Well I will try and stick with the spirit of subject lines :))

>Many of them are made by the crudest possible process, hand
>stuffed and dip-soldered in a big solder pot, cleaning
>consists of slushing in a bucket of solvent with a cooking
>spoon and labor costs $10 a day.

Just dismantled an Akai video recorder that was beyond economic repair, and
am amazed at the PCB technology therein. Single sided phenolic board, with
SMD components on one side, and gazillions of wire links. Any electrolytic
appears to be a leaded component, no smd electros anywhere. Assembled in
Indonesia, for the UK market.

Still, it looks like I will get a few crystals and resonators for projects
from it. cannot work out who makes the IR receiver though, it has only what
looks like a date code on it.

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