I'm writing this on the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the color TV. A radio report noting the occasion recalled that the first RCA sets cost $1000 (nearly as much as a new car in 1954) and that buying one of the big mahogany wooden-cased CT-100s was a truly momentous event, if you happened to be rich enough to afford one.
I'm not quite old enough to remember the color TV's market debut. But as it took more than a decade for color TVs to reach the mainstream, I do remember the excitement as a kid in the 1960s of getting our first color set. What a big deal that was! And certainly, such a major investment deserved special care. When it broke, the TV repairman made house calls, coming to change tubes or even—gasp—bring the news of the need for a costly picture tube repair.
I wasn't thinking about it being color TV's 50th birthday the previous weekend when I took my 11-year-old son into Radio Shack. He had $100 in birthday and allowance cash burning a hole in his pocket. When he saw a 19-inch color TV on sale for just $110, he wanted to hit me up for the extra $10 and buy it as a monitor for his video games. I should be immune to any surprise related to the ever-plummeting price of consumer electronics, but the idea of my son buying a color TV with his pocket money was a bit of a shock.
And I wonder why my kids don't value their electronics like we used to! The price-driven consumer electronics market means that the TV repairman has gone the way of the milkman. We plan obsolescence because we prefer to buy things cheaper at Wal Mart, and when they break, to throw them away and buy the latest model—bigger and brighter if it's a TV, smaller and faster if it's a PC. If it's not broken, then it is soon too outdated to warrant sinking much money into. Why put any more moolah into expanding memory for your plodding PC when you can upgrade to a new one with 100 times the processing power for $399?
THE NEXT BIG THING The National Public Radio report made the comparison of digital television being at the front end of the same sort of explosive growth curve that color TV was at just before the mass market conversion from black and white in the 1960s. Since the Federal Communications Commission has (controversially) mandated that by July 2007 all new televisions sold in the U.S. must be able to receive digital broadcasts, the changeover to digital is being driven by more than market demand.
Tsugio Makimoto, corporate advisor to Sony and the keynote speaker at a recent Semico Summit I attended, calls the current growth cycle "the second digital wave" for the semiconductor marketplace, driven not only by digital TV but also by the "digitization of consumer electronics," including digital cameras, phones, and video players.
Makimoto predicts that we are going to see dramatically shorter product lifecycles, enabled by field programmability in the semiconductor market. The traditional three- to five-year introduction/maturity/end of life curve, he says, will be replaced by a one-year cycle. No wonder you readers consistently say that time-to-market pressure keeps you up at night!
With ever-quicker product obsolescence, electronics become more of a disposable commodity—and all the more a major environmental concern, as outlined in this issue's cover story by Ron Schneiderman. By next year, according to a Carnegie Mellon study, 150 million PCs will be buried in U.S. landfills.
The rapid spread of electronics to developing countries further compounds the mounting disposal problem. According to Semico, the first 40 years of semiconductor growth were driven by about a billion users in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and the Asia Rim. In the next 10 years, the number of electronic consumers will double with a billion more users, mostly in Asia.
What can be done to keep from being buried by a global avalanche of tech trash? Among the solutions suggested by Schneiderman are lead-free and other greener product designs as well as refundable deposits to promote recycling.
And what about my kids' careless attitude about their electronic gear? Well, perhaps the trend to personalization and customization brings some hope. After all, it's one thing to lose a personal CD player. (My daughter got three of them as Christmas gifts from various relatives.) But it's quite another to lose your iPod with your personal digital library of music.
Sony is pioneering perhaps the ultimate customizable electronic device: the personal companion robot. Makimoto showed an astounding demo of Sony's QRIO robot, with its capabilities for face learning, sound localization, emotional response, and much more (www.sony.net/SonyInfo/QRIO/). Maybe if my kids have an electronic device that knows their names, can run, jump, and play catch with them, and help them with their household chores, they'll want to take care of it and keep it around for a while. If Sony is right, we'll soon see!
It seems clear that those of us IN the business have a decidedly different experience than those peeking through the window and guessing what the conversations are. Even more interesting is the emotive responses it brought about. I know one thing for sure-- they aren't going to be outsourcing my job any time this century :)
Robert Key -September 24, 2004
I can't let this get by either, unfortunately. Joel said: Let me tell you, TV repairmen aren't what they used to be! Back then they actually KNEW something, rather than followed procedure out of a manual and swapped out cards without the slightest idea of what it actually happening. But in their defense, they're not paid to know that stuff and unfortunately it's not economical for Sony to let them repair it any other way.
