There is no man who has caught them televisions, when there were no remotes he wasn’t trained to hit the device, when the image was flooding. Where ‘flooding’, with today’s data it was as if the signal was bleeding, with the consequence that ‘water’ appears in the image.
Parents usually sent the children to do their duty towards family TV viewing, that is to knock the TV off slightly. When it didn’t ‘come together’ it was followed by a sideways blow. The third step was to check the antenna. Usually, though, the image was restored before that.
This particular know-how was passed on to subsequent generations, so the first reaction was not to unplug for a few minutes (which is today’s mantra), but a light slap with the palm of the hand.
How the screen hit worked
The parts of the old cutting devices were placed in sockets – eg pipes. With the blow they returned to their correct position. Through this method, we freed the TV from possible corrosion that accumulated on the contacts of the components. Also, the expansion and contraction of components—through the generation of a significant amount of heat—caused enough mechanical movement that there were breaks in the connection.
Consequently, the blow brought back parts and repositioned loose connections, but temporarily. It did not fix the problem which was usually the normal wear and tear caused by the many years of use (because then TVs ‘lived’ for decades).
Modern devices do not respond to the same treatment, since they are more fragile, so a bump can aggravate the problem.
If we slap the OLED flat screen, we will probably break the inner glass. In no way will it ‘make’ since OLEDs, LCDs use organic LEDs or liquid crystals. They don’t have many mechanical parts that they ‘made’ by hitting.
So it is useful not to try the ’80s success method.
