[mythtv-users] MythTV with Vintage Gear

[Brian Wood]

On Friday, November 26, 2010 02:55:26 pm aaron wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 26, 2010 at 16:30, Brian Wood <beww at beww.org> wrote:
> > But it did once actually produce a picture from a Myth system,
> > although B+W and pretty soft (the CRT is pretty low on emission).
> 
> Very nice. I can't come anywhere close to competing with that, but I
> have used my Myth system on my parents' Sony TV from 1980.

From the days when TV sets were furniture, not appliances :-)

My brother still has my grandmother's Sony KV-9000 portable, pre-1970. 
It still works fine.  

Interestingly, we once put it side-by side with a newer Sony (KV-1207, 
still pretty old at around 1982). The old KV-9000 was getting perfect 
pictures from the Denver UHF stations (100 miles away) while the 1207 
saw nothing. This is progress?

> 
> The TV is 30 years old and we haven't had any problems with it. Sure,
> the picture's not the sharpest, and it has no direct inputs, and mono
> sound, but it still works perfectly. And I still think it has a
> better picture than the newer (though still old) Grundig TV they
> have in the bedroom.
> 
> The amp connected to the Sony TV (well... actually connected to the
> VCR... :) ) was my dad's old quad-channel, although it was replaced a
> few years ago with a surround-sound amp. The speakers are still the
> same Sansui set he's had for as long as I can remember (probably from
> the 70s, I'd guess)

Sansui made OK speakers, their amplifiers (or "receivers") were horrible, 
everything was DC coupled, so if one transistor went the rest of them 
followed in very short (no pun intended) order. By "horrible" I mean 
from a technician's view, when they were working they worked quite well.

Many Sansui units were bought by military people stationed overseas, we 
have an Air Force base here and we saw a lot of them.

> 
> Myself, though... I had an old Sears TV that I got used from a
> friend, who got it used from someone. It was dying so a couple years
> ago I upgraded to a 40" Samsung (one of the first 120Hz models, I
> think).
> 
> The only vintage gear I'm using is my AthlonXP 2800+-based Myth
> system ;-)

I ran a similar system with Mythdora 5 for a long time, worked fine, 
'till HD came along.

I have an old 8086 system somewhere in the garage. It was a "turbo" 
model, meaning you could run the CPU at 4.77 or 8 Mhz. (the slower speed 
was useful for some games that were unplayable at the faster CPU rate).

The CGA graphics card is pretty well useless today, and ISA cards are 
pretty hard to find.