Let me assure you, Joel, that we repair at the component level so long as the manufacturer will provide the parts needed. Maybe you're confusing us with the layer 1 guys in the computer industry? I don't know how Sony trains their in -ouse technicians, but in my own defense, I am paid to know what I'm doing. I study service manuals, attend technical training, experiment, and talk to other technicians. I've taught at the local college. My allegiance is to my customer and they deserve that level of support.
Maybe it's just where you live that is in trouble. For example, a small town in West Virginia might not be blessed with a variety of qualified technicians. Here in the greater Los Angeles area, we have many.
HDTVJunkie -September 02, 2004
I'm going to have to reflect the general sentiment here also. Our shop has been around since the early 1960s also and we have seen a lot of different products come and go, but the display device seems to be a staple. Quite a few innovative products generated some handsome cash flow transients but that's all they ever amounted to. The VCR, CD players, Camcorders...all of them came and went while the display department kept trudging along, turning (so far) an ever increasing profit. But the article does hold true for the "small" product lines. Anything you can hold in your hand will be disposable, and it should be because these type of convenience products are exactly that and shouldn't have a repair cycle. If they fail, toss them and fetch a new one. Nice repair idea Ted, but it won't hold. The Mom and Pops used to do that and when another kathode flexes and shorts a second gun it blows the horizontal and the switchmode supply to it so I wouldn't fall asleep with it on.
Otto Balaz -June 17, 2004
Board swapping!? Man, where have I been? Our shop repairs plasmas, LCDs, LCOS, DLP, and we are still forced to repair to component level. Like Mr. Key said, "same song, different instrument." I've been repairing t.v.s since 1966,as well as the other products as they came and went.The display device is the root as well as the most expensive to produce. We will be fixing them for quite a while to come. Everything breaks no matter how much you paid for it—don't forget, even BMW has a service department.
Ted Means -June 11, 2004
Right on the money. I too wonder (and sometimes fear) what the future holds in terms of waste product from the myriad electronics we just toss in the trash every day. Disposable cell phones?! Give me a break!
In a world where I hear of companies designing products to be disposable(!), I was glad to read that some of the major companies are thinking about "designing green." I work in an R&D environment, so I don't have my finger on the pulse of engineering for commerce, but I try to do my bit here and there. Luckily I can apply a little of my meager know-how to help out the cause, as it were. Even though it's an insignificant drop in the bucket, I enjoy trying to fix broken electronics for the shear challenge of fixing what society at large has deemed a throwaway item. And I get the pleasure of knowing it isn't going to be sitting in a landfill for the next couple thousand years!
Your talk of the TV is what spurred this email: I just fixed a 32-in. color TV that a friend gave me after the Sony repairman failed after a couple home visits (let me tell you, TV repairmen aren't what they used to be! Back then they actually KNEW something, rather than followed procedure out of a manual and swapped out cards without the slightest idea of what it actually happening. But in their defense, they're not paid to know that stuff and unfortunately it's not economical for Sony to let them repair it any other way).
I got the set home and toiled with it for a few days. I troubleshot the problem to the CRT itself rather than in the electronics (where the tech was "sure" the problem was). But knowing a little about vacuum tubes, I surmised what the problem most likely was: an arc thru a non-contact whisker between the green's filament and the cathode, causing the TV screen to flash and immediately turn off every 30 seconds. Tubes are way too expensive to replace, so I had nothing to loose in engineering a solution.
I decided to wind a little 1:1, 1000-V, 15-kHz isolation transformer to essentially float the filament off ground. With no large E-field gradient between the filament and cathode, physics told that bad cathode not to arc to the filament any more. : ) After a little focus and intensity adjustment, it has been running clear, bright, and strong ever since with no more dreaded flash-off.
Joel Peavy -May 25, 2004
HeHe! The way of the milkmen eh? ive been repairing tvs for 19 years now and i havent seen anything that indicates my demise in the near future :) what has happened is the "type" of tv that you get to work on has changed. when i began there was solid volume of transistorized sets sprinkeled with a few tube type tvs. the size ranging from alot of 19 inch picture tubes to 25 inch,oh the whopping 25 incher!those were largely console televisions and required the serviceman to go out to the customers house and either complete a simple repair or bring it into the shop for a more complex repair. some 20 years later,the same thing is happening except that the size of the tv has changed. we dont fix 19 inch or 25 inch tvs anymore because of course "the cost to replace". however,i am buried in big screen tvs as well as plasma tvs.same ol song, different instrument :)
robert key -April 14, 2004
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