First Sony Chromatron 19C-70

Chapter Nine

Only known Sony Chromatron 19C-70 screenshot, followed by color bar testing at the Sony production plant. These are digital photos we shot from a Sony tourist handout souvenir booklet.  If anyone has more information, contact me.

Published March 24, 2014, amended April 23, 2026 all rights reserved.

I have been interested in alternative color television picture tube technologies developed over the past decades in an attempt to improve on the Federal Communication Commission/NTSC color system adopted 1953 in the United States. We don’t think the full story of the Chromatron has been told. We spent several years researching the Chromatron and originally the text and images appeared on several different pages of this Timeline website. Now I decided to merge this information and give the Chromatron its own dedicated page. It is not my intention to describe detailed technical data which would require volumes of material to post. Rather, a brief overview follows.

THE INVENTION

In 1951, Nobel Prize winner Dr. Ernest O. Lawrence, inventor of the Cyclotron from the University of California Berkley, invented the Lawrence Tube in his garage at home.

Chromatic Television Laboratory, a subsidiary of Paramount based in New York City, with an office in Oakland California, was created in part to commercially develop the Lawrence Tube and renamed it the “Chromatron”. The work was done in tight quarters in the Paramount building in the heart of New York City on Broadway, and Oakland, California.

The Lawrence Tube was unique in that it created the color image with one gun and one electron beam. It used no shadow mask, but instead, a grid of fine wires that were placed directly behind the vertically aligned tri-color phosphor stripes on the screen. The wires were charged with high voltage and when the single electron beam passed through the wires, in a type of electronic lens, they were accelerated and deflected onto the red and blue phosphor stripes. The wires were placed behind the red and blue phosphor stripes, so that the green stripe was excited directly.  The phosphor stripes and corresponding wire grid could be placed horizontally as well as vertically. It was observed that when prototype tubes constructed with horizontal phosphor stripes lined up parallel to the horizontal scanning lines, moire interference patterns were reduced. The original Lawrence Tube was conceived to work with both one and three guns. The one gun version received the most attention because of it’s simplicity and potential lower manufacturing costs. Despite the 90% transparency of the wire grid, the one gun version did not achieve acceptable brightness so an inline three gun version was adopted and at the same time the wire grid and phosphor stripes were changed from horizontal to vertical. 398 lines of resolution were achieved.  A three gun Lawrence Tube was brighter then the one gun and the deflection voltage requirement was greatly reduced.  Both types were developed in prototype form. Later prototypes of the one gun version increased the number of wires in the deflection grid which directly reduced the deflection voltage requirement.  The radiation problem was reduced by placing the wires further back from the phosphor stripes, shielded coils and cables which reduced the capacitance (claimed 3 UV/M at 100 feet) and significantly reduced the driving power requirements.  In addition, the output of the three video amplifiers switched the color information to hit each RGB stripe at the precise moments required.  In other words, a keyed operation of the three color stages.  Later, the General Colornetron adopted this approach.  Successor Chromatron tubes experimented with different color phosphors to obtain the correct combination of brightness and persistence.  Finally a rather large copper box or cage was mounted externally to the bell to reduce the remaining radiation from the grid coil.  All this, helped to reduce the RF radiation to acceptable levels and the pictures produced were described as fairly decent and viewable with no visible streaking or stripeing.  When Autometric, formerly Chromatic shut down facilities in Oakland, California in 1957, Dumont took over the operation of assembly and production.  Phosphors deposited on the faceplate were planned instead of silk screening. A second grid of wires was considered to improve beam focusing for a tighter beam spot.

Dr. Lawrence sold a stake to Paramount Pictures Corporation to develop the Lawrence Tube. View one of several  Patents.

By the time all development and patent rights were sold to Sony, 1961/62, Autometric was working on an in-line three cathode, one gun, post deflection focused, glass envelope, rectangular CRT, inspired by the work General Electric developed starting in 1954. (Read more about this later in this presentation).

(Later in this article, we show that Sony settled on the three gun Chromatron for the Japanese market).

