HOW did people AFFORD our treasures--when they were new?

[Beachboy]

I'm 62 years old, and my dad would never buy us a TV as we were growing up. The JFK assaination in '63 prompted my grandmother to buy us an 18" Zenith B/W "portable" set, which we used as the family viewer until it went on the fritz in 1974. Dad agonized whether to spring for color or another B/W, and whether to go 19" portable or 25" console. He finally paid $500 for a Magnavox 25" console, no remote, and I took the old Zenith to college, had it fixed cheaply, and it went with me to my first apartment after college. I finally gave it away to a friend in 1978 when I moved to another city and didn't want to lug it along.

As mentioned by others, most families I knew didn't get color TV until the early to mid 70's, after the "bugs" were worked out. Remote control was a rarity. Cable was a rarity unless there was no other option for TV reception. We got 3 channels and were happy (happiest when the weather was good and all the channels were coming in with a minimum of snow).

BTW, my parents would never allow a TV in the living room, as it was considered in "poor taste". The TV always resided in the basement.

It took decades for color TV to become commonplace. It boggles my mind how flatscreens overtook the market overnight, with people replacing perfectly good CRT sets with flatscreens. When I was growing up, you never bought anything new until the old one died and could not be economically repaired. One other thing, credit card debt was virtually unheard of when I was young.