[Jeffhs]

My first new TV was a 12" b&w offshore-made tube-powered portable. Bought it new in 1975 from the now-defunct Kennedy and Cohen retail chain, which had a store near where I lived at the time. The set cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $80, and it worked well out of the box; however, I turned it on one day three years later and was greeted by a thin plume of smoke curling up out of the ventilation slots in the cabinet.

Needless to say, I junked the TV. I bought a solid-state Zenith b&w 12" portable shortly thereafter that lasted me 22 years, and was still working when I got rid of it (space constraints, as I had just moved to a very small apartment [where I live now] and already had two 19" color sets; no room for a third TV, even a working one). I can only hope that whomever found the Zenith set behind my apartment got several more years of use out of it, as it was still working and had a very bright CRT. (I wouldn't be surprised if that set is still going strong today.) I guess that just goes to show, again, that you can't kill a Zenith.