|
Well, like it or not, nothing does last forever.
As I write this, I'm watching a 1983 RCA 12" B&W portable that's been my daily watcher on-and-off since I was about 8 or so. In the early 90s, that was just an old TV to shove in a kid's room. Since then in my various travels since moving on my own, I've had a few other "better" color sets.
Most weren't anything collectors like yourselves would be interested in. I had a 1983 15" color GE die while I was asleep. Beautiful set, hardly used, the convergence was still sharp as a tack even. The only reason I got the TV was because it wouldn't tune above channel 43 on cable. Still, when I fell asleep to Seinfeld and woke up to a room full of electronics smoke so thick I could see it as a blue haze, I just dropped the carcass off at the curb and let nature run its course. It could have been the flyback, but I had other things going on in life at the time, and didn't feel compelled to go searching for parts and tearing everything apart. That was in 2008.
I had a 1986 era Magnavox color that I got from my barber when the shop was closing for probably $10. The original remote was even with the set, and it worked just fine, despite being a really high hours set with some random arc in the HV and acting a little squirrley sometimes. It was left behind when I got involved with the wrong woman. Sometimes I wish I'd gone back to get it, but with how all that went down, it was better off just being lost in the shuffle. I still have the remote.
But through it all, the Black&White has at the very least been a backup, and at present I see no need to spend money to replace it. Besides, I've kinda grown attatched to the little guy. I remember watching the OJ trial, Oklohama City, 9/11 coverage on this thing. I hope to be able to fix it when something goes down, but for now it's been playing close to three decades without ever having been cracked open.
As far as saving things, though, people on this site have even made fun of me for saving all of the solid state clock radios I have. But most all of them work, although I'd love to kjnow how to fix the keypad on my GE 4880.
|