Electronics-Themed Comics
January 1962 Radio-Electronics

January 1962 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

I have written before about the love-hate relationship a lot of the buying public had with television and radio repair shops and repairmen - similar to car owners and mechanics. Lots of jokes and skits (what today is termed a "meme") were created back in the heyday of in-home entertainment to make light of the situation. These four electronics-themed comics from a 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine are typical examples. The one from page 111 alludes to an issue that would almost never be seen today on a TV, unless maybe the AC power supply was on the fritz. A composite analog broadcast signal contained vertical and horizontal sync[ronization] components which were used to assure the raster scan began each frame at the same point on the cathode ray tube (CRT). If it didn't, then the picture would be unsteady until the Horiz Sync and Vert Sync potentiometers on the back of the set were adjusted to firm up the picture. Yeah, that's old hat to those of us who had TVs prior to the digital transmission era, but the ranks of Millennials who never experienced such phenomena are growing quickly.

Electronics-Themed Comics

"You have a wastebasket?"
Page 86

"Sorry, I forgot to tell you the tubes in that set screw in."
Page 99

"We won't be able to get to that till New Year's eve. "
Page 101

"Say, maybe it is me!"
Page 111