![A blast from the past: the Schweizer Fernsehen test card introduced from 1972 onwards was created by a test card generator. Photograph from 1978.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/titelbild-das-ab-1972-eingefuhrte-testbild-des-schweizer-fernsehens-300x225.jpg)
Television test card – distant memory of the nightly broadcast shutdown
Once upon a time, television stations didn’t broadcast round the clock. Late at night and in the morning, there was a break in transmission. The symbol for these time-outs was the PTT television test card. A look back at a not too distant echo of a time when life wasn’t moving quite so fast – the test card hasn’t been gone all that long.
The classic test cards of the SRG and PTT
![US model for many later versions – RCA’s ‘Indian-head test pattern’, from 1939 onwards.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/rca-indian-head-test-pattern-300x225.png)
![First generation of the Swiss test card around 1954. Photograph of a TV screen.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/erste-generation-des-schweizer-testbildes-um-1954-m5v1251-300x204.jpg)
![The Schweizer Fernsehen (Swiss Television) test pattern introduced in 1958. In the field with the number 3, the place of origin (transmitting station, studio, outside broadcast vehicle) can be identified, encoded as a number or letter.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/1958-eingefuhrtes-testbild-des-schweizer-fernsehens-fff-11774-300x231.jpg)
![Philips PM5544 colour test card, developed in the late 1960s. This test pattern presumably served as the model for the Swiss test card.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/farbtestbild-philips-pm5544-entwickelt-ende-der-1960er-jahre-300x225.png)
![Bosch test card generator for generating the electronic colour test card with broadcasting transmitter identification letters. Used on Monte Generoso from about 1975 to 1990.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/testbildgeber-von-bosch-300x210.jpg)
In praise of nothing
Becoming a memory
Programme end followed by test card on TSR in 1996. YouTube / Qwertz-73