Egad, yes. Every year, the new TVs had an altogether new tube lineup.
The tubes were generally the same old stuff, but in new envelopes with
different pinouts, or different combinations in one envelope. All the
service shops had to buy and stock a bunch of new tubes each year. That
sort of greedy planned obsolescence was one of several reasons TV
manufacturing rapidly died out in the U.S.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

W7TI wrote:
On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 23:40:05 GMT, "Ken Finney"
wrote:


The semiconductor industry is one of the most bizarre there is, but it
works for them.


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Before semis became ubiquitous, tube manufacturers did about the same
thing. Any idea how many variations there are on the good 'ol 6AU6?
I'd guess probably between 50 and 100, some pin compatible and some not,
and not one of them worked a bit better than the others. But it was a
money maker for them to keep coming out with "new" tubes that everyone
had to stock up on.

Ahhhhh, the good old days.