seat38a

My phone is bigger than those IFE screens in coach.

seat38a

This was in the 80's? In the early 90's, Alaska Airlines was still using a sheet of paper to check people off after showing your boarding pass to board. That's about the extent of my non computerized / non boarding pass tearing experience. I may have still been sucking my thumb when sticky's on tickets were being used.

jsloan

The printed OAG guide lasted into the early 2000s. I used to grab a copy from the Austin President’s Club every month. ^

I don’t remember getting seat stickers on an airport boarding pass, but one of the Macau / HK ferry companies was still using that system as of last year (and probably is still today).

vaguba

If I remember correctly GEC Marconi was the original contractor for the IFE on the 777. They made absolutely buggy garbage which delayed the launch of the 777 long after the rest of the systems had shaken out.

LAX_AUS_DL_FLYER

...It was 1995. Only maybe a Sega Game Gear would be better for pixel quality (big maybe). And even CO / AA / DL / US were several years off from offering anything like that in coach. NW had an even more primitive system launched in the early 1990s as a test and didn't stick for implementation.

But damn, the gate areas at LHR looked like garbage back then. I would've been more than happy to board that plane by comparison. IIRC, LHR-EWR was one of the first 777 routes on legacy UAL.

jmastron

If I recall correctly, into the 90s on WN I don't think they gave out the laminated "boarding pass" at the ticket counter, so after lining up to check bags you lined up again at the gate to get the boarding card, then lined up again at the A/B/C signs since there was no distinction between the numbers within each group, just first-lined-up-first-served. I didn't fly them much in that era (no presence transcon yet), but I recall seeing people camped out both for the gate agent to show up 1hr before flight time and then again with all their stuff in the boarding line.

rustykettel

Sounds good unless it's the very middle of 2-5-2 with a full row. Although 3-4-3 isn't any better and someways worse.

dilanesp

I believe Virgin Atlantic had a decent system on their 747-400's in coach by that time.

I do know several airlines had the flip-up screens in F or J by then. But it was very rare in coach.

seat38a

OMG I had a Sega Game Gear. I got it for Christmas one year. Always wanted the TV adapter but never ended up getting one. I remember how much spare battery I had to carry on trips to play the Game Gear. Played it all the way to Europe and back on Alitalia and NW DC10.

skidooman

It was but not anymore.

SHA-T1 got a brand new building a few months ago. Smaller than T2, but brand new.

moondog

Yeah, I flew out of it for the first time in several months on Tuesday and was very impressed. However I'd stick pick the old and dirty T1 over pvg any day. In fact I just arrived at PVG S1 this afternoon and it took nearly an hour for me to get outside.

Bear96

Yes of course, but the thread title refers to the early 1980s (post-deregulation).

LAX_AUS_DL_FLYER

You & me both. The graphics within the screen were way ahead of it's time, about the same as the UAL 777 in Y in the 1990s. I think you had to be "In the Know" to get the T.V. adapter because I was looking for it when I was like 8 in 1995 haha.

IIRC, it was 6x AA batteries that fueled Game Gear. Battery life was awful. I do remember flying EWR-SAN on CO in 1996 and carrying it with me and it lasted perhaps 40 minutes after being fully charged. Then I got violently ill on board contracting a stomach bug or something on the 6+ hour flight. It was miserable. One cool thing is CO had screens implanted in the middle seats to buy stuff and I remember buying a CO model with my parent's Credit Card but it was forever on back order and eventually cancelled. IIRC, America West had the same system but it was only for sales of products in the middle seats on the 757. No programming available other than sales. They screened "Get Shorty" on the overhead LCD's but I wasn't allowed to watch it, but later became one of my favorite movies by middle school haha.

VS did have screens in Y but they were *not nearly* as advanced as the system on the initial UA 777s at the time. They were about the same as when NW tested it. You can actually see them if you download the movie "Turbulence" on Amazon in business class if you take a close look.

If anything, AA should probably get the initial credit for best PTV's in coach at the time as all programming were on 15 minute loops. That same system lasted until very recently on the 777s.

rankourabu

I only remember overhead projectors as a kid in the 90s. First time I saw seatback TVs was on a MH flight EWR-DXB in 2003. 7 movies on a loop... I thought.... wow, this is amazing!

Didnt UA/CO have those old mounted TVs on their 757s well into the 2010s? And who can forget the UA 747s with big screen TVs well into the 2010s as well!

I didnt have a chance to fly much when these were around, although I do remember them from one LO flight in maybe 2008 on a beat up 767-200.

Any older FTers want to remind us what these were all about?

xzh445

1987. HNL-LAX. Redeye. Two from the last row. Middle seat 2-5-2. Full boat. Holding 10 month old lap rider. Oh yeah. 1987... smoking section. I’ll take 2019 any day.


AWESOME earbuds rankourabu. !!!
(as I recall) there were two pronged jack in the armrests. Speaker(s) behind the jacks. Those little tubes literally “piped” the music up to the ear pieces. (Think stethoscope)