8 ms·
The must-have accessory for the 1980s: 2-inch screen in-dash TV (2014)
- gehwartzen 8y agoThis reminded me of how excited I was to see my friends TV Tuner Cartridge for his Sega GameGear in the early nineties :D
- taborj 8y agoI so badly wanted one of those for my GameGear. Alas, it was not to be.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shortoncash 8y agoI 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 8y agoI 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 8y agoUntil the batteries ran out two and a half hours later (if you were lucky) :-P
- aibara 8y agoThose were neat. There was an input on it too, so you could hook up other devices to it. I actually beat Mega Man on the NES... using a Game Gear with the TV Tuner as the screen.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoReminds me of knight rider and the sony watchman.
- quakeguy 8y agoVery nice car indeed, even without TV.
- nlh 8y agoThis 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! ;)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- legohead 8y agoportable TVs were like magic. well, so was the GameBoy for that matter. that feeling of technological magic was unique. I wonder what the equivalent would be for today's kids?
- noahadavis 8y agoProbably virtual reality. I tried it for the first time at an art museum a week ago and while I was only floating around an artist's 3D painting-like impression of her home, it still felt pretty magical.
- ChrisClark 8y agoI had a small LCD color one and we plugged the NES into it and played it on the tiny screen. While still sitting in front of our nice 20 inch TV. It was an even lower resolution than Super Mario Bros 3 as you could tell it couldn't show every pixel, so it was probably something like 120p. It seemed like half the resolution of SMB3 which is 256x224. But it felt like the future. :)
- ytjohn 8y agoIt is the future. Us old-timers (you know, in our late 30s/early 40s) keep thinking that a big screen tv is great, while the cool young kids each just want their own small screen. Most are happy with a 4-5" screen, others like a 7" - 10" screen, and the rich kids have the 12.9" ipad pro, though even that is "a bit too big".
- paulpauper 8y agolooks like an oscilloscope
- stcredzero 8y agoPut 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."
- mikestew 8y agoI 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.
- madengr 8y agoI wish cars still had DIN standard stereo mounting.
- ashleyn 8y agoIt's still relatively common on Mitsubishi econoboxes and Ford trucks.
- otterley 8y agoThey 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 8y agoThe 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 8y agoThis 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.
- mortenjorck 8y agoMany base models still do; they're just hidden behind the OEM's dash panels. Aftermarket equipment makers sell vehicle-specific adapter faceplates that will let you swap out the factory radio for a DIN / double-DIN device.
- mwexler 8y agoThis 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 8y agoIllegal 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.
- nck4222 8y agoMassachusetts passed a law against using your phone while driving (other than one touch button presses) something like 4 years ago. I'd be shocked if this screen was illegal in the 80's.
- NikkiA 8y agoPeople 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.
- cr0sh 8y agoIf you re-read the ad copy included in the article, you'll notice that it had a lockout function that disabled the screen when the engine was on (though you could still listen to the TV sound output).
- otterpro 8y agoI 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 8y agoRaspberry Pi composite video looks pretty terrible on a 5" B&W TV. I can only imagine what 2" (at 55MPH) looks like.
- Bluecobra 8y agoI can see this being sort of useful so you can listen to news broadcasts while driving.
- TheGRS 8y agoPretty sure news radio was also available.
- deadmetheny 8y agoInterestingly 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 8y agoI 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 8y agoThat'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.
- justinmchase 8y agoThat record onto tape with no hassle feature is pro.
- ainiriand 8y agoThat one was our first TV set, but from a different brand, it was german I remember.