Courtesy Broadcasting Magazine

Click on above image to read PDF

First details about the Lawrence/Chromatron appear in this article from Electronics Magazine, December, 1951. View PDF. Courtesy Electronics Magazine.

Update July 23, 2020: View PDF SUMMARY OF RESEARCH PROGRESS MEETING OF SEPTEMBER 27, 1951.

Update March 11, 2020: Detailed account of Dr. Lawrence’s Chromatron work, courtesy Joshua Roebke and Physics Today. View PDF.

The above article’s title calls Dr. Lawrence’s work a failure.  Due to RCA’s litigious nature which dominated the American color television market, competition was stymied until an upstart JAPANESE company perfected the Chromatron and renamed it Trinitron. More about this later.

Here is an article from Billboard Magazine, published October 6, 1951, announcing the first Paramount sets incorporating the Chromatron CRT. This same article also announced that the first CBS-Columbia color sets hit the market on September 28, 1951.

Early History

Before delving into the Chromatron, we need to know a bit about early color television history in the United States to better understand why the Chromatron was developed.

Summary

Color Wars

This was a time when Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was working on the mechanical spinning color wheel field sequential color system (see a modern day field sequential color television here.) while Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was working on the electronic compatible Tri Color shadow mask system (required reading, “The 1953 RCA Red Book FCC Petition”) and Color Television Incorporated proposed the line sequential system. During the FCC trials and public demonstrations of these color systems, Chromatic Television Laboratory was invited to demonstrate their Chromatron one gun color tube.

Color Television Development In The United States

Added June 15, 2020.  During the war emergency, color television production was halted, but CBS was producing good color images in their lab. Here, courtesy of the September 22, 1941 issue of Life Magazine, examples of color quality using the field sequential method. Live and televised images. Bear in mind the 79 year old images digitally formatted for reproduction.

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Update, January 16, 2025

Tap or click on the below image to listen to the Meet The Press telecast aired June 18, 1951.  This was a reaction to the first NTSC color system implemented by the FCC October 11, 1950.

Courtesy Past Daily

Authors note.

We don’t believe the “121/2 million” monochrome televisions would become obsolete as suggested by the naysayers. Color TV adaptors, cheaper color sets, dual tuners, faster adoption of color by the public and industry, but that’s another story to tell elsewhere.

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The first experimental fully electronic RCA color camera was undergoing private color trials at RCA’s Wardman Park color studio in Washington D.C., 1949. Below is a shot of the monitor at the Wardman Park color studio in 1949 where the demonstrations of the RCA systems would be held for the FCC a few years later. Only two of these cameras were made, and both were in Washington D.C. This ultra rare photo and information is courtesy of Eyes Of A Generation … Television’s Living History and Bill Wells. Visit this site and you will be rewarded with a rich history of early color television.

Courtesy Bill Wells

January 12, 1950

Public sees color television for the first time.

First public color TV demonstration, courtesy The New York Times.

At this 1950 trial demonstration, from left to right, RCA one gun color CRT, an RCA black and white CRT and an RCA three gun tri-color CRT. The Chromatron would work with CBS’s system, thereby eliminating the mechanical spinning wheel or drum and it would work with a one or three gun RCA system. It has been reported that this one gun color CRT is an early RCA development model which was later abandoned and RCA then put all their efforts into developing the three gun CRT. During the trials, the Chromatic Chromatron was considered a leading contender.

This is the color image displayed on the RCA three gun tri-color CRT, RCA’s first such prototype, shown during the demonstration, above on the right. All photos  courtesy RCA via Hagley Museum.

A better look at the three receivers on stage.

Courtesy of the David Sarnoff Library, a closer view of the one gun development RCA color television.

Proceedings of the I.R.E. October, 1951.

