A few years ago, I picked up a cool-looking CRT and finally had time to do a short livestream on it. While I normally don’t write posts about things that you can’t really get, I just wanted to have a “placeholder” on the internet, for this TV and it’s manuals. More info below the links, but one very important thing to note: Almost all the ones you see on eBay are the original, 1960’s version. The TV shown in the stream is from the late 2000’s. The best way to tell is simply look to see if it has a SCART port on the back. If it does, it’s this one:
eBay Links: https://ebay.us/q6ToMs
Manual: https://www.retrorgb.com/assets/algol/ManBV1(UK).pdf
Service Manual: https://www.retrorgb.com/assets/algol/BV1MAN.pdf
Schematics: https://www.retrorgb.com/assets/algol/BV1PCB_S.pdf
A short history: The origin of this TV started back in 1964, when Italian company Brionvega commissioned two designers to make a very 60’s-esque “futuristic” TV. Then in the late 2000’s, the company released a recreation of it (model 902.FOIT BV1 algol), supporting modern formats like S-Video and RGB SCART. The 2000’s version could accept 115-230v through it’s 2-prong AC input and accept both 50Hz and 60Hz signals. It’s RGB SCART input works perfectly with all signals, as RGB is the raw color format (not conforming to PAL or NTSC).
The RF, Composite (via SCART) and S-Video inputs are all designed for PAL signals, so it’ll show in black and white if you feed it NTSC (although it’ll still run in 60Hz, as proved twice in the above video). I was really curious if there was some way to convert it to NTSC, so I could enjoy consoles like the Atari 2600 on it, without importing a PAL version. I emailed the company and to my absolute shock, they responded and attached the above files! Here’s what they said:
About the NTSC signal , normally the Algol TV is PAL , but accept also NTSC signal. In order to do this need to be updated in the first with an additional oscillator and in the second by enable the NTSC on service menu . Please see attached service manual .
I hesitated to do the conversion, as I’d rather keep this TV all-original, however I wanted to share the info here. It seems like a reversible mod though, as it appears you only need to add a component and not remove anything, so maybe some day I’ll bug Steve to help me with this.
And that’s basically it – Just a short look at a really unique CRT, plus the documentation in case anyone else stumbles across them.
