[Blast]

Indeed!

Don't forgot the need for 'Chipper Check', the interface required to service many of those sets, not to mention having to use that system just to get the serial number of the set to make a warranty claim.

Throughout the nineties I worked in a major shop in Kansas City that was RCA/GE authorized and the guys there did a LOT of tuner shield/eeprom repairs.

I was the VCR/camcorder guy so I stayed away from much of that but I probably did a couple dozen of those tuner shield and associated eeprom repairs. Did you ever do the trick with the eeprom by unsoldering one pin? I don't remember how it was done.. But, if the eeprom wasn't too far gone you could still get the data off of it and not have to go through an entire time consuming alignment process.

I left consumer electronics repair in 2001 so the CTC203 was barely an introduction by the time I left. Doubt if I ever had my hands on one.

How Thomson didn't have close to 100% failure of that CTC17x through 18x chassis series would be beyond me.