Any old tv techs here? My parents have a Montgomery Ward (17880) 26" tv from the mid-80's that I'm trying to access the service menu on to turn on the Svideo connection. It's a combination of two buttons on the remote or control panel, but I haven't found the two that do it. I think it was one made by Zenith. Any ideas?

Mid 80s? I don't think they had service menus back then, it was all in hardware. And it was better imo, i learned my first bit of practical electronics messing around in my grandparents' old color TV. Did the S-Video standard even exist at that time?

Assuming the 20 year old TV has an S-Video input, what makes you think it's "disabled"?

I find it strange that they would provide an S-Video connector on a TV and not allow it to be "active" by default.

With the holiday season approaching, why not just give them a new TV as a gift? :)

Yes, it has an svideo jack, and the "other" menu may not be called a service menu, but it was a hidden menu that was accessible only through a combination of 2 button pushes. There was a selection for the list of inputs, right now only antenna and aux are enabled, but there was svideo and some other option (don't remember what it said, it's been a few years)...

AUX should work. On old TV's, that was the composite/S-Video input.

I think the S- vidoe came out on Tv's around 1988.

I have later 80's Zenith with S-video, want me to check? RCA TV sets were Channel 99/98 for direct inputs! My neighbors Zenith actually has a slide switch behind the control door to access direct video input.

Yes, thanks!

I still have to look, forgot this thread..I have the set in basement.

On my set, hit Menu, OnScreenDisplay comes up:

Antenna
Cable
A/V
Y/C

Press Adjust key and Select key "Y/C" to get S-video. Your TV may differ. Odd, they called it that instead of S-video or SVhs. Otherwise, try channel numbers in 90's or 0, 000.

Thanks. That's part of the problem, though - all 4 choices don't show up. I know they were there at one time, but not now.

Strange. Id try unplugging the power cord, wait a while, maybe overnight, see if it "forgets" its settings. Possible input "just works" with either S-video or RCA yellow plug depending on which is plugged in, like typical set today. I could look around my set's menus some more if you do not succeed.

Finally. :D It was menu+channel down+volume down together. Now it's using the s-vhs input and now that old tv looks halfway decent. I've got a switch box from RS that will automatically switch the input depending on what's turned on. Using an Apex DT250 stb, a dvd player and a vcr.

Thanks for your help. :)

Awesome, glad to try to help:). I think I once had to do that key sequence. I really wonder why Zenith did that, maybe because most users would hook to RCA jack instead, and locking out Y/C avoids confusion? (I looked up APEX DT250, it is the only "coupon eligible" DTV converter I have seen with S-video..)

Yes, and even though the tv is pretty old, and wasn't state-of-the-art even back then, with digital and the s-video connection it looks pretty decent.:D