Color television issue, a comprehensive presentation of engineering papers from RCA outlining development work of 5 color CRT candidates prior to RCA selection of the tri-color dot sequential tube as well as an overview with other color articles and a comprehensive discussion of the CBS field sequential system.  We think this will prove interesting to readers of this Chromatron page. Attention is drawn to the one gun RCA page of this PDF.  Thanks to Jerome H. for finding and sharing the published I.R.E. Directory.

Update, December 21, 2024
Proceeding of the I.R.E. A Paper By Robert Dressler, 1953.

Click on image to read PDF.

Faye Emerson screenshot off RCA experimental television during a later trial to the public.

Posted September 13, 2022

Filling in the gaps of Chromatron history, we recently researched General Electric’s work in developing their version of the Chromaton.  It was called simply “PA” or Post Acceleration CRT.

Work started in 1954 and by late 1956, GE developed a three gun inline post deflection tube with a wire grid and vertical phosphor stripes.  The wire grid was charged with 7KV and the screen was at 25KV.  The design was easy to deflect and converge, but GE encountered difficulty in aligning the grid wires with the phosphor stripes.  Additionally, the back scattering of secondary electrons created haze.  The haze problem was later ameliorated.  Unfortunately this tube never went into production.  Thank you John Atwood for releasing the documents of Avon C. Campbell, a life long engineer at General Electric.  Later in 1966, the world’s first 3 gun, in-line cathode ray tube went into production as the GE “Porta Color”.  See the Porta Color here.

As a side note: Westinghouse worked on this approach with a prototype 20 inch PA CRT.  We also learned that RCA tested the GE one gun PA and said to have “reservations”.  RCA avoided at great cost, paying royalties to its competitors (think about the Philo Farnsworth litigation).  RCA and GE were closely intertwined by cross licenses.  Being cynical, perhaps the above described RCA one gun color tube was a GE design?

We have extracted the relevant discussions by the General Electric engineering department pertaining to the PA color CRT.

Evaluation by General Electric of their own development CRT.

Summery and recommendations.

Internal General Electric engineering department photos.

January, 1954

General Electric focused on five competitive systems and in the end, decided to contribute development to the Apple Super-Index system as the most viable cost effective technology to compete with RCA’s tri-color shadow mask CRT.

Back to CBS.

THE CBS SYSTEM was approved first by the FCC on October 10, 1950. In public viewing tests, it was deemed to have the best color reproduction, particularly the flesh tones. These first television sets were sold to receive the very limited color programming available. Then the war effort in Korea caused the suspension of production of CBS television sets. Back in the lab, RCA continued development, greatly improving their color system and their biggest advantage was that black and white telecasts could be viewed on the Compatible RCA color system sets. The CBS system required an adaptor to watch color telecasts when black and white dominated television programming at that time. See this article to get insights on the “color war” between CBS and RCA.

Author commentary:  Looking back, CBS had the advantage, but failed to exploit the resources of time, color superiority and lower cost of the field sequential system.  They could simply roll out the inexpensive adaptors for all existing black and white sets without the necessity of buying a new color set.  The first CBS color set sold for $495.00, not $1175, $1295, or $995.  CBS was unprepared to launch the new color system and marketing and education of the public were lacking.  RCA lobbied, litigated and cajoled against the CBS system as they previously did with Farnsworth, Aiken, Philco and others.  Later you will learn how the mechanical field sequential color system developed into a fully electronic system long after the color wars were settled.  What might have been?

More reading. Who Really Invented Electronic Television?

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Color converter for black and white television, courtesy Popular Science Magazine.

This circular disk houses the tri-color, RGB color wheel. It rotates at a specified high speed which causes the brain to trick the viewer in seeing full color images. The adaptor could be mounted on most monochrome television receivers in use. This device was created in 1950 and cost between $75. to $100.  There were at least six versions available from other manufactures.  In 1951 a CBS/Columbia color receiver  incorporated the color disc, motor and associated parts within the television cabinet to avoid the clumsy external converter apparatus.  (See a unique twist on this technology at the bottom of the page, here.)

