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Before we started using those, we relied on the TV repairman to show up with his case full of tubes, until there was an article perhaps in Reader's Digest.
It stated that some would take out tubes that were still fully functional and replace it with one from their box.
A new one if you were lucky, a used one if not.
The tubes that were still good, were placed back in the box of the new or used tube they will charge you for, but upside down, so they would remember for the next succa that it wasn't a new one!
The bad ones, either sideways with or w/o the box, or given to the customer to trash themselves.
All they then had to do was wait 'till someone's burned out tube could be replaced with the used one, only at brand new prices.
When we caught someone doing that to us, we started testing and replacing them ourselves!
Many of those old tubes are valuable.. people are rebuilding them especially the " nixie tubes "
I remember those also... and what the youngster don't understand TV & Radios of that era had a warm glow inside from all the Vacuum Tubes.. and those tubes could be replaced.. Just stop at you Rexall Drug Store or Western Auto - and use their FREE Tube tester.. this widget that had 30-40 sockets.. place a tube in the socket flip a switch and the indictor dial would tell you the condition of the tube. The tubes about the size of a quarter around and 2--4 inches long.. below the test rack was new tubes.. just pick the correct tube. $0.85 cent to several dollars.. take home and plug it back in.. fixed !
Most testers looked like this.. BRAND Name.. RCA - Zenith - Motorola all wanting your business also machines for Radio's
Sometime before 1986, when I gave up and bought land, I was looking for a house. This house, which was being sold by the neighbor after the owner had died, had a General Electric X-415 radio in it:
While I did not buy the house (it would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the electric service, add A/C, deepen the well, etc.), I did buy the radio for 10 or 20 dollars. It was still possible to find a tube tester, but I had to order the tubes from Radio Shack. The tubes in this mid-1940s radio were not in current use. This radio was built when the FM band was being moved to its current location, so it has both FM bands, along with AM and Shortwave.
Many of those old tubes are valuable.. people are rebuilding them especially the " nixie tubes "
We bought a new 1960-1963 190 watt Motorola Hi-Fi console record player, back when 190 watts meant 190 watts, that I was later given and used from 1971-1988 when I sold my first house.
I stored it in a garage for two years, when someone decided that that was another piece of our past I should junk!
When I went to bring it to my next house in 1990, I noticed that several tubes were missing...gone...just jumped out of their sockets...vanished into thin air, making it inoperable, therefore, their wishes were granted and had to trash it, as tubes were no longer sold in brick and mortars, and the internet as I know it, didn't exist, nor did I have a computer.
I thought of keeping it anyway, as nostalgia, but decided not to!
What really stucked was three years later I was working on a project in an old movie theater in 1993, and there were three-four boxes containing several hundred or so assorted tubes from who knows when, or what they belonged to, that were being trashed!
Not that any of them would have been the correct ones or even usable, but when I saw them, I immediately reflected back to the decision not to keep console anyway!
We bought a new 1960-1963 190 watt Motorola Hi-Fi console record player, back when 190 watts meant 190 watts, that I was later given and used from 1971-1988 when I sold my first house.
I stored it in a garage for two years, when someone decided that that was another piece of our past I should junk!
When I went to bring it to my next house in 1990, I noticed that several tubes were missing...gone...just jumped out of their sockets...vanished into thin air, making it inoperable, therefore, their wishes were granted and had to trash it, as tubes were no longer sold in brick and mortars, and the internet as I know it, didn't exist, nor did I have a computer.
I thought of keeping it anyway, as nostalgia, but decided not to!
What really stucked was three years later I was working on a project in an old movie theater in 1993, and there were three-four boxes containing several hundred or so assorted tubes from who knows when, or what they belonged to, that were being trashed!
Not that any of them would have been the correct ones or even usable, but when I saw them, I immediately reflected back to the decision not to keep console anyway!
Ahhh...hindsight is 20-20!
From what I read.. big bucks.. especial the giant tubes used in radio transmission...
McIntosh Amps still makes them with tubes... mega bucks for a home stereo
" The LOOK " every adult had the " LOOK" especially teachers.. and older people. Do something wrong as a child.. Level 1 of the look.. a total of 5 levels.. as a child your blood would run cold.. when " The LOOK " was used.. and being a child you pushed your luck.. level 3 beads of sweet would start forming from the person giving you the " LOOK " if you went for broke especially when your really young.. " Dad" would unbuckle the " BELT " between the " LOOK" and " Unbuckling" the belt.. you were so far up the creek..
Lucky you only got a look from your teachers TTM, I'm so old I remember when teachers could do things unheard of today, including inflicting physical pain.
I was talking to the girl next to me in the ninth grade during a lecture, when the teacher slowly sauntered behind me and gave me one of his signature solo back-handed bops on the top of the head with the stone of his High School ring, and they weren't love taps either!
Getting caught for chewing gum in our grade school would warrant the teacher asking "did you bring enough for the whole class?", which of course nobody ever could or did, and like if they did, that would not only get them off the hook, but the teacher would let them pass it out to everyone, so we all could be chomping at once during the lecture!
Not only did this put a negative taste in our mouths regarding the cheap/selfish perp, part two of the embarrassment was that the kid would either have to swallow it, or keep it attached it to the end of their nose for the remainder of the class!
Lucky you only got a look from your teachers TTM, I'm so old I remember when teachers could do things unheard of today, including inflicting physical pain.
I was talking to the girl next to me in the ninth grade during a lecture, when the teacher slowly sauntered behind me and gave me one of his signature solo back-handed bops on the top of the head with the stone of his High School ring, and they weren't love taps either!
Getting caught for chewing gum in our grade school would warrant the teacher asking "did you bring enough for the whole class?", which of course nobody ever could or did, and like if they did, that would not only get them off the hook, but the teacher would let them pass it out to everyone, so we all could be chomping at once during the lecture!
Not only did this put a negative taste in our mouths regarding the cheap/selfish perp, part two of the embarrassment was that the kid would either have to swallow it, or keep it attached it to the end of their nose for the remainder of the class!
O yes...... been down that road with teachers & principle.
We could recite the pledge of allegiance with nobody getting offended
I remember when we recited the Pledge without bringing 'God" into it.
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and being a child you pushed your luck.. level 3 beads of sweet would start forming from the person giving you the " LOOK " 