For those who used to work in TV repair shops, never touching the yoke was a cardinal rule as it was a complex arrangement of copper coils and ferrite beads, and any mis-handling would negatively impact the picture quality.
Recently, information has come to light on the wonders of automated deflection yoke yamming, a term used to refer to the alignment of a deflection yoke during manufacturing.
This is how it was done: a skilled technician would manipulate the yoke while watching a series of test patterns on the CRT, slowly tweaking the coils to bring everything into perfect alignment.
Automating this process was a significant competitive advantage, and Thomson claimed it could adjust the process to the customer’s assembly line needs, completing the automated yamming process in just 30 seconds per tube.
This video, dated 1995, shows off Thomson’s automated processes, and ironic given that Thomson was out of the CRT business in the US less than a decade later.