Later, the proponents of the CBS system incorporated the mechanics of the color converter physically into the cabinets of monochrome television receivers, eliminating the bulky apparatus. CBS-Columbia 12CC2 Field Sequential Color Receiver below.  This set went to market for $495.00, half the price of the upcoming Admiral, Westinghouse and RCA color models.  About 100 sets were made in the pilot run and 1000 more shipped out to dealers.  CBS sought to have all recovered for destruction after the collapse of field sequential color system and all but 10 to 12 were recovered.  Source: Bob Cooper, must read.

CBS-Columbia 12CC2 Field Sequential Color Receiver (1951) courtesy Ed Reitan

Update, May 17, 2017

In this article published by Life Magazine February 27, 1950, we can see the superiority of the CBS system in the comparison photos, even though the colors have faded over 67 years.

Courtesy Life Magazine

UPDATE, MAY 17, 2018

Found this interesting cover page (source anonymous) from the Sunday News, New York’s picture newspaper, January 28, 1951. The image depicts the upcoming launch of CBS television color programming. The television shown is a field sequential monitor.

In February, 1951 at the National Photographic show held in New York, these screenshots were taken by amateur photographers and preserved on photographic film. The color images appear to have been shot off a Gray Research field sequential studio monitor. They are some of the very first color television images seen by the public.

The artifacts appearing in the above screenshots were introduced by the scanning process and not the television. They are not present in the direct magazine reproduction. All photos courtesy of Popular Photography magazine.

THE FIRST COLOR telecast was a program called “Premiere” on June 25, 1951.
“Premiere” aired from 4:35 to 5:34 p.m. but only reached five cities: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It has been reported that there were only 30 color sets in operation to view this first telecast. The network stated some 40 thousand viewers watched the telecast. Obviously overstated as conventional black and white sets were not capable of displaying color unless an adaptor was attached to the sets.

Here, courtesy of Life/Google.com are a few select television screen shots taken from an unknown color field sequential receiver during the first week of color telecasting in the United States as published in Life Magazine on July 23, 1951.

Update, December 20, 2016

From Steve D.

“Hi Marshall, In response to your question. The attached photo shows a Gray Research monitor in use on the CBS studio floor during their 1st field sequential color broadcast “Premier” in June 1951. This photo along w/the Gray monitors CBS provided for off screen photos may indicate what color monitors CBS generally used during that time.

-Steve D.”

I now think we can say the following screenshots were taken from a Cray Research monitor. Thanks Steve.

Update, December 21, 2016

From Wayne B. at VideoKarma forums: “Here are some attempts at correcting some of the published slides.
In each case, there’s the original faded slide, then a version with levels corrected in Photoshop. Finally, there’s a version with the levels corrected plus a hue correction. The success of the hue correction on the test pattern and Bisquik box indicates to me that CBS did indeed have a hue shift problem due to lag in the image orthicon, as the color sequence was RBG, and red is shifted toward blue, yellow towards red, green toward yellow (not so obvious) and blue toward green.

I used a “levels” correction layer and clicked on the background of the Bisquick set with the “gray” eyedropper. This over-exposed the slides a bit, so I added a lower (preceding) levels adjustment layer to bring down the levels so the highlights were not overexposed/clipped. I then added a hue/saturation adjustment layer on the top of the stack and adjusted the hue by 20 degrees, which may be a little too much. However, because of film characteristics, it may be impossible to get exactly correct results in the highlights as well as the mid tones. The Doublemint and Couple images seemed to especially need the first over-all level adjustment, as they appear a bit over-exposed and washed out to start with.

The color blockiness in the original scans due to the jpeg compression was emphasized in the yellow when I made the hue adjustment. This is because the Photoshop hue adjustment rotates the proportions of red, green, and blue, which means the brightness also changes when the hue is changed. Maybe working in Lab space instead of RGB space would fix this – I haven’t tried it.

Please feel free to use these images on your site.” Thanks Wayne.

The next day, June 26, 1951, an article appearing in the Milwaukee Journal describes reactions to this first television color cast. The article explains how fifty thousand people may have seen this first color telecast.

