CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

SRSanford10 · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 30

Back in 1982 I bought a Montgomery Ward CED player. I learned on the forum that these were made by Toshiba. I replaced the stylus back in 1986. The Montg. Ward part number was : 72353001 -the model was called DSC-201.
Last night I was looking at the defective stylus with a fairly high power optical microscope. I was expecting to see evidence of the "keel shape" on the bottom of the stylus. This was an invention which had been patented by Eugene Keizer of RCA Labs in 1978.
I had thought that all the styli which were sold to the public were made of diamond and had this shape on the bottom. I can think of two reasons why I was not able to see the "keel". One would be that the stylus was so worn that the keel was worn away. The other is that this stylus had a different structure. The previous structure, before the "keel" was invented was a "V" shape. This information comes from various papers in "RCA Review" and "RCA Engineer".
I was wondering if anyone who was connected with RCA in the early days of the CED player sales to the public might have further information on this; i.e., were all the styli sold to the public made from diamond and included the "keel" structure?
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Scotty

mario · Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 9

I worked at the bloomington plant from inception and left in 83. I thought all the units were built in the bloomington plant and we put the different monikers on the sets, but no other factory built the sets. We licensed and started to help Zenith set up a factory but they hit hard times in 82 and never fired up the factory. I scouted some of the surplus CED equipment in thier chicago plant when they closed it down. I am pretty sure there was only one design for each of the SGT and SJT styli. There were pre production Enginerring units (SFT and earlier) that had early stylus designs. Is there a place I can post a photo of a prototype?

SRSanford10 · Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Posts: 30

Thanks to Mario for the post. So apparently all the styli were made in the U.S.
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Scotty

mario · Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 9

I do not know the facility where the styli were manufactured but my guess is it was close to Princeton since it was easyer to manage during development and production. I am pretty sure they were fabricated in the USA, I will try to find out the location.

ChrisN · Joined: 23 Feb 2014 Posts: 6

Hey Mario you still check in here? Former coworker Chris N here

Chris
n9llo@aol.com

mario · Joined: 22 Oct 2006 Posts: 9

Hey Chris, yes I do monitor the site. I will drop you a note.
mario

ChrisN · Joined: 23 Feb 2014 Posts: 6

Hey Mario
I sent a reply to your yahoo address

Chris

ChrisN · Joined: 23 Feb 2014 Posts: 6

And just to add to the on topic conversation they made styli at the Rockville road facility. I worked there for a year before transferring to the Bloomington plant. I think the clean room area for stylus manufactring was in the SW corner of the plant on the other side of the cafeteria.

Chris

blindfury420 · Joined: 26 Jan 2011 Posts: 1036

Did they make the 2/3 kind of rca styli there? Did they make the toshiba ones that have toshiba on them? Sanyo ones too? Sorry for so many questions, I just am very curious as to where all the kinds of styli came from! Any idea on hitachi/sears/mchmicheal styli?
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I dont own

McMicheal 5001h
Hitachi VIP202P
JCP 686-5705
RCA SKT265, SKT300
RCA SJT400X, SJT425