alt Hacker NewsI have a Sony TV8-301 in my retro collection, just waiting for me to build it a suitable power supply, give it a service, and wire it up to be used as a terminal for something powerful.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sony_8_301_w8_301.html
The aesthetic of these old designs is really appealing. If you’re not familiar with the TV8-301, its been used as a prop in countless games and sci-fi movies .. and hasn’t the Sinclair Microvision also shown up in films in places? I want to say Bladerunner or Alien, but I’m pretty sure they just copied the aesthetic… Perhaps Space 1999 or The Tomorrow People or something like that?
In any case, its somewhat amusing to recollect just how fantastic it seemed, way back then, to have a portable television/video device to watch things on .. I used to lust after the toys in the Sinclair ads back in the day, it was a precursor to computing fever that hit me - and a lot of the rest of the world - on the cusp of the 80’s .. and it seems proper to notice that Sinclairs’ desire to give everyone the things that were being dreamed up by sci-fi authors seems to have been somewhat prescient.
We all have a TV in our pockets now, there’s no escaping it .. and what a world it has become, with literally everyone on the planet capable of starting their own channels, if they want to ..
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Kids today probably won't get what's the big idea with "just" some TV, no DVD playing capability, no computer games. But in the early 90s I would have sold a kidney for one of these, on a boring 8 hour train trip, they would have been the ultimate gadget. Not just for entertainment purposes, watching TV, but also bragging rights since noone even dreamt of having one of these in that time period and that place (Eastern Europe). At least I didn't see or knew anyone that had such a thing.
I need some help if you happen know your way around flybacks? I have a grime encrusted flyback transformer harvested from a crt set which I would like to hack around with, iff I had some inkling of the internal wiring of the coils, rectifiers etc. All it says is "FOK14A001 REV.0 ANYON T11520VO" and web searches refuse to surface an exact schematic; even though a lot of general information is available. But piecing together a schematic for this specific model is proving a drag from these nebulous floaters.