Predicta

The Philco Predicta is a black and white television chassis style, which was 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 the “barber pole” stand (October 2012)

The picture tube was surrounded in the new product by Eastman Plastics, 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 the more futuristic television set.

Predicta television sets were constructed with such 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. Philco also had Directa, a short lived remote series in 1959, before being bought by the Ford Motor Company in 1961.

This feature provided Philco with an answer to the wireless remote control by Zenith entitled “Space Command”, which had been introduced the same year. The Predicta was announced to the industry in the summer of 1958, with the public getting its first look on the edition of 1959 of Miss America, which was sponsored by Philco.

Shortly after the Predicta was announced, the reliability was called into question, by several trade and consumer publications. Philco produced the Predicta the following year, but unfortunately, as it was phasing in its next chassis iteration, this being Cool Chassis, they went bankrupt. Ford stepped in shortly thereafter, and bought them.