Earl "Madman"
Muntz (1917-1987),
businessman and
self-taught electronic engineer. Designer of the
Muntz Jet and Inventor of the
Muntz Stereo Pack which directly inspired the
8-track tape player (
Bill Lear).
In the late
forties, Muntz got into the
TV set business by creating "city only" TV sets for people who lived close enough to the broadcast antennas that meant reception
circuitry could be simplified, and thus built cheaper by eliminating
fringe reception circuitry.
"Muntzing" (syn.
featurectomy,
bumming) refers to the technique where he would look his
engineer's design prototypes, study the design, pull out a
wire cutter (he always carried one in his shirt pocket), and *
snip* off what he estimated was a
superfluous component.
If the prototype still functioned, this process continued until the prototype ceased to function properly and then the last-trimmed component would be re-installed.
There is a bad side to all this, of course. These Muntz TV sets sometimes lacked essential adjustments like, say
fine tuning. Other adjustments, usually adjustable with
potentiometers, were calibrated in the factory and replaced with a fixed
resistor. This meant a TV set that would start to go bad as
aging made the component values drift.
Cheaper at first, but more expensive to repair. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? Muntzing is what gave the world
Winmodems and
Winprinters.