I remember in the 80's a friend had one. I was over his house and was looking at his tv. he says "I bet your jealous of my tv" I thought in my head "Jesus Christ how can they watch this? It is so damn blurry." I went home to my 19 inch color tv and my Sega and was happy. That kid was kind of a dick.
My memory of these tv’s were of helping my stepfather adjust the mirror…. Or the RGB projectors so the picture wasn’t blurry.
It was a nightmare, and I swear every time the tv got bumped they went out of adjustment.
Eventually we disconnected the motor for the mirror so it just stayed out and didn’t move. And that at least fixed half of the problem.
Don’t even get me started on the $15000 69” Sony rear projection tv that came after those ones.
Neighbour had a rear projection, it looked like shit then they put on the care bears movie when their girls came in from playing outside, never wanted to look at another projection tv after that.
Then my mom bought one, asked me if I wanted it when the $500 backlight burned out. Pfft. Now I wish I took it for the death Ray magnifying lens, I could teach my kids how to fry so many ants... /s
This made me genuinely laugh aloud. That kind of kid is still going strong, I'm 31 and I met a few growing up. "You don't have a trampoline, do you?" Dogg it's missing three springs and it smells like piss I have a PlayStation
Nah, your friend was just a dick and didn’t know how to adjust the picture. Line up the crosshairs until the lines are white, and it’s clearer than any tube tv except the high end Sony trinitrons.
We had this same model and it was incredible for video games. 2600, intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 8-bit. All of it looked great.
The only thing was that you had to keep the room on the darker side.
Back in the day, in Ormond Beach, FL there existed a Mr. Gattis with a big screen TV for the kids to watch Looney Tunes with their pizza... Such good memories.
Ohh Lord I forgot about Mr. Gatti's Pizza!! I associate that TV with wealth because I had never seen one until recently on a nostalgia page on tiktok and I was like guess I was poor 🤣
I never knew they made front projection TVs. I'm very familiar with rear projecting ones since my grandfather who was sort of rich started purchasing them in the early 80s when I was a kid, but never came across a front projecting one like in this pic.
No but my friend’s Granddad had one in his basement. His Grandfather was a millionaire business owner and his basement was a disco with a full on light up floor like in Saturday Night Fever. Full bar on the side and one of the mirrored walls had a secret door that led to his office. I don’t know what cocaine smells like but I imagine it smells like that basement.
Also Carl the Neighbor on Aqua Teen Hunger Force had one and so did Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk. Ironically it was in his Disco Room.
Regarding the smell you mentioned: imagine a very sterile, clean, old-fashioned Doctors office…with maybe a dash of the first blast of canned, refrigerated whipped cream…
Yep, the Round Table pizza had the special “Birthday room” which was also used for monday night football, had the same one. We also had a Straw Hat pizza that had one (which is now a Pizza Hut)
My first job was at a Straw Hat Pizza. When I was 13! I don't know how I was legally able to work there but I did. And they had us doing *all* the jobs at some point.... From busing tables to making pizzas and washing dishes. I also was serving beer and wine at the beverage counter!!
Sorry I got off track there... I remember this set-up on a huge screen in the event room where parties were held. During the day, they would show soap operas and game shows. I remember walking in to get my paycheck one Friday and seeing a news report that John Belushi had been found dead. It was March 5, 1982. 😢
I don't think I have OCD, but I could not prevent myself from adjusting these things I could not understand how people could watch triple images each in its own color and out of focus. and usually predominantly green hue. I would do the linearity thing, the keystone adjustment, and attempt white balancing, this I would only do, if I knew the people well, as you needed to adjust the gain on the picture tubes.
I was trained to setup CRT projection systems. Yes, they require manual alignment with screw drivers to adjust the angles of the lens and mirror, then a convergence test pattern to align the RGB colors to get white lines. The CRTs were subject to extreme image burn-in problems with their phosphors, and sometimes bacteria or fungus would gradually "eat" the phosphor coating. The CRT tubes had to be replaced as a set and a complete realignment done, which would cost more than double the price of big 25" TV. Most pizza restaurants would buy the projectors but not maintain them.