Courtesy Milwaukee Journal

By March 30, 1953, the Chairman, Dr. Baker of the National Television System Committee (NTSC), considered the RCA and Chromatic tri-color tubes the most promising, but held out belief that a third tube might surface combining the best of these two tubes.

Courtesy Broadcasting Magazine

RCA resubmitted their application of the compatible dot sequential electronic system to the FCC and they reversed their 1950 decision, approving the RCA system on December 17, 1953. (see the excellent 37 page brochure with beautiful photography prepared by RCA Department of Information, published December, 1953, courtesy KRIS TREXLER)

RCA manufactured and sold their first color television in April, 1954, the CT-100 with a 15 inch color tube, (12.5 inch viewable) using the phosphor dot/shadow mask tube. Sales were dismal, lack of color programming, the viewing screen was too small, (12 1/2 inches) and the set was too expensive. It was estimated that RCA manufactured about 4400 CT-100’s. On August 8, 1954, RCA dropped the price of the CT 100 to $495.00 and rebated $505.00 to all who purchased the set.

.

This advertisement appeared in four major markets, Washington, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Denver on April 25, 1954 announcing the availability of the RCA CT-100.

Twenty one more cities would get RCA color sets the week of May 2, 1954, attended by the same promotional material and advertising. Source, Television Digest.

May 2, 1954

RCA announces first public showing in New York City.

“The festival marks the introduction in New York City of RCA Victor’s first commercial compatible color television receiver, the CT 100”.

A photo of RCA Exhibition Hall, May, 1954.  Look closely at the sign.

This was the next 19 inch RCA “CT 100”, photo curtesy the Estate of Ed Reitan.

It was designed to compete with the Motorola 19 inch color set under development, then quietly dropped from introduction when RCA learned of the CBS 19 inch curved screen color CRT being developed and subsequent production.

The industry was gearing up for the upcoming Motorola 19 inch color set and RCA’s new 21 inch set.

RCA licensed their 15 inch color tube to other manufactures such as Admiral and Westinghouse shown below, in an effort to promote the fledgling color television industry. A race to introduce the first compatible, electronic color television ensued.

First all electronic color television is offered for sale.

DECEMBER 18, 1953 New Castle News, New Castle, Pennsylvania.

“GEORGE BROS. will allow you full purchase price on an Admiral Color TV purchased anytime between now (December 18, 1953 date of advertisement) and June 1, 1954.”

We believe Admiral offered their dealerships incentives to allow customers full purchase price trade-in’s on expensive Admiral color sets. We found several similar advertisements like this one. Admiral may have been taking advance orders on the C1617A and it’s possible they may have taken orders on this date. This advertisement appears to be an offer to sell (for future delivery) on December 18, 1953.

THIS IS THE FIRST all electronic color set, the Admiral C1617A which was introduced to the public as early as December 18, 1953 according to the Admiral Corporation or on December 30, 1953 according to the New York Times and others.

Admiral C1617A Courtesy Television History-The First 75 years

Admiral C1617A photos, courtesy of Bruce Buchannan, Early Television Foundation and John Folsom.

Read more about the Admiral C1617 here.

The second color set to go on sale was this Westinghouse H840CK15 on February 28, 1954 in the New York area. There are conflicting sources saying the set went on sale in March, 1954. February 28, 1954 was a Sunday, and stores were closed and so the argument goes that the public would not have access to purchase until the next day, Monday, March 1, 1954. Sunday shopping didn’t start until the mid 1970’s. This particular set was found in Phoenix and offered for sale in 2013. Photo by this author. We passed on this set, but later acquired the set in 2018. You can see the restoration underway here.

