Electronics-Themed Comics
May 1960 Radio-Electronics

May 1960 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.

Three of the most popular topics for comics back in the day when these appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine were stereo system fanatics, the battle between television owners and servicemen, and the notion that electronics product sales people were a bunch of charlatans. The comic on page 98 is pretty funny, although it might be considered somewhat unacceptable by today's easily offended population. Seeing the telephone number with a two-letter prefix (e.g., Rick and Lucy Ricardo's MUrray Hill5-9975 meant their number was M[6]U[8]5-9975) reminded me of the webpage I found explaining the system. In 1957, standard dial telephones did not have a number with "Q" on it (prefix in the comic is "EQ"), but was added to the "7" button on touch tone phones to facilitate entering names via DTMF encoding. It mentions that many users opposed the elimination of the prefixes and going to all numbers, including two organized groups - the Anti-Digit Dialing League and the Committee of Ten Million to Oppose All-Number Calling. Coalitions of concerned citizens for every conceivable issue has been around for a long time.

Electronics-Themed Comics

"Takes a while to warm up."
Page 85

"Friends, do you see a double image on your TV Screens? Call EQ 0-0001 for expert TV repair."
Page 98

"This must be the place."
Page 121