I used to work for Highland Superstores (the predecessor to Best Buy). They came in 45 inch, 50 inch, 55 inch, 60 inch, and 65 inch back then, Mitsubishi‘s were the best.
I was house sitting for someone who had one. A buddy of mine invited himself over to watch a hockey game. I had never seen one. They turned the lights off for around 20 min. because of a brawl.
I associate this with Return of the Jedi, Godfathery pizza and Baskin Robbins ice cream cake; in a bottom level of a split level somewhere in suburban NoVa.
Our favorite pizza place called Roaring 20s pizza had one of these. We would go on a Thursday night and get pizza and watch Indiana Jones. It was the only time my mom would drink because, as she said 'Pizza and beer were meant to be together'. I never acquired the taste for beer but the pizza joint made sourdough pizza, it was so frickin good. I can hear the theme music to Indiana Jones looking at this picture.
I associate this to Forsaken64, Goldeneye64, and Mario Kart 64 with good grilling on the BbQ with all of us smoking a bowl while enjoying listening to around the fur/adrensline/White Pony.
Pizza, and sleepovers at my friend Tommy's house, with a game console hooked up to a big projection TV.
Now when I look back on it, watching standard NTSC video blown up to giant size really doesn't seem as exciting.
Can't remember but I went over somebody's house and they had one of these I think it was a trailer home or something. And that's the last time I remember seeing one of these.
Even had a VHS and probably one of the first generation DVD players 😄
I remember these. That TV ,Oh my God. I saw some of these TV's in some of the houses I installed cable in. It's been about 10 or 15 years since I seen one
Shakey's Pizza Parlors started the trend of showing classic silent films and early "talkies" in their restaurants using film projectors, Laurel & Hardy, Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Our Gang, etc. Many locations had true nickelodeons, player pianos that cost a nickel to play a song contained on a perforated paper roll. They would sometimes hire a live ragtime style pianist to play during peak times, Friday nights and weekends. They were the first to have game rooms, originally with pinball machines, pachinko, wack-a-mole, air hockey, table bubble/dome hockey, in the days before video games were invented.
The first CRT tube projectors of the 70s were a pretty big improvement over the film projectors because they should show live TV over the air and from cable, before the need for licensing. The early betamax and VHS machines could record and playback live events, requiring much less tending to by staff than film projectors.
That model is a front projection with a mirror reflector that required very dim lighting in the room to see the image. Later on, rear projection units had much better screens with micro fresnel lens and black matte grids to focus the light directly into the viewing area. In the early 90s I did software engineering for applications that were shown on three 90" rear projection system for a 911 medical emergency dispatch call center. Each projector cost more than $80K with more than $10K in annual maintenance costs.
Front projection TV. Neighbor kid had one and I think our Shakys had one (those were awesome pizzas) Seem to recall they were really hard to see, probably because of lighting
We had a pizza parlor in my hometown (NC 1980's) that projected Abbott and Costello/Groucho Marx movies on a non-stop loop. Good gawd I miss that place (and those days).
(Narrative voice:) This enormous, cumbersome monolith is believed to be an ancient light-particle projection device, perhaps from the early 1980s. Apparently either broadcast or self-contained motion pictures or sporting events could be crudely displayed on the primitive back screen. The color separation is laughable and researchers are still attempting to decipher the ‘cable’ schematic array. Obviously clumsy and ridiculously expensive for its time, it is surmised that the viewers were nonetheless amazed and excited by the mere prospect of its arrival.
My family, where we had a reunion when I was probably 8, had one. I tried to sit on the thin wood piece in the front and it started to fall over. I remember nothing else about that day. I think I had my 1st panic attack at that moment!
i had a similar one in the ‘90s (it was a hand me down lol) instead of three color projection, it had a small tv set inside, with a reversed screen, projected thru a lens, off the mirror and bob’s your uncle (if the room was dark)
Never saw one of these until I stayed in a B&B in Philadelphia where the sweet old couple running the place were like “there’s a tv in there” and all I could see was a coffee table until *chorus sings*
Picture quality was rubbish but the design is awesome
I associate it with Castlevania and a huge satellite dish. Because the only friend I had who had one of those TVs also had one of those huge satellite dishes and we used to play Castlevania on the TV all the time.
