First color, eh?????? Hmmmmmm.....

[Ric Werme]

I don't remember when I encountered my first color TV image, but a few
anecdotes might be worthwhile:

I was probably about 9 and my brother 5 when we toured NBC in New York.
When the tour guide showed us a videotape recorder, my brother asked if
you needed different tape for B&W vs. color.  The tour guide noted that
was a very good question, and said one tape for both.

I think Doug had figured there was B&W photographic film and color film,
so why not video tape?  Of course, he didn't ask the "right" question,
i.e. how can you fit three colors into the bandwidth required by one.
It wasn't until I got into college that I mostly understood the answers to
that, and one is "You can't."  Another is "It's a very clever kludge."
And the classic "Don't wear narrow vertical stripes on a TV stage."

---

I remember the night The Walt Disney Show switched to color - we saw it
in B&W.  Sigh.  Dad said we'd get a color TV when the current set died,
but by then one of my chores was to keep it running.  I wound up with a
decent collection of aged vacuum tubes by the time I left for college.

In 1968 my grandparents came out for my high school graduation and were
appalled that we still had B&W, so they bought us a color set for my
parents' anniversary that month.

---

I bought my first color TV in 1974 soon after moving to Massachusetts
so I could watch Jacob Brownowski's "The Ascent of Man" on WGBH in color.
Small Sony set.  The salesman at Lechmere said I picked the best TV in the
store, but he probably said that to most customers' selections....

	    -Ric Werme