4 ms·
My experience has been exactly the opposite. Because people took pride in their work. Zenith TV had a set of commercials saying "The hand-crafted quality goes
by GeorgeTirebiter 5y ago
My experience has been exactly the opposite. Because people took pride in their work. Zenith TV had a set of commercials saying "The hand-crafted quality goes in, before the name goes on" -- they hand-built their TVs for a long time after PCBs arrived, and used that fact to sell 'quality'. So 'hand-built' was synonymous with 'quality' for a generation of kit-builders. (Also 'cheapskate' because in those days, electronic kits were cheaper than pre-built units.)
- hughrr 5y agoI think that’s survivor bias. A big chunk of stuff barely worked and didn’t last as long. I had a couple of old and tektronix scopes which are amazingly reliable after 50 years according to the collectors. Nope! Yours are the exceptional ones on the failure bell curve. There are a hundred that were scrapped before you got yours. Mine were asshats.
- GeorgeTirebiter 5y agoCould be. I'll ask around. My Tek scopes (analog vintage anyway) had visited the Tek Shop at least twice. I recently 'restored' two EC-1 Analog Computers. Both were extremely well-built; and in one of them, the caps were even still good (!). My experience is 60s through mid 70s Heathkits. I don't have much experience with 'newer' models. Or older, for that matter. (My first kit was a transistor checker; then a DX-60A. Last kit was probably the mid-range AM/FM receiver/amp. I still have that, and it works great.)