[Laforet]

The other parties you mentioned would probably have less motivation to preserve it, let alone restore it to a fully functional state. I find it rather bizarre that many posters here seem to think that it’s morally preferable for the TV set to rot in Japan rather than getting the proper care in the hands of an American collector, all because of some imaginary cultural baggage.

[patcon]

Heh it strikes me that while the stakes of this "relic" are kinda low, it echos the conversations about institutions like the British Museum possessing historic artefacts :) some claim there is moral argument for it keeping its artefacts, because Britain can best preserve them and protect them from damage.

Responsibility and autonomy to preserve one's own heritage (with the associated risk of failing to do so) is a longstanding ethical dilemma between cultures, and the answers aren't so clear imho! (This argument is much more compelling for museums, rather than Sony)

[Laforet]

Yes, I am aware of those arguments and I am inclined to agree with you. Compared to cultural artifacts which are mostly neutral in terms of externalities, relics of the industrial era suffer more from the cobra effect.

Others in this thread have bought up the future of ICEs and classic car preservation. Back in the early 2000s the US government offered people cash incentives to dispose of their fuel inefficient cars, and by disposal they meant running the engine with an abrasive liquid instead of oil until it is totally ruined beyond repair. Mechanics will tell you horror stories of rare car models being destroyed this way so the owners can claim a few hundred bucks from the DOT. I'm sure car collectors had a field day back then but with such a glut in the market they could not save everything that's worth saving.

Shank Mods was able to obtain a copy of the service manual in English from somebody in the US. This fact probably means that the TV was sold on (or imported to) the domestic US market for a while. (Sony have always allowed individuals to order parts through an authorised service centre, and the latter often insist on requesting a repair manual first even if you are 100% sure of the part number) It's very likely that a number of them existed in the US only to be unceremoniously thrown out by their owners when LCD TVs became more popular. I bet nobody batted an eyelid when that happened.

[RhodesianHunter]

I just don't think ancient artifacts are comparable to an old TV.

[rtpg]

Though I don't think anyone would have wanted it, I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy there. Maybe in theory there would have been a place for this in a curated space in Japan... if not for it being so massive at least.

Ultimately if it was a TV designed in Japan, having it on display at a local tech museum would be nice. I just don't know where it would go that could deal with the space and the weight.

Closest thing I could think of is the NTT museum, which is ginormous... but it's mostly about NTT's stuff. "Some other company in Japan made big TVs" is a bit less interesting than, say, some older tabulation machines they have there.