Brazil TV

No, it's not a TV made in Brazil, it's inspired by the computer monitors in Terry Gilliam's movie "Brazil".

If you haven't seen it, it's a movie about the future gone wrong. In spite of the technological advances of this alternate future, nearly all of the work handled by Information Retreival is done on paper. The rest is done on crude teletype machines which feature a 5 inch CRT display. These tubes were always mounted in the open, with a single cable running down to the electronics. In addition, they usually had a Fresnel lens in front of the screen, reminiscent of the magnifier lens which were so popular in the days before the huge 12 inch CRT's. What I have done is attempt to re-create these displays.

This CRT arrangement was made up from a portable TV which had a damaged cabinet. I extended the leads going to the CRT: heater, grid leads, ground, deflection yoke, and HV. I didn't have a CRT with integral mounting ears, so I strapped this tube onto a bracket.

Here's pretty much what the display looks like with the Fresnel lens in place - rather distorted.

Here's another view showing the CRT behind the lens.

This is the chassis of the modified set. I remounted the speaker and the antenna on the PCB. All of the controls, including the tuner and the bandswitch, were already on the board. It can be picked up by the CRT and carried around. I don't recommend doing this because of the shock hazard, even though it is a transistor TV.

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