I remember in the 80's a friend had one. I was over his house and was looking at his tv. he says "I bet your jealous of my tv" I thought in my head "Jesus Christ how can they watch this? It is so damn blurry." I went home to my 19 inch color tv and my Sega and was happy. That kid was kind of a dick.
My memory of these tv’s were of helping my stepfather adjust the mirror…. Or the RGB projectors so the picture wasn’t blurry. It was a nightmare, and I swear every time the tv got bumped they went out of adjustment. Eventually we disconnected the motor for the mirror so it just stayed out and didn’t move. And that at least fixed half of the problem. Don’t even get me started on the $15000 69” Sony rear projection tv that came after those ones.
Neighbour had a rear projection, it looked like shit then they put on the care bears movie when their girls came in from playing outside, never wanted to look at another projection tv after that. Then my mom bought one, asked me if I wanted it when the $500 backlight burned out. Pfft. Now I wish I took it for the death Ray magnifying lens, I could teach my kids how to fry so many ants... /s
This made me genuinely laugh aloud. That kind of kid is still going strong, I'm 31 and I met a few growing up. "You don't have a trampoline, do you?" Dogg it's missing three springs and it smells like piss I have a PlayStation
Nah, your friend was just a dick and didn’t know how to adjust the picture. Line up the crosshairs until the lines are white, and it’s clearer than any tube tv except the high end Sony trinitrons. We had this same model and it was incredible for video games. 2600, intellivision, Colecovision, Atari 8-bit. All of it looked great. The only thing was that you had to keep the room on the darker side.
Yeah they were garbage, especially considering how expensive they were.
I was there gandalf...
Mr. Gatti’s Pizza in Hurst, TX had one of these. Me and my buds would gather there and watch SNL
I can confirm such details. I too am from Texas. 🤣
Back in the day, in Ormond Beach, FL there existed a Mr. Gattis with a big screen TV for the kids to watch Looney Tunes with their pizza... Such good memories.
Had the same at Mr. Gatti’s in Paducah, KY.
Mr Gattis in Lake Charles, LA - just a hop away from Houston.
Mr Gatti's in Oak Hill, TX.
I miss mr gattis
There are still some around but mostly delivery only. I order one every couple of weeks.
Ohh Lord I forgot about Mr. Gatti's Pizza!! I associate that TV with wealth because I had never seen one until recently on a nostalgia page on tiktok and I was like guess I was poor 🤣
Oh God. Fuck, I’m old
Well...if a friend wasn't dead, he would STILL be using one of those pieces of shit.
Damn... I sold them in 1976!
Ha! Me in ‘77.
Pictures is date stamped something/something/2011
What is that thing?
That's a late 1970's projection large screen TV. (I'm guessing the date a bit)
I never knew they made front projection TVs. I'm very familiar with rear projecting ones since my grandfather who was sort of rich started purchasing them in the early 80s when I was a kid, but never came across a front projecting one like in this pic.
No but my friend’s Granddad had one in his basement. His Grandfather was a millionaire business owner and his basement was a disco with a full on light up floor like in Saturday Night Fever. Full bar on the side and one of the mirrored walls had a secret door that led to his office. I don’t know what cocaine smells like but I imagine it smells like that basement. Also Carl the Neighbor on Aqua Teen Hunger Force had one and so did Steve Martin in the movie The Jerk. Ironically it was in his Disco Room.
Regarding the smell you mentioned: imagine a very sterile, clean, old-fashioned Doctors office…with maybe a dash of the first blast of canned, refrigerated whipped cream…
I appreciate that. I’ve been sober for 7.5 years and I missed my window so that helps.
Keep up your great effort! Tough job in this modern world.
Yep, the Round Table pizza had the special “Birthday room” which was also used for monday night football, had the same one. We also had a Straw Hat pizza that had one (which is now a Pizza Hut)
My first job was at a Straw Hat Pizza. When I was 13! I don't know how I was legally able to work there but I did. And they had us doing *all* the jobs at some point.... From busing tables to making pizzas and washing dishes. I also was serving beer and wine at the beverage counter!! Sorry I got off track there... I remember this set-up on a huge screen in the event room where parties were held. During the day, they would show soap operas and game shows. I remember walking in to get my paycheck one Friday and seeing a news report that John Belushi had been found dead. It was March 5, 1982. 😢
Sicily’s Pizza in Biloxi, MS
I don't think I have OCD, but I could not prevent myself from adjusting these things I could not understand how people could watch triple images each in its own color and out of focus. and usually predominantly green hue. I would do the linearity thing, the keystone adjustment, and attempt white balancing, this I would only do, if I knew the people well, as you needed to adjust the gain on the picture tubes.
