On May 21, 6:47*am, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:
On Sun, 20 May 2012 23:21:29 -0500, the renowned Jon Elson

wrote:
Phil Hobbs wrote:

Those horribly unreliable TVs with "the works in a drawer" were pretty
amusing. *Talk about turning a bug into a feature.
Ahh, that was at least 40 years ago, and used vacuum tubes!

"The works in a drawer, and the drawer in the shop."


Goes to show how bad reputation can follow you around, even after the
responsible designers and managers are long dead or retired. There's
some justification for it too, as corporate culture has momentum.

Quasar was sold to Matsu****a (which most people in the world know
from their brands such as Panasonic and National) in 1974!

Which promptly put all "the works" on one pc board.

A friend worked there at the time of the takeover. Interestingly, he
said the first to be laidoff were the Japanese-Americans -- apparently
people who looked Japanese but acted American unsettled the people
from Matsu****a. He hung on as long as he could but Panasonic finally
laid everyone off.

At that time, Zenith was suing the Japanese for dumping TVs at less
than cost in the US. But apparently the US government had a conscious
policy of yielding the US consumer electronics business to Japan, in
order to keep them a happy ally. Thus the companies that had made
Chicago a world center of consumer electronics: Motorola, National
Video, Warwick, Wells-Gardner, Zenith and Rauland, and Admiral, all
eventually were pushed out of the business. Some were bought by far
Eastern companies like Sanyo and Lucky-Goldstar.