/vr/ - Retro Games

Sony fans will appreciate this rare piece of history I just scored at an auction. The circa 1982 Sony Videoscope KP-5040 front projection set. This thing is nuts - the front mirror is motor driven on arms, heavy wood case over a steel frame. All the pieces for it surfaced (screen, mirror, hardware) - only found the pj at first, and without the mirror and special curved screen it would have been tricky.

Included all the paperwork, like manual, warranty cards, and the original receipt for $3200 in 1982 (the inflation calculator puts that at over $8k today). The most expensive TV you could get back then - thing has composite input and stereo sound, a billion adjustments.

I could imagine the impression of hooking your Colecovision/Intellivision/2600 up to this back in the day. Pure class.

I'm planning to hook my laserdisc player up to it and will spin my copy of the Captain Harlock movie Arcadia of my Youth - appropriately enough from 1982.

The moment of truth was plugging it in, and sure as shit it came right up, sound, all 3 tubes good, and static projected on the wall. Try doing that with a modern TV 36 years from now - this thing was built to last forever with huge discrete metal transistors driving the CRTs.

All won for a princely $15 bid.

Some vids of these in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm0oLFr0j2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHE_NZ64Im0