Quote:
Originally Posted by Tubejunke
I don't think that the planned obsolescence in engineering and B.S. merchandising schemes that are commonplace today were even thought of in the early days of television. Just as with automobiles and many other products of the "good old days" I think that there was pride in quality and with quality comes longevity. Now I don't think that anyone, not even Allen B. DuMont Laboratories ever meant for their sets to last 60 years!
I remember my dad (who sold TVs and appliances for Sears) always saying that the expected life of a TV was 10 years. That was back in the 70s..
|
Hi Tubejunke ,
I used to think the same thing untill I did some reading about the early pioneers of radio . My idealized impression of guys like DeForest and Sarnoff was quickly shattered when I read of the cutthroat antics that went on "back in the day" (like how Sarnoff boned Armstrong so badly over the whole ugly FM mess that it is said to have resulted in Armstrong's suicide) . And lets not forget the great "tube count scandal" of the late 20s/Early 30s where some manufacturers , knowing the buying public equated tube count to the radio's performance , took to falsely inflating the "tube" count by using multiple , unneeded , "Ballast Tubes" (glorified lightbulbs that looked like tubes but were far cheaper to produce) . These "Tubes" were nothing more than resistors , but resistor count wasn't sellin radios , TUBE count was , So what if half of the "tubes" actually wern't active elements in the reception or amplification of the sound ? "Hell , It's got 12 tubes !!! It's GOTTA sound better than that 6 tube radio , right ?" . Lawsuits were brought , companies ruined , and it was just business as usual for the poor buyers who saw no refunds on the prices they had paid for these phony "High Performance" sets .
The electronic manufacturing business was already plenty dirty by the time Television came to be , and I'm sure planned obsolescence wasn't even considered tricky by the engineer's of those times . At their Boss' direction , they built to a pricepoint just as today , and years of electronic manufacture have given them experience with just how cheaply they can make em and still have them last the duration of the warranty .
We're just lucky the engineers took a few decades to learn just exactly HOW cheaply they can be built and still survive their predicted lifespan .