Sunday, 25 July 2010

My First TV. A Very Big Deal in a Very Small Box!

Have you ever heard of Osaki?  I hadn't heard of them till the late 80's.  Osaki were the manufacturer of my first personal television set.  It was a Christmas present from my parents, and it spelled the beginning of the end for evenings in front of the TV as a family.
From that moment on, I'd gained a small amount of independence as I was able to watch my choice of programs from the four channels available at the time.


The TV was a P142, a small, nondescript plastic box, typical of a lot of the portable TV's of the period.  It came with it's own loop aerial, for all the good it did, and had no remote control.  Back then, changing channels meant leaning out of bed and pressing a button on the front of the TV.
The TV was full colour and had a 14" CRT screen.  I'm not entirely sure of the details as I have found no information about the TV I once owned, and information on Osaki is quite scarce.  It seems they are/were among the obscure, cheaper Japanese manufacturers whose products were often bought into the country by the big box shifters of the time, whoever they might have been.  Rumbelows?
The TV had a single speaker on the side and had one input on the rear - the RF feed for the aerial.  Hardly cutting edge technology, even in those days. 
Back then, TV was just that.  TV.  Home cinema had barely caught on, except with the most serious enthusiasts who chose Laser Disc over VHS, and that in turn had won the war over Sony's Betamax in the movie rental stakes, even though only half the population owned a VCR.  Such equipment was still very expensive in the 1980's.  Companies like Radio Rentals proved very popular, as renting a TV was cheaper, and often more reliable, than owning a TV that could go wrong at any moment, especially in the early part of the decade.
By the late eighties, TV reliability had started to improve, and the Osaki P142 served me well for many, many years, overseeing it's introduction to my first VCR, Star Wars re-released on VHS (again), and the Sony Playstation, before finally being put into retirement in 2000.

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