Westinghouse H840CK15 photographed March 17, 2013

THE EARLY YEARS

One of the constant complaints of the RCA system used in these first color sets, was the low luminosity color.  One had to turn the lights down and draw the drapes in their homes to see the image clearly. Another problem, color fringing on black and white programs and blurred images with color. This is why the Chromatron (and other systems such as the Apple tube by Philco) were proposed. The RCA system was a brute force method, requiring high voltage, using a metal sheet with many perforations or holes as a color selection method. This was called the shadow mask. The early RCA television tubes with shadow mask blocked 85% of the light from the three electron beams causing a dim image. The original Lawrence Tube only absorbed 14% of the single electron beam light energy, or 86% efficient.

Chromatron PDF

Citation: THE PDF CHROMATRON-A SINGLE OR MULTI-GUN TRI-COLOR CATHODE-RAY TUBE by Robert Dressler from the PROCEEDINGS OF THE I.R.E. VOL.41, NO. 7, JULY, 1953.

In other words, the wire grid was much more transparent and this tube was as bright as a conventional black and white television of the time. Another big advantage of the Chromatron tube was in theory, it had perfect registration with no convergence requirements because it used just one gun. The Chromatron was said to be less expensive to manufacture, used fewer parts, smaller and lighter.

FIRST COLOR BROADCAST IN GREAT BRITAIN

On June 2, 1953, the first color television telecast in England was conducted using an experimental field sequential system developed by Pye and Chromatic Television laboratory. Televisions with Chromatron tubes were set up in a children’s hospital to view the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The New York Times reported that a Chromatic representative concluded the test was a complete success. Newspaper clip courtesy of the Tipton Tribune, Indiana, June 2, 1953

An account of coronation day and the first color television event as reported by ALEXANDRA PALACE TELEVISION SOCIETY: http://www.apts.org.uk/coronation.htm

“As befits the coming generation, two hundred children saw the Coronation procession by the TV of the future – in colour. They were at the Great Ormand Street Hospital in London. By closed-circuit they received pictures from three TV colour cameras overlooking Parliament Square.”

Recollection of Peter Ward as published in THE 1953 CORONATION OB PETER WARD, GUILD OF TV CAMERAMANS MAGAZINE SPRING l985.

“Whilst 20 million viewers watched the transmission in black and white, 150 children and staff of the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street watched part of the procession in colour. Pye of Cambridge were given permission to set up three colour cameras on the roof of the Foreign Office, and by using a portable transmitter beamed the signal to Ormond Street to display colour pictures on two 20″ sets. Twenty years later it would be standard practice for major OBs to be in colour. and today it is common place to deploy 20 to 25 cameras just for one programme ‘Match of the Day’ ”

Re-printed, from his 1985 contribution to the GTC magazine. Peter sent this to match with the transmission on Friday 9th Jan 2004 of “Days That Shook The World”, with a recreation of the BBC 1953 Coronation broadcast complete with period gallery and Marconi Mk 2 camera, done by Dicky Howett of Golden Age TV.

Hull family watching the coronation, presumably on a black and white television as televised by the BBC, courtesy Manchester Central Library, Arts Library, News Chronicle Collection.

With permission from the Los Angles Times, an article appearing July 12, 2015:

Pye demonstrates color television at Radiolympia in 1949, then tests the first experimental field sequential color camera and Chromatron television receiver using the 405 line system.  The telecast was a closed circuit broadcast of the 1953 Queen Elizabeth II coronation.

Photos courtesy of Pyehistory.org.

This photo and caption is courtesy of the Early Television Foundation. Note the very close similarity  to the above photo.

This photo documents the zoom lens used to televise the broadcast in the United Kingdom.

UPDATE, MAY 31, 2021

This may be a Pye experimental field sequential Chromatron color television, using Chromatic Laboratories’s chassis, being the same television as demonstrated at the children’s hospital on June 2, 1953.

The caption for this photo, “British family watching experimental color television” published in the 1954 book, Colour TV: When and How.

English television announcer Sylvia Peters. Original Publication: Picture Post – 7077 – Colour TV: When And How – pub. 1954 (Photo by Raymond Kleboe/Getty Images)

Here is a 1953 specification sheet from Chromatic Television laboratory.

