Predicta

The Philco Predicta is a black and white television made in several cabinet models with 17” or 21” screens by the American company Philco from 1958 to 1960. The Predicta was marketed as the world's first swivel screen television, and has an iconic design by Catherine Winkler, with the picture tube (CRT) separated from the rest of the cabinet.

Philco's Predicta, 1958, in the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

A Predicta mounted on a "barber pole" stand (2012)

The picture tube was surrounded in Eastman plastics' new product called “tenite” which protected the glass and gave it its greenish tint. The Predicta also had a thinner picture tube than many other televisions at the time, which led it to be marketed as a more futuristic television set. Predicta television sets were constructed with a variety of cabinet configurations, some detachable, but all separate from the tube itself and connected by wires.[1]

The model with the fully detached picture tube allowed the controls for the set to be next to the viewer, with the screen eight or more feet away. This feature provided Philco with an answer to Zenith's "Space Command" wireless remote control, which had been introduced the same year. (Philco as an independent company never made a set with remote control.)

Initially introduced in 1958 for the hotel chain Holiday Inn, and rolled out for general consumers shortly thereafter, the Predicta was discontinued in the beginning of the 1960s.[2] In the end of the 1990s, the rights were acquired by Dave Riedel and Mike Lipscomb of Telstar LLC, who hand made new sets on an limited basis until 2008.[3]