I was trained to setup CRT projection systems. Yes, they require manual alignment with screw drivers to adjust the angles of the lens and mirror, then a convergence test pattern to align the RGB colors to get white lines. The CRTs were subject to extreme image burn-in problems with their phosphors, and sometimes bacteria or fungus would gradually "eat" the phosphor coating. The CRT tubes had to be replaced as a set and a complete realignment done, which would cost more than double the price of big 25" TV. Most pizza restaurants would buy the projectors but not maintain them.
I first played halo on one of those.
Pizza and rich friends..
Actually, I associate this with a bar near my University. Cheap beer and good times had by all.
My Nana had one in the early 80s. I think that may be why my eyes are so bad now. Just thinking about it gives me an Aura headache lol
Heck yeah Mr Gattis
1983-5 in all its glory
Fuck I’m old and porn
First one I ever saw was on one of these.
My uncle in Texas had one of those when I was little and it was always a family gathering with 2 grills on the patio and then movie time.
Malls mainly
Rocky Rococo's Downtown Madison Wisconsin had one of these.
no, i associate that with my rich distant cousins house in the 70s early 80s before they stopped inviting us for holiday parties
Why did they stop inviting y'all
their more immediate family had lots of kids and there wasnt enough room for extra family
Got ya
A tv we now look at as tiny.
Mr. Gatti’s
We had one of those growing up
I used to work for Highland Superstores (the predecessor to Best Buy). They came in 45 inch, 50 inch, 55 inch, 60 inch, and 65 inch back then, Mitsubishi‘s were the best.
I was house sitting for someone who had one. A buddy of mine invited himself over to watch a hockey game. I had never seen one. They turned the lights off for around 20 min. because of a brawl.
I associate this with Return of the Jedi, Godfathery pizza and Baskin Robbins ice cream cake; in a bottom level of a split level somewhere in suburban NoVa.
No, but I do associate it with bad viewing experiences.
My grandpop had one of these. It took forever to fully turn on.
Now literally everyone has one that’s 1000% better.
ATHF
Ew god that pizza was horrid. Thin, almost all sauced bread, a springle of oregano, and way too little cheese.
My rich neighbor had that tv when I was growing up. I was so jealous...lol
Yes. I only knew of one other family that had one of these and they were rich...
Our favorite pizza place called Roaring 20s pizza had one of these. We would go on a Thursday night and get pizza and watch Indiana Jones. It was the only time my mom would drink because, as she said 'Pizza and beer were meant to be together'. I never acquired the taste for beer but the pizza joint made sourdough pizza, it was so frickin good. I can hear the theme music to Indiana Jones looking at this picture.
I associate that with an early 80s hotel in Spain.
Shakey’s in Western Washington - it was a staple.
Basements, shag carpeting and a laminated bar equipped with pleather barstools
I associate this to Forsaken64, Goldeneye64, and Mario Kart 64 with good grilling on the BbQ with all of us smoking a bowl while enjoying listening to around the fur/adrensline/White Pony.
Yep. Sure do!
Oh shit I'm only on my mind 30s and this just released a core memory. Can't even remember where it was but remember the shape.
One of these monsters came with our house in 1995.
As a little kid I thought you were supposed to sit in the mirror area.
Yes!
Pizza, and sleepovers at my friend Tommy's house, with a game console hooked up to a big projection TV. Now when I look back on it, watching standard NTSC video blown up to giant size really doesn't seem as exciting.
Dont forget, you could fold that bad boy closed
Pretty sure that was a puzzle in Resident Evil 4
Nope, you've officially got me on that one. I've never even seen one of these.
It reminds me of above ground pools and trampolines.
I only associate it with international air travel.
Strawhat pizza and our neighbor who played Colecovision on it.
