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Old 04-03-2005, 10:06 AM
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I think I can speak for everyone here in the matter of keeping television history alive. It's easy in today's technological world to take a micro-processor and program any feature or command possible. But back in the day every processor in television technology was not so easy. All discrete circuity used to process every step of the signal process. Yet to the amazement of millions the results were sometimes nearly flawless. I still look at the early color sets as technology that was right for the time.
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Old 04-03-2005, 01:39 PM
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The tube circuitry is really pretty amazing in its simplicity for the most part...like in a Portacolor TV, you can take just 12 tubes or so and have a complete color TV...you'd have to have so many discrete transistors to do the same thing.

I do find that the modern circuitry though is inherently very reliable and requires less maintenance...wish the soldering, circuit boards, heat sinks, etc. were better, though.

While I love the old sets, I think that their quality could have been improved upon for better reliability. The rca flyback failures, cases of burned circuit boards and wiring in many brands, heat-related intermittants, and so forth could have been much improved by a little bit more robust engineering and quality control.
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Old 04-04-2005, 10:50 PM
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Old tube sets were much easier to repair though. They were built dumber but with a whole lot more quality. Kind of like what has evolved with our cars, television repair has turned into something that requires a lot of special equipment and expertise. I thought tubes were a lot more forgiving of mistakes if you happened to short something out by accident. And you could at least see the components back then.

Certainly a lot easier then trying to replace an IC or SMD device which I can not even see without a microscope. Its no wonder everyone throws them away no days. Especially when they are sold so cheap in the first place.

Last edited by RVonse; 04-04-2005 at 10:53 PM.
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Old 04-04-2005, 11:12 PM
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Plus the quality cabinets back then...like on my CTC-16 I just bought with solid wood cabinet that is as nice as an excellent 60s piece of expensive furniture. Or the Zenith Porthole in cabinet I have that is a masterpiece. As opposed to the plastic, throwaway, vacu-formed junk of today. Of course back they they also had their cheap budget cabinets made of bakelite of decaled woodgrain or veneer...but there was always the high end. Now the high end is just a bigger screen.
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Old 04-05-2005, 07:19 AM
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I guess I can both agree and disagree...there are not often failures of SMD IC's in modern TV's. Most of the problems are due to power device failure, bad caps, or bad soldering. I think that for the non-technical consumer the solid state sets are better as the maintenance is sharply reduced.

In my family when I lived at my parents house we used tube type sets as I enjoy them and was on hand to maintain them. We would have the sets on 12 hours a day sometimes. When you work these sets hard, they do need a lot of maintenance...parents had to switch back to modern sets when I left home as I could not be there to maintain them.

Also with cars I think that the average non-technical consumer has benefited from technological advances. When you can turn the key and have the car start up instantly in 10 degree weather thanks to fuel injection, get 25 mpg on a V-8 engine, and not have to change and adjust points, and have far less pollution, it is an improvement.

Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the old equipment and enjoy maintaining it, but I think all of us can appreciate the many advances in technology as well. It is a more complex issue than just saying that older is better.

I do think that the overall durability of the older devices is a lot better though...they are so much more substantially built that most of the modern equipment. They will continue to be here in years to come. There are too many 2000's era equipment going to the recycling days because of failures.

One could probably write an essay or thesis on this topic as there are so many points of debate on old vs. new technology as both have their advantages and shortcomings.
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Last edited by Chad Hauris; 04-05-2005 at 07:33 AM.
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Old 04-06-2005, 11:52 AM
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Ditto - well said
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