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TV reminiscing

5K views 35 replies 18 participants last post by  PalmtreesCalling 
#1 · (Edited)
Wow, not that far back. but my TV when I was a kid had 4 channels and I could scan all 4 in a second.
Your TV could *scan* channels?

When I was a kid, I *was* my dad's remote control. :p

 
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#2 ·
Your TV could *scan* channels?

When I was a kid, I *was* my dad's remote control. :p
scan, remote...what are these voodoo? No, when I was a kid, 4 or 5 buttons on the telly that you clicked and changed in a nano-second. Actually, funny thing happened yesterday. I was dropping the wife off at hospital and parked up at a charge point in the hospital car park and had to park close to the fence, so I climbed out the passenger side. plugged in, and thought I'd play chess from the passenger side while I wait for my wife. Turns out you can't use the screen unless you are sitting in the driver seat, this I did not know. So I had to climb over the centre into the driver seat and the screen came active. If I sat in the passenger side, all I got was the charge screen with no way of getting out of it. I guess if I have the tesla key card on the centre console then maybe that would work but I rarely use that. Learn something new every day.
 
#3 ·
scan, remote...what are these voodoo? No, when I was a kid, 4 or 5 buttons on the telly that you clicked and changed in a nano-second
Well (I'm hooking my thumbs in my suspenders now), when I was a kid, there were two rotary knobs.

One for channels 2 to 13, where the "real" channels were.

CBC, and affiliates for NBC, CBS and ABC.

The other rotary know was a free-wheeling affair for UHF channels.

Those were the freak channels up to 99 (?).

All free, over the air.
 
#6 ·
does anyone remember when this was a thread about software build v10.2 2021.4?

FWIW, i remember rabbit ears to pick up 3 or 4 snowy channels, and now i'm back to a coat hanger and cookie sheet to pick up 1080i OTA
 
#18 · (Edited)
Yep and even remember when that day in 1976 we brought home that piece of furniture, 23". We couldn't afford the new bigger size of 27" and that funny corded thing that would save the kids from having to get up and change channels.

However it was awesome as it was our first COLOR TV in the house.

A side note - my grandparents wouldn't buy a color TV for many more years as the color hurt their eyes and they believed there was something in the tube that was bad for our health anyway. Hell, who knows maybe they were right.
 
#19 ·
I remember we had one of those late 60's or very early 70's TV built in with a record player on one side and a radio tuner on the other side. I still remember the sound and feel of that old knob scrolling up and down to find a radio station. I think the TV had only a few channels that worked with those silly rabbit ears. But that huge heavy media cabinet had the largest tv tube I've ever seen. That was some solid wood work and technology for that time and it lasted for a few decades.

Imagine now telling people that what ever tech they bought needed to last at least 10 years. Things cost a lot back then because it was made locally so people kept it longer. Today is a different story with throw away electronics.
 
#36 ·
I remember we had one of those late 60's or very early 70's TV built in with a record player on one side and a radio tuner on the other side. I still remember the sound and feel of that old knob scrolling up and down to find a radio station. I think the TV had only a few channels that worked with those silly rabbit ears. But that huge heavy media cabinet had the largest tv tube I've ever seen. That was some solid wood work and technology for that time and it lasted for a few decades.

Imagine now telling people that what ever tech they bought needed to last at least 10 years. Things cost a lot back then because it was made locally so people kept it longer. Today is a different story with throw away electronics.
I loved that entertainment center. my folks had the same, a little pocket in it for LPs, you could stack them, or 45s with the insert. Friggin magic! God I'm old... Sigh...
 
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#24 ·
first off @garsh I am jealous of the attic you can enter and walk about in, my attic is all trusses and annoyance.

your antenna - it is a new design to me, no Hovermann-Gray or whatever my cookie sheet thing is called. got a link to a design?
 
#25 ·
first off @garsh I am jealous of the attic you can enter and walk about in, my attic is all trusses and annoyance.
One of the first things I did when I moved into this house was to add a floor to the attic. :)
The floor just goes down the middle where there's enough headroom to store things.
 
#27 ·
That is nice. I'm using one too with a HDHomerun plugged into my network for TV. Works very nicely with the Channels app on AppleTV and other devices. I have a 2011 Mac Mini to use as a server for recording shows and tuning.

I set up my parents with the same setup using their PC for recorded shows.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Antennas for TVs make me think back to a children's book from 1965, popular through multi generations in our family, of Kermit the Hermit: "That poor people lived there was easy to see, for it was the one house without a TV."
D927D2E5-17A6-4575-BD70-D20E21559890.jpeg

I remember when neighborhoods looked like that. As for us, we have been OTA and cable free for 24 years now, relying on an antenna that looks very much like in this drawing, only hidden away inside the attic. I figure the savings over the years pretty much paid for our model 3. Not really, but the savings were substantial.
 
#29 ·
and to make it fully monti python... Here in the UK we only had 3 channels up until the 80s then it went to 4. Then towards the end of the 90s it jumped to 5! what is this madness....5 channels. Nobody watched channel 5 because it was thought to be excessive. But back then I could turn the telly on, flip down the 4 buttons on the front and shout 'there's nothing on the box', then get on with something interesting. Nowadays it'll take you all evening to do just that.
When satellite TV appeared in the UK, (sky), that was designed for people who had no life and sat indoors all day, which seems to be the norm now.
Still not a fan of staring at the box, I have a workshop and a ton of projects lined up. People always say, where do you find the time to play in 2 bands, renovate a classic car, do up motorbikes, make tons of strange projects. Then they start telling me about a box set they watched over the weekend.
 
#31 ·
Oh, and I have like 220 channels on cable and yet still can't find anything to watch and have at least 3 subscription services to streaming.

SMDH we are ridiculous. My kids are so spoiled. They get mad when there's a problem with Netflix or they can't rewind a show on the DVR. Sheesh. Try having to fiddle with the rabbit ears because the reception is bad because of the weather when you're trying to watch GI Joe.
 
#32 ·
OK, so here's some further trip down memory lane.

We had cable for as long as I could remember (on one TV only, the others had the rabbit ears). First box I remember was one like this:



It was wired, and had a range selector on the right.

My cousins had the more modern version, like this:



I then remember these, wood grain and everything. We had these for the longest time.



These were good because you could buy the bootleg versions out of the back of magazines and get free HBO.
 
#33 · (Edited)
These were good because you could buy the bootleg versions out of the back of magazines and get free HBO.
And that brings up another memory.

The cable company somehow messed up and gave my grandmother HBO even though she didn't pay for it. Then one day a cable technician came by her house, messed around outside a little bit, and HBO stopped working.

She told my dad. He took a look at where the cable entered the house, removed whatever filter they had installed, and she had HBO again. :D

EDIT: this was in the early cable days - there was no "scrambling" of the pay stations back then - only filtering.
 
#34 ·
I do miss stealing cable, although it was tough seeing the naked girls between the scramble lines. I don't have that many channels but at least mine runs off the space lasers.

Product Picture frame Rectangle Television set Wood
 
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