{"id":612,"date":"2011-06-07T17:43:34","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T22:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2011\/06\/07\/110607-buildyourowntv\/"},"modified":"2022-04-01T12:16:05","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T17:16:05","slug":"110607-buildyourowntv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2011\/06\/07\/110607-buildyourowntv\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback to 1973: When we didn&#8217;t need Best Buy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s no doubt that television technology has made great strides. We&#8217;re on the threshold of having <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pcworld.com\/article\/228246\/sharp_and_nhk_team_up_to_create_a_4320p_resolution_television.html\">an 85&#8243; 33-megapixel TV<\/a> to hang on our walls (for most of us, it will have to be in the garage, of course), or if that&#8217;s too ostentatious, you can put in an order for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/160372\/2011\/06\/samsung_super_high_resolution_3d_hdtv.html#lsrc.rss_main\">Samsung&#8217;s new 70 incher<\/a>, if you&#8217;re willing to settle for a mere 8 million pixels of Dr. Phil.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div style=\"float: right; padding: 1em 0 1em 24px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/misc\/buildyourowntv.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid #ccc;\" src=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/misc\/buildyourowntv-t.jpg\" alt=\"Scan of Magazine Ad\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>But for some of us, we harken back to a simpler time, when a guy (and not just MacGyver), with nothing more than five simple tools and sweat of his brow, could build his own TV, and a color one at that, complete with an &#8220;ultra-rectangular,&#8221; 25&#8243; (315 sq-inch) screen that provides almost immediate access to 24 channels, more than you&#8217;ll ever need if you&#8217;re expecting quality programming.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The ad on the right (click to enlarge, and to dig that cool 70s &#8216;do) appeared in the January, 1973 edition of <i>Cycle Magazine<\/i>, complete with a postcard (postage-paid, no less) to get more information about enrolling in the Electronics Home Study School offered by DeVry Institute of Technology (a Bell &amp; Howell School). If you successfully completed the course, you got to keep the Bell &amp; Howell Solid State color TV that you built. Plus, as the ad revealed, &#8220;You might even end up with a business of your own in color TV servicing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><i>The magazine also has an ad for Record Club of America: &#8220;FREE! up to 25 Stereo LPs or 15 Tapes (cartridge or cassette) with NO OBLIGATION to BUY ANYTHING EVER!&#8221; Did you fall for that one?<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s no doubt that television technology has made great strides. We&#8217;re on the threshold of having an 85&#8243; 33-megapixel TV to hang on our walls (for most of us, it will have to be in the garage, of course), or if that&#8217;s too ostentatious, you can put in an order for Samsung&#8217;s new 70 incher,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2011\/06\/07\/110607-buildyourowntv\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Flashback to 1973: When we didn&#8217;t need Best Buy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,34,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-history","category-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9406,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/9406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}