1/12/06
Who's going to tell them about the old days the television tubes that you had to test one by one at a tester at Thrifty Drugs? Different configurations on the bottom of the tube that you had to puzzle and figure out to put in which plug. Once you did that, you'd press the tester button. It was like a geiger counter needle. The needle would shoot up into the green 'good' or stay in the red. In red, the tube needed replacing. The tubes came in little boxes that you'd carry home and then replace in the back of your tv. Sometimes all the tubes would be good and then..uh,oh...you'd have to replace the picture tube which was the mother of all tubes but the size of the father of all tubes. You couldn't do that yourself, you'd have to send for a tv repair man or, send your tv away where it would mysteriously be repaired.
Then you could watch the 10 or so channels that existed until the UHF stations were added which required a special antenna on your tv, not the huge V antennas on the roof of your house. You could watch the channel until it went off at midnight or sometime in the night when a test pattern would appear. The test pattern was a picture of an Indian Chief with some lines radiating from his head. In this current day of political correctness an Indian would never be used because somehow someone would figure out that was discriminatory. So, it's fortunate there are no longer test patterns and also fortunate that there's 100's of channels that never go off the air. Gives us a huge variety of viewing pleasure. I think tubes and the Indian pattern may have served a better purposes.
**This is a story in need of a revision for certain. I was cringing as I typed it. The immediacy of the "I" was replaced by the "you". "you" doesn't work here because it's clear I mean "I". Yet the bones of the story, about the differences in televisions then and now is important. Below is a quick revision.
One of my jobs was to ride my bike to Thrifty Drugs to test the television tubes when they needed to be replaced. Thrifty, besides having a soda fountain where you could buy and eat apple cobbler with ice cream, also had a tube tester. I rode around to the front entrance where the tube tester sat next to the cashier. The first part of tube testing was to figure out which socket to place the tube in. Each tube had a different configuration on the bottom. The tube tester had the female version of the configuration. I liked puzzles, so I usually found the match quickly.
I'd insert the tube into the proper place and push the tester button. The machine reminded me of a geiger counter with a long needle that zoomed from stationary to someplace along a scaled spectrum. If the needle stayed in the red zone, it would need to be replaced. If it zoomed to the green zone, the tube was working properly. To replace a tube I called the cashier who would unlock the cabinet and sell me the new tube in a small box I'd take home. I'd replace the old one by pushing the new into the back of the tv.
When all tested tubes were green, the picture tube was the problem. The picture tube was massive and needed to be replaced by a tv repairman either in house or taken to a tv repair shop and returned. The picture tubes were the most expensive, but not as costly as a new tv. And, no same day service, meaning there would be no tv for several days.
Once the tv was repaired, I could once again watch the 10 or so channels the tv carried. To change the channel, I would stand in front of the tv and turn the channel switch until I found something I liked. No remotes. Several new channels were added with UHF. This had a separate channel changer and a different antenna. The UHF antenna sat on top of the tv, different from the huge V shaped antenna that sat on the roof for the regular stations.
All tv stations didn't broadcast after a certain time at night. If I turned on the tv in the middle of the night, all of the stations were broadcasting test patterns. The test pattern was a profile picture of an Indian Chief with lines radiating from his head. There was a steady tone associated with a test pattern.
Just as new understandings exist for many ideas previously not identified as discriminatory, the wrong headed use of the Indian Chief test pattern is a thing of the past. Another nod to forward movement through education? Bye, bye tubes and test patterns, hello hundreds of channels that rarely stop broadcasting. Bye, bye Thrifty Drugs, but not bye bye to apple cobbler. Anyone know where to get some?
**Improvement, but still needs a bit of work, but I no longer cringe.
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