This is the world I was born into.
Discussion
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...