Sylvania Solid State Replacement Parts Ad
August 1969 Radio-Electronics

August 1969 Radio-Electronics [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Electronics, published 1930-1988. All copyrights hereby acknowledged.

If you believe this 1969 Sylvania General Telephone & Electronics advertisement, you needed only to stock their specially-designed 60 components to be able to replace every other component made anywhere in the world. Even in 1969 when semiconductors were becoming the majority active devices in electronics (replacing vacuum tubes), the claim is a bit of a stretch. I have my doubts. The ad probably got posted on a few engineering lab bulletin board (the physical kind of yore, not computer BB's) to elicit a few laughs. It reminds me a little of the episode of M.A.S.H. where a war correspondent asked Captain Hawkeye Pierce what he brought with him from home, and he responded that he only brought a dictionary (as opposed to a stash of books) because it has all the other books ever written in it.

Sylvania Solid State Replacement Parts Advertisement

This is 30,000 solid state replacement parts.

So is this.

It used to be if you wanted to satisfy everyone, you had to stock over 30,000 different solid state replacement parts.

Well, everyone realized that was ridiculous. So some enterprising people came up with a bunch of universal replacements.

Then you only had to stock about eleven or twelve hundred.

That was a lot better, but we still thought it was a little ridiculous.

So two years ago (when we went into this business), we figured out how to replace all 30,000 with only 60.

Now all you have to do is stock 60 of our diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, etc., and you can replace any of the 30,000 parts now in use. Including all JEDEC types, manufacturers' part numbers, and foreign designs.

That means you invest less money.

You don't tie up valuable space.

You do away with complicated inventory control.

And you operate more efficiently.

To make life even easier, we've got a new book that gives you all the cross references you need to figure out which part replaces which.

It's available from your Sylvania distributor.

If the whole thing sounds rather incredible, you're right. But why not give your distributor a call and let him narrow the incredibility gap.

Sylvania General Telephone & Electronics

Posted September 14, 2018