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I remember when you could get commonly used vacuum tubes at the drugstore. [1] They had a tester machine, so you would pull them the tube out of your TV or radio, test it, and get a replacement right there. [1] Thrifty Drug stores in SoCal. I don’t remember them at Sav-On Drug Stores, their main competitor.
I remember tube testers in stores... It was great fun to put 50 volts on a six-volt filament and watch the fireworks and smoke...
It's been many years, but about 15-20 years ago, I had a local business that used to come into my business and order these custom made cables from us. They were serial on one end and some priority ancient thing on the other. We would solder them and make them for them. I have no idea what machine they were used for, beyond something with chemical containment.