Reading an old Radio Shack catalog from 1988 made me realize something

They had a whole page for replacement TV tuners, and the part numbers were like 150-1234. I found the catalog in a box at my uncle's house last weekend. It's crazy to think a whole store section was just for parts you could swap yourself. Anyone else miss when you could actually fix a TV with a single part from a store shelf?

4 comments

4 Comments

river9522mo ago

Man, that hits home. I was just trying to fix my coffee maker and the whole thing is sealed shut with weird plastic clips. It's not just TVs, everything feels glued together now so you have to replace the whole unit. Makes you feel powerless, and it just creates so much more waste.

brianreed2mo ago

Yeah @river952, those plastic clips are meant to be broken. A thin pry tool from an iFixit kit can usually pop them open without wrecking the case. It's a dumb design, but you can often beat it with some patience.

the_drew1mo ago

Remember my buddy who tried to fix his own monitor?

calebc402mo ago

Ugh, tell me about it. Now if your TV breaks you just stare at a black mirror until you buy a new one.