Guess this question goes out to the old farts on here.

Back when I started fixing things, in the mid 70's, a guy who was one of
those korean war vets who started fixing tv's in the 60's gave me a bunch
of magazines to help the cause, so to speak.

One of them was "Electronic Servicing" I think, sort of like a trade
magazine for people in the repair business (rather than something like
Radio-Electronics or Popular Electronics).

These magazines are long gone from my collection but there was a "thing" I
remember advertised that for years I always wondered what it was and if
anyone ever used one.

It was probably a scam but I remember consistantly they (and I don't know
who "they" were) had at least a full page color ad each month, sometimes
both pages on the inside back cover.

The device they were selling claimed it could diagnose 90% of the problems
with a tv set, down to component level, just by plugging the tv into this
device and letting it run overnight. Claimed to work on both the new "solid
state" and tube sets.

Not sure of the exact dates but guess it around 1972 to 1976 or so.

I always wondered what that thing could of been and how it could of possibly
worked. Being this was the pre-home computer days I can't see how it would
know the difference between a 26 tube Zenith circa 1962 or one of the state
of the art Quasar "works in a drawer" without programming it somehow.

I always assumed it was a scam, I don't think they ever showed the device,
or the price in the ads. It was mostly text, lots of words saying how much
money can be made without really having to work at troubleshooting.

It just was odd to me that the magazine seemed fairly respectable, some of
the trade groups at the time (NEDSA ?) had columns in it, lots of info from
the manufacturers and was really no-nonsense overall.

So I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this thing, what it could
of been or how it possibily could of worked.

-bruce