
The must-have accessory for the 1980s: 2-inch screen in-dash TV (2014) - mzs
https://autoweek.com/article/wait-theres-more/must-have-accessory-well-equipped-1980s-driver-2-screen-dash-tv
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nlh
This reminded me of something I’d long forgotten about — sometime in the early
90s I somehow got my hands on a small portable (handheld?) TV and it was
amazing. I seem to remember it had a 2 or 3 inch full-color screen, a big CB-
style telescoping antenna, and was basically miserable to use (lol) — but it
was a portable TV!

I remember being on some long bus trip with some kids from school and we were
all hovering around the tiny screen as the various VHF signals came in and out
as we drove on the interstate. 5 seconds of solid signal was miraculous and we
all watched in awe.

I guess if I'd been a bit more prescient in my teenage years I'd have started
working on YouTube right away! ;)

~~~
pwg
Was it, by chance, the Sony Watchman:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Watchman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Watchman)

~~~
jrockway
Obligatory eevblog teardown:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ENph8sV-0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ENph8sV-0)

The engineering is amazing.

~~~
cr0sh
I still think the epitome of 80's "engineering" belonged to Tomy. Their
engineers and product designers were mechanical engineering wizards.

I personally think they showed absolute mastery of the subject with the
release of the Tomy Armatron.

It may not seem possible, but that 5 axis robot arm was completely mechanical.
The entire drive system was powered by a single 3 volt DC motor that ran on
two D-cells.

It had two joysticks for control; each had, IIRC, 4-way directional control,
along with stick rotation mechanically coupled to a complex transmission
system that controlled each axis (I believe the rotation of the stick
controlled on one side the jaws of the gripper, while the other controlled
rotation of the wrist).

It really is the most complex manual transmission control scheme you can
imagine.

It was built upon years of similarly complex systems for various tabletop
"games" (Atomic Pinball, for instance), as well as weird mechanical and
electronic systems for their various entertainment robots they created
(culminating in the Omnibot robot line).

Check it all out if you ever have the chance. Most of these robots have become
collectors items (and should be treated as such for the most part), but the
Armatron was mass produced and licensed all over the place, with Radio Shack
being the main outlet in the day; you can find used RS-licensed Armatrons all
over Ebay cheaply. In fact, there's so many RS Armatrons available, you hardly
ever see an actual Tomy branded one (if you ever find one, especially NIB, and
it's cheap - grab it and hold onto it).

There are more than a few articles on the internet detailing how to modify the
Armatron to connect it to a computer (back in the day, the common machine to
do this with was an Apple or Commodore). Many of these articles have tear-down
images showing the inner workings of the Armatron.

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gehwartzen
This reminded me of how excited I was to see my friends TV Tuner Cartridge for
his Sega GameGear in the early nineties :D

~~~
shortoncash
I went to summer camp one year and another kid brought the TV tuner for the
GameGear to camp. We were doing some wilderness survival thing where we had to
sleep out in a makeshift structure. In the middle of the night, in the middle
of nowhere, he brought out the game gear and everyone gathered around to see
what we could watch. All we could get was Lambchop and Matlock reruns. No one
cared, though, because, well, hey, we had TV in the woods. Pretty magical, I
must admit.

~~~
illegalsmile
I brought my GameGear w/ tuner to summer camp in WI. Didn't matter what shows
were on because it was the same, pretty magical.

~~~
djsumdog
Until the batteries ran out two and a half hours later (if you were lucky) :-P

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madengr
I wish cars still had DIN standard stereo mounting.

~~~
otterley
They still do in many poorer countries where minimizing cost is still
important (e.g. Mexico and India), but they’re fading away as people become
wealthier and demand (and can afford!) complex integrated
entertainment/climate/navigation system.

~~~
cr0sh
The thing that sucks about such a thing is that for those of us who want
standard components, we'll be relegated to the cheaper automobiles meant for
those with less buying power - if we can get them at all.

One vehicle I would love to purchase - if it ever makes it to market - but one
that I doubt I'll be able to, is the Ox Global Vehicle Trust flatpack truck:

[http://oxgvt.com/](http://oxgvt.com/)

Those trucks just look so damn useful and neat, and you get to put it together
yourself!

Which means it'll never see the light of day being sold in the United States.
I've kinda figured that if I ever want a vehicle like that, I'll have to
design and build it from scratch myself.

~~~
madengr
This may have better odds of getting around the Chicken Tax than imported
diesel pickups. The Sprinter vans are imported knocked-down, then re-
assembled. I’d like a flat-bed diesel Toyota like you can buy in Australia.

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otterpro
I wanted to get it but the EBay listing was sold, and it was a great deal,
considering that it was new, and its nearly impossible to find anything
vintage in new condition.

Since we can't get analog TV signal anymore, I'd love to have retrofitted this
with Raspberry Pi since this TV-radio has a VCR (assuming standard RCA) input
and Raspberry Pi has the analog video output.

