3/27/15

Fixing Video-Tube Troubles

In case you were thinking about forgetting how good we have it here in The Future, here is an article from Popular Science in 1961, to help readers figure out which tube in their TV set needed to be replaced. Good times.

Depending on what kind of crappy your picture looked like (apart from the "working perfectly" kind of crappy that you and I would call a TV from 1961) , you could possibly diagnose which of the dozen or so tubes in your set had bit the finger, and then run down to the hardware store and (probably) find a replacement. Maybe your video amplifier tube had become gassy? The article doesn't seem to mention how to figure any of this out if there's more than tube wrecking the picture at the same time. Also remember that 1961 TV would cost a few months' of your pay to buy, too.

Truly, readers, we are spoilt.





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

More than one tube gone bad? Simply pry them all from the tv chassis and cart 'em down to the hardware store or grocery store, where you would always find one of these:
https://spydersden.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/tube_tester.jpg

Ypek said...

Mr. Art [sic!] Margolis shouldn't waste his talents writing for Popular Science; he is a Literator ("Restraining impulses of mayhem", p. 136; "Disney-like pachyderms cavorting across the ceiling",p.136. excellent style and prose.) He should rewrite his short story about Hank Gabian Jr. into a novella.

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