|
Yeah - that is a good question. How is it that some old sets only take five seconds, whereas I've got a couple old sets and the picture takes much longer to appear. In fact, I've got one here that I've been waiting for at least two hours for the picture to appear. <grin>
But seriously, I'd noticed that too - I was suprised at one set I found, an older Mitsubishi solid state color set, probably somewhere in the early 70's, as it had a continuously vairable UHF tuner as opposed to the newer click-stop type mandated later. When I found it, I was wondering why someone had installed one of those in-line power switches into the cord, the type with a little rocker switch that clamps onto a power cable, commonly used for lamps. My assumption was that the power switch was broken. But, the power switch worked perfectly. Came back a bit later and turned on the set again to test the color with a test tape, and the picture popped into existance almost instantly. Looked in the back and noticed the picture tube filament stayed lit even with the power switch off. So _that's_ why that extra switch was there. Some previous owner probably didn't like that 'feature' either. Sounds like a good way to reduce the life of your picture tube and waste power. On a side note, this set is in very, very nice condition, and works well, just needs the convergence touched up a bit - looks like the previous owner took good care of it.
I've heard of the instant on sets that kept the filaments to the other tubes lit when "off", and I've heard different schools of thought on this. Some people say that leaving the tubes hot all the time is easier on them, since it's not the running time that wears on the tubes, it's the cycling from hot to cold. Others believe that running the tubes all the time will shorten their lifespan - I for one believe the latter. Typically tubes don't fail from open filaments, the emissions just drop or become unstable. If you burn the filament all the time, you're just wasting those electron emissions. But, then again, I'm no expert - but one thing I do know is that power is a good deal more expensive now than it was in the 60's.
Now what I think is funny is the very modern electronics that seem to take a while to "boot up" - stuff that should switch on INSTANTLY, stuff like amplifiers and DVD players that sit there for a couple seconds before doing anything, or providing any sort of feedback. No click, no feep - nothing. From what I've seen the plasma TV's seem to do this to. Or what about those annoying peices of consumer electronic cra^H^H^H value-priced equipment that goes into "attract" mode like some sort of video game when switched "off" - incredibly, incredibly annoying.
</rant>
-Ian
|