The MTV-1 Micro TV was the second model of a near pocket-sized

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

. The first was the Panasonic IC model TR-001 introduced in 1970. The MTV-1 was developed by

Clive Sinclair Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (30 July 1940 – 16 September 2021) was an English entrepreneur and inventor, best known for being a pioneer in the computing industry, and also as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics ...

(

Sinclair Radionics Ltd Sinclair Radionics Ltd was a company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England which developed hi-fi products, radios, calculators and scientific instruments. History After raising funds to start the business by writing articles ...

). It was shown to the public at

trade show A trade fair, also known as trade show, trade exhibition, or trade exposition, is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, meet with industry partners and cu ...

s in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in January, 1977, and released for sale in 1978. Development spanned 10 years and included a cash infusion of (about ) from the UK government in 1976. The MTV-1 used a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

AEG Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the '' Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company'). The name "Telefunken" ap ...

black-and-white, electrostatic deflection

cathode ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms ( oscilloscope), pictu ...

(CRT) and included a rechargeable 4- AA-cell NiCad battery pack. It measured and weighed . It was able to receive either

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

transmissions on VHF or UHF. A

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

company, Wolsey Electronics, manufactured it for Sinclair. Custom ICs made by

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

and Sinclair contributed to its small size and low power consumption. The original (about ) price tag proved to be too high to sell many of them, and Sinclair lost over in 1978, eventually selling its remaining inventory to liquidators at greatly reduced prices. The MTV-1B, released later in 1978 at the much lower price of , was able to receive only British and South African UHF PAL signals. The original MTV-1 was the world's first multistandard TV, being capable of switching between PAL and NTSC.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite web, url=http://fxtop.com/en/historates.php?A=1&C1=USD&C2=GBP&MA=0&DD1=01&MM1=01&YYYY1=1976&B=1&P=&I=1&DD2=31&MM2=12&YYYY2=1978&btnOK=Go%21, title=Historical exchange rates since 1953 with graphs and charts, publisher=fxtop, accessdate=2012-08-13

Sources

Retro thing

External links

Products introduced in 1978 Sinclair Radionics Mobile technology Portable electronics Television technology Television sets