Harris TC-85 camera

Email received 26 March 2009

Years ago, Harris used to make TV cameras. They purchased the TV camera division from GE. I imagine some of their early ones were just rebadged GE cameras, but they did eventually come up with their own design. Harris stopped making cameras in the early 1980's about the time that all the manufacturers were switching from tube based to solid state imaging devices. I have in my collection a Harris TC-85 studio box camera that was one of the last models they produced. (Mine was used as a test jig at the factory, it never saw any use in an actual studio.) How do I know that? Well about 10 years ago I worked at Harris's Quincy, IL location and bought the camera at an employee sale. One of the interesting things about the TC-85 was that it utilized a microprocessor driven CCU that featured automatic setup and registration by the touch of a button. Even though it had that option, many engineers preferred not to use it and would set up and paint the cameras manually, because the automatic method was hard on the tubes.

Also, I don't remember all the exact details of this, but one of the reasons they abandoned making cameras was that they filed a lawsuit against their imaging tube vendor (Amperex I believe,) stating that the quality of the tubes was below par and not up to the standards to compete with the brand new solid state CCD cameras of the day. The lawsuit primarily focused on the Harris TC-90 cameras, which were a shoulder mount EFP camera. Harris ultimately lost the lawsuit and was forced to recall and destroy all the TC-90's

I will try to post some pictures later of some of the different Harris cameras, as I have some old 35MM slides from the '70's sitting around somewhere. Also, some of they guys who worked in the camera division at Harris back in the day are still there, working in TV transmitter field service, in the repair department, and in various management positions.

Posted by: matt_s78m