set Top Boxes, as, to my knowledge, all paraphernalia such as video recorders, satellite decoders, cable boxes etc were placed UNDER the television!
No I always put my set-top boxes underneath the TV. Even when I had a CRT telly they went underneath.
Thats very true could you even put boxes on any sort of TVs?
I still ask what is on the other side. We may have dozens of stations but BBC1 and ITV are still the ones I watch the most.
Could the expression set top boxes come from the fact they produced channels extra to or on top of the normal channels and not from physically being on top of the TV. Perhaps we should call them set bottom boxes. It actually trips of the tongue quite nicely.
Meh I still change to the other side, but I use the EPG, my telly is 3 years old, could only pick up about 60 digital channels, but youview box now, underset box
I don't think I have ever used the term myself but I guess it sounds better than the alternative - set-bottom-box!
"what side is the match on? bbc or itv?"
I'm old enough to remember our first rented TV in the 60s and it was very old even then. It was only black and white and just received BBC and ITV. It was also meant to get BBC 2 when it started and had a rotating selector switch at the side which (if my memory serves) switch it to 625 lines that BBC 2 required, so it must have been a 405 line TV. However it never worked and we asked every TV repair person who came to fix the TV if they could get it to work, but none were able. So we went without BBC 2 for quite some time. Wasn't till the 70s and years after most people that we finally got colour.
I wonder what people of today would think if on their 50 flat TVs all they got was a fuzzy black and white picture that roll around the screen every so often, requiring messing about with the vertical hold knob, conveniently impossible to get to on the back of the TV. And how many would put up with indoor aerials balanced on books and sometimes requiring adjusting again each time you changed channels? Oh what fun!
The first thing I remember pluging in to a TV was the TV tennis game with the two paddles and the realistic "blip" noise. That was in the 70 and then in the 80s I had a ZX81 that annoyed my parents so much keeping on hogging the only TV we had, so they brought me a 14" portable for me to use in my room.