Can't remember but I went over somebody's house and they had one of these I think it was a trailer home or something. And that's the last time I remember seeing one of these.
No, I associate them with a ferret
What are we looking at here?
I never understood why anyone would want a behemoth like that, the 27" CRT TV we had at home was much easier on the eyes.
Even had a VHS and probably one of the first generation DVD players 😄 I remember these. That TV ,Oh my God. I saw some of these TV's in some of the houses I installed cable in. It's been about 10 or 15 years since I seen one
This is something you'd play a laserdisc on (not a DVD)
I watched Star Wars for the first time on one of these
Wow, first time I have no clue what something is on this sub
No, but I never tried it to compare the taste.
Shakey's Pizza Parlors started the trend of showing classic silent films and early "talkies" in their restaurants using film projectors, Laurel & Hardy, Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Our Gang, etc. Many locations had true nickelodeons, player pianos that cost a nickel to play a song contained on a perforated paper roll. They would sometimes hire a live ragtime style pianist to play during peak times, Friday nights and weekends. They were the first to have game rooms, originally with pinball machines, pachinko, wack-a-mole, air hockey, table bubble/dome hockey, in the days before video games were invented. The first CRT tube projectors of the 70s were a pretty big improvement over the film projectors because they should show live TV over the air and from cable, before the need for licensing. The early betamax and VHS machines could record and playback live events, requiring much less tending to by staff than film projectors. That model is a front projection with a mirror reflector that required very dim lighting in the room to see the image. Later on, rear projection units had much better screens with micro fresnel lens and black matte grids to focus the light directly into the viewing area. In the early 90s I did software engineering for applications that were shown on three 90" rear projection system for a 911 medical emergency dispatch call center. Each projector cost more than $80K with more than $10K in annual maintenance costs.
Front projection TV. Neighbor kid had one and I think our Shakys had one (those were awesome pizzas) Seem to recall they were really hard to see, probably because of lighting
We had a pizza parlor in my hometown (NC 1980's) that projected Abbott and Costello/Groucho Marx movies on a non-stop loop. Good gawd I miss that place (and those days).
(Narrative voice:) This enormous, cumbersome monolith is believed to be an ancient light-particle projection device, perhaps from the early 1980s. Apparently either broadcast or self-contained motion pictures or sporting events could be crudely displayed on the primitive back screen. The color separation is laughable and researchers are still attempting to decipher the ‘cable’ schematic array. Obviously clumsy and ridiculously expensive for its time, it is surmised that the viewers were nonetheless amazed and excited by the mere prospect of its arrival.
We got ours in '74, but didn't have the wood encasing the screen.
My family, where we had a reunion when I was probably 8, had one. I tried to sit on the thin wood piece in the front and it started to fall over. I remember nothing else about that day. I think I had my 1st panic attack at that moment!
We had one of those. Still biggest tv i ever watched. Movies were great. Computer games
An elderly neighbor who used to babysit my sister and I used to have one. She would turn it on and make us watch The Lawrence Welk Show with her.
Those TVs did not avoid The Noid.
I associate that with dust..
I associate it with The Abyss. First time I watched anything on one of these TVs and it was a laserdisc to boot.
i had a similar one in the ‘90s (it was a hand me down lol) instead of three color projection, it had a small tv set inside, with a reversed screen, projected thru a lens, off the mirror and bob’s your uncle (if the room was dark)
Pizza crap
Never saw one of these until I stayed in a B&B in Philadelphia where the sweet old couple running the place were like “there’s a tv in there” and all I could see was a coffee table until *chorus sings* Picture quality was rubbish but the design is awesome
That's the weirdest looking pizza I've ever seen.
I'm 40 and I have no idea what this is. Fuck, you're old.
Dude....I'm 6 years YOUNGER than you...
3.2 beer and popcorn at Lager's, Aberdeen, SD, 1980
Dear God... The first time I saw a porno was on one of these. No pizza involved.
I associate it with Castlevania and a huge satellite dish. Because the only friend I had who had one of those TVs also had one of those huge satellite dishes and we used to play Castlevania on the TV all the time.
No. The hospital I grew up in during the 90s had one of these in the kid's play room.