Quite possibly the worlds smallest COLOR crt display

[videolabguy]

This viewfinder is not only color. It is also the direct application of whats called the beam index CRT. It uses one electron gun and a phosphor set made of FOUR stripes. Red, green, blue and ultraviolet. What you call the color eyes are two photo cells that pick up the UV pulses as the beam passes over those stripes. Note that one cell is filtered yellow (-blue) and the other is filtered for blue (-yellow). This allows the circuit to sort out the white light from the UV.

[videolabguy]

@videolabguy Next, the UV pulses produced by the photo cells create what are called index pulses. This tells the video switch when an RGB triad is about to be crossed. As the beam passes over the red, green and blue stripes, the video switches accordingly to the single electron beam. These tubes are very bright because they have no shadow mask to block electrons. All of the beam reaches the phosphors.

[videolabguy]

@videolabguy The down side is, this tube can not make very dark black, because there must always be enough beam to produce index pulse. Still, it is extremely clever for an invention of the early 1950s. The process could never be made to work reliably on large tubes. But turns out to be nearly perfect on the small tubes. I have several of these viewfinders and they are a delight to play with.

[kakureru]

@videolabguy neat, thanks for all the info, this thing is indeed pretty entertaining to mess with.

[videolabguy]

Respond to this video...  My posts are backwards. Read them from bottom top.

[retroaccessories]

I'll try to avoid the Youtube copyrights when I say I clicked on this because I could see the show was nesiaT arukaS - begging the question too, why is the video image mirrored?

[kakureru]

@retroaccessories the original viewfinder, the image was viewed reflected from a mirror. I thought about tweaking the coils for that but im too lazy for not much social dividends.. :P

[kakureru]

after crawling though many sites and dealing with pictures from people who clearly do not know how to operate a camera, the camera that MOST looks like the one this came from (which has been trashed years ago) is the RCA CKC021 w color viewfinder option. its not hard to wire it up since all the pins are labeled on the actual board. (composite video + 12vdc)

[electronbeam]

@kakureru Thanks! :)

[electronbeam]

Awesome! I would love to have one of those. More data and pics would be much appreciated.

I have a Black and white crt viewfinder and a colour lcd viewfinder and both have a screen size smaller than yours.

I hope I come across the camera your viewfinder came on!

[kakureru]

@electronbeam LCD view finder dont count :P this came off an RCA camcorder from 1984, one that requires a bag VCR. I will get the model off this thing later and update the description.. check back periodically..

[MrNikname]

what a surprise, the video is

japanese or chineese or whatever

//_^) LOL

[kakureru]

@MrNikname makes for very little chance that youtube copy right crap will zap the video and audio... for now

[AirBa]

the video still look sharp and amazing. it seems the show was drawn for this tiny screen. perhaps older shows or older tv games would work even better.

Come to think of it, people in the past seem to have all they need for today's tricks.

[kakureru]

@AirBa this was a CIF amine that I had on hand. its tough to dodge the youtube copyright BS. (cif is 720x480) seems like the CRT is around 240x180. Thanks for the comment.