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Widget Of The Week

Sinclair FTV1/TV80 Slat Screen TV, 1983

Timing is everything in the fast paced world of consumer electronics. Gadgets and fads can come in and go out of date in an alarmingly short space of time and it’s something Sir Clive Sinclair knows only too well. Many of his products, like the first calculator and ZX computers were timed to perfection, but sometimes he got it horribly wrong, and the FTV1 flat screen pocket TV (also known as the TV80) was a case in point. It was out of date even before it started rolling off the production line.     

 

Flat screen video displays were rare in the early 80s but everyone knew they were coming. Casio, Hitachi, Panasonic and Seiko, to name just a few, had been regularly demonstrating prototype screens at trade shows and press events. These were all based on liquid crystal display technology (LCD), which by then was well established on watches and calculators. The only question was who would be first to get a flat screen TV into the shops. It was a close run thing but it was almost certainly Casio, in June 1983 with the TV-10, with several other manufacturers hard on their heels. Four months later Clive Sinclair, as was, announced the FTV1 pocket flat screen TV. This was most definitely not a me-too product, though, and it was typical of Sinclair to defy convention with a flat display screen that owed more to old school 19th century physics than late 20th century microchip wizardry.

 

It was a clever variant of the cathode ray tube (CRT). Basically it’s a valve, a glass tube with all of the air sucked out where a stream of electrons is fired from a ‘gun’ towards a phosphor screen that glows brightly when struck by the beam. The beam can be moved around the screen using magnetic fields or electrostatic charges, and by varying the brightness of the beam, and scanning the beam across and down the screen 50 times a second it is possible to build up a sequences of still pictures that create an illusion of movement. The big difference with the FTV1 tube is that the screen is at right angles to the electron gun, and it is viewed through the sidewall of the flattened glass tube. Electrons from the gun are deflected down onto the screen by an electrostatic charge. The actual phosphor screen is quite small, just 38 x 18mm, and apparently the wrong aspect ratio (16:9 instead of 4:3) but the image is magnified and the distortion corrected by a fresnel lens moulded in the viewing window in the case. It produces a sharp and bright image, but like all CRTs it’s still a fragile glass bottle that needs a lot of high voltages in order to make it work, which makes packing one into a small box that you can fit into your pocket quite a challenge.

 

The FTV1 was the result of collaboration with several other companies. Much of the key tuning, picture processing and tube driver circuitry is packed into a single microchip developed jointly with Ferranti. The designers overcame the not inconsiderable problem of powering it by using a weird and wonderful flat battery, originally developed by Polaroid for use in instant camera film cartridges. The P500 Lithium Power Pack did indeed manage to pack a lot of power into a small space, but they were expensive (3 for £10), and didn’t last anything like the 15 hours claimed in the marketing guff. Timex in Scotland handled manufacture of the FTV1 tube and Thorn EMI assembled the parts at their Enfield plant. It was priced realistically at just under £80 (that’s where the alternative TV80 name came from, allegedly…). Most who saw it in action commented favourably on picture and sound quality but it wasn’t enough to for it to fly. Sinclair predicted that production would eventually reach 10,000 units a month, rising to a million a year when it went worldwide but there were serious production delays and according to several reputable sources only around 15,000 were ever built.

 

What Happened To It?

Two things conspired against the FTV1. Slick-looking Japanese LCD pocket TVs had a clear technical edge and a lot more kudos, compared with the rather dull looking FTV1 and this was in spite of first generation LCD TVs being more expensive and having quite poor picture quality. The second problem was the initial production delays, rumoured to be due to high rejection rates, and the subsequent limited availability, leaving the door open for the Japanese. Production limped on for a year or so but, sadly, it was doomed.

 

I have half a dozen FTV1s, bought mostly from ebay a few years ago were they were selling for £5.00 or less. There are still a fair few of on sale each month though nowadays good ones tend to fetch £20 or more. Mine still work, though there’s nothing much to see since the UK digital TV switchover. You can bodge up a connection to the aerial from a VCR or TV game but it’s not much fun. Power is also a problem, it will work on a mains adaptor but the wacky flat battery is no longer made. I did once manage to extract something very similar from a Polaroid disposable flat torch and graft it into an expired P500 pack, and it worked, but only for a few minutes. No doubt in time they will become harder to find and prices will go up but it’s unlikely ever to excite much interest outside of the handful of members of the Sinclair products and mini TV collector communities...

0513


GIZMO GUIDE

First seen                        1983

Original Price                 £79.95

Value Today                   £10

Features                         47mm (2-inch) monochrome flat-screen CRT display, 625-line UHC (chans 21 – 68) coverage, telescopic antenna, 23mm speaker, volume on/off & tuning controls, earphone jack (mono 3.5mm), external DV power socket, fold out table stand

Power req.                     P500 6-volt flat lithium battery pack & optional AC adaptor

Dimensions:                   140 x 85 x 33mm              

Weight:                          279g

Made in:                        UK

Hen's Teeth (10 rarest):  5


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