Courtesy Early Television Foundation

Update September 2, 2014: Here is a Chromatron Trade PDF by Chromatic Televisions Laboratory Inc., courtesy of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. On page 10, this author learned for the first time that Chromatic was developing beam index CRT’s as well. We annotated the text where this information appears. The PDF file is reversed starting with page 27. Just scroll down to page 1. View PDF.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL

In the January and February, 1954 issues of International Projectionist magazine, an article describes the three leading color CRT’s, the Lawrence tube, the CBS-Hytron and the RCA three gun, shadow mask tube. Even though the RCA system had just been adopted as the new color standard television system in the United States, the author of the article considered the Chromatron or Lawrence tube the most promising of the three tubes under consideration, for mass production and other reasons. Read this PDF article to learn why and the 8 advantages claimed by the inventor and the author of the article.

Posted December 28, 2015

An article about the Chromatron tube appearing in Radio & Television News, March, 1954. Tap on image for the PDF article.

So why did the Chromatron tube fail to enter the marketplace and gain traction? We will try to answer those questions as we continue.

February, 1954

On the cover of Tele-Tech Magazine, February, 1954, final inspection of Chromatron tubes by Chromatic Labs prior to shipment.

Posted October 2, 2022

Muntz color Chromatron televisions on assembly line. The sets have working images on their screens. March, 1954, curtesy Radio & Television News.

March, 1954

March 22, 1954
Westinghouse was working on a one gun color CRT as disclosed by the the next two articles.

MAY, 1954

June, 1954

Notice the the perfectly flat and rectangular viewing screen of the Chromatron. Article courtesy Broadcast Magazine.

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ONE OF Paramount’s interest in the Chromatron was for use with a pay TV system in hotels. In June, 1954, a test was done at the Park Sheraton hotel in New York City and 1600 guest rooms were hooked up using the Chromatron with the Telemeter coin set top box.

In a July 10, 1954 Billboard magazine article, it was reported that Chromatic Television Laboratory expected to release a 21 inch, one-gun Chromatron in early 1955 under the Chromatic label. Crosley was licensed to manufacture the set domestically and Philips of Holland had the international license.

Courtesy Tele-Tech December, 1953

Courtesy Tele-Tech November, 1956

Chromatic handled the basic development of the Chromatron and then about August, 1957, split the project in two sections, Du Mont in New Jersey was licensed for commercial picture tube fabrication and Lytton Industries in Emeryville, California for the military.

The original Lawrence Tube had 800 vertical phosphor stripes, 400 of which were green. The red and blue stripes were twice as wide as the green to equalize the color across the screen. Chromatic was working to increase the resolution by adding more vertical phosphor stripes. At first, 1000 stripes, later, a development CRT increased to 1600 stripes. Notice the design change in the photo above, the mass has been reduced and the tube takes on a modern appearance.

An article from April, 1956 reviewing a public demonstration of the Chromatron CRT courtesy J. Halphen.

April 15, 1956

Telechrome Inc. displayed a 22 inch Chromatron television receiver, model 311-BR at the NARTB convention held in Chicago, April 15-19, 1956. We have no photos so far.

Courtesy Broadcasting Magazine

The television in the below photo may be a Chromatron based on the above article about Telechrome.

Update, December 20, 2024

1957

A new decoding method for the Chromatron. “Quadramatic.” advanced by Nobel prize winner, Professor E. O. Lawrence and Lytton Industries, Emeryville, California.

Quadramatic decoding said to increase brightness of the single gun Chromatron. Click on below image to read PDF.

At about 1960, Chromatic was renamed Autometric Corporation (source Sy Yusem) and moved to an industrial-type building on the West side of New York city where one floor was devoted to picture tube development and another floor was for the electronics. Up to this point, neither Paramount, Chromatic/Autometric, Crosley, Philips, Du Mont, Lytton, Muntz, General Electronics, Telechrome Inc., Avco, Rayathon, General Electric and others, reportedly developing Chromatron, had successfully developed a Chromatron receiver for the home consumer market.

Continue to Chromatron Page Two →