~~~
itomato
Raspberry Pi composite video looks pretty terrible on a 5" B&W TV.

I can only imagine what 2" (at 55MPH) looks like.

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mikestew
I remember those. I also remember thinking, "hmm, 'Mustang', the first name
that comes to mind when you think quality audio gear. /s" IOW, having never
seen one in the flesh, I assumed it was a cheap version of the Casio handheld
TV (one of which I _did_ have) tacked on to an even cheaper tape deck that
would just as soon eat your tapes as play them. Combine that with an eye-
watering price, and I took a pass when it came install a new deck.

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mwexler
This would be illegal in many US States, though I doubt anyone would enforce
it... unless you got into an accident while yelling at the Price is Right on
your tiny screen.

[https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/video-
screens/](https://drivinglaws.aaa.com/tag/video-screens/)

~~~
pwg
Illegal today, in 2019, yes.

But were these laws on the books back in the 80's when this item would have
been newly on the market?

Since laws often occur in a reactive manner, it is very likely these laws were
not yet on the books, and when it was new it would not have been illegal at
that time.

~~~
NikkiA
People were driving around with 12v portable B&W TVs in the front seat in the
70s, (I think "taxi driver" features just such a situation) so it's possible
the laws had appeared around the time this product did.

Looks like NY's law against TV use in cars dates to 1974, Texas's to 1995.

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mixmastamyk
Reminds me of knight rider and the sony watchman.

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paulpauper
looks like an oscilloscope

~~~
stcredzero
Put the panel on a hinged lid (you'd have to reduce the size of the
"cassettes" greatly) and you'd have something resembling The Original Series
Star Trek "Tricorder."

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Bluecobra
I can see this being sort of useful so you can listen to news broadcasts while
driving.

~~~
deadmetheny
Interestingly enough, back in the old days of analog television, you could
listen to the audio feed for channel 6 - it was broadcast on 87.76 MHz. Not
every car radio was capable of going low enough on the frequency spectrum, but
if you had one that could hit 87.7 and you were in an area utilizing TV
channel 6, it was possible to listen to TV on the radio.

~~~
larrywright
I had a Walkman clone (Aiwa perhaps?) in the mid-late 1980s, and one of the
things I remember doing a lot was just slowly moving the analog dial from the
far left to the far right to see what I could pick up. I could pick up TV
sometimes including, for reasons I never figured out, HBO. We didn't have HBO,
and so this was pretty cool. Obviously listening to a movie (especially a
movie you've never seen) would be annoying, but they used to show a lot of
comedy specials too. Dennis Miller, Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy, whatever
that big day-long comedy special is that raises money for charity. I can't
imagine how eye-rolly my kids would get if I told them this now, but at the
time that was a blast.

~~~
deadmetheny
That's very strange! Back in those days HBO would have been a satellite uplink
directly to cable or to a personal satellite receiver so it's not like it
would normally just be floating around the airwaves.

Honestly, radio as a hacker hobby is still absolutely a blast. If you're into
breaking out a shortwave radio receiver or HAM equipment there's all sorts of
wild stuff out there just waiting to be discovered - same with satellite
wildfeeds and free OTA television, honestly. It carries a bit more magic than
the Internet since it's all around us just waiting to be picked out of the
air.

~~~
larrywright
This was before cable boxes, I think (or maybe they were only needed if you
had a fancy cable package). At least around here, there was a physical RF
filter that was removed at the cable box that delivered cable to your house,
if you subscribed to HBO. I swear I remember hearing about people removing the
filter themselves and then getting in trouble when the cable company found
out. On most sets you could turn the knob to channel 2 and get a distorted
picture and audio for HBO if you weren't a subscriber.

I always figured that it was either leaking out from the cable, or maybe a TV
or something wasn't shielded well enough. I'm out of my depth on that though,
so I'd just be guessing.

~~~
fmj
Did you have any neighbors? Maybe one of them was using some sort of wireless
sound system with a low power FM transmitter.

~~~
larrywright
Plenty of neighbors but I don't think wireless sound systems were available in
the mid-80s. Maybe they were though.

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ainiriand
That one was our first TV set, but from a different brand, it was german I
remember.

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justinmchase
That record onto tape with no hassle feature is pro.

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quakeguy
Very nice car indeed, even without TV.

