Saturday, August 10, 2013

Manufaturing TV Sets in the 1950's

Even though it's not from the people who put the quality in before the name went on, it's still pretty interesting.

It's 26 minutes long, but worth the view if you like Electronics History.

And check out the Lissajous pattern on the scope in the beginning.




3 comments:

  1. Many years ago I saw a then-new similar bragfilm from RCA's competitor, Philco, which was my Dad's employer at the time, before Ford took them over. TV manufacturing was fascinating then, and the RCA one is fascinating now. And yes, I did note the Lissajous pattern, which Dad explained to me (on a 5-year-old's level, of course).

    As for "the quality goes in before the name goes on" people, Zenith had a policy, of which they boasted in their commercial advertisements, of hand-wiring their TV sets (and other electronic products) instead of going to the printed circuits. While this did have certain benefits to the longevity of the products which used tubes instead of transistors, it made it difficult for Zenith to cut their costs as they tried to compete in the consumer electronics market.

    Fortunately, Zenith's technological know-how did survive the company's financial troubles and corporate takeovers, and they are still around.







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  2. That's a rather interesting look at manufacturing. Tons in there I didn't know about, like their EMI testing, and designing to keep TVs from interfering with each other. Rather advanced for the time, but makes sense, considering the cost. A color TV in those days probably took the equivalent chunk of income as a nice car today.

    I saw my first color TV in around 1960 or '61. A neighbor down the block bought one and positioned it so that it could be seen from the street through their screen door. Kids would actually form a crowd outside their house for the opening of Disney, when they showed the NBC peacock!

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