TV Time Machine: A Raspberry Pi That Plays Random 90s TV(quarters.captaintouch.com) |
TV Time Machine: A Raspberry Pi That Plays Random 90s TV(quarters.captaintouch.com) |
Growing up in the 90s, television was a different experience.
You turned on the TV, and whatever was playing at that moment
would become your entertainment.
Strangely enough, I miss that feeling of having something
selected for me, something I cannot influence.
Between having control over what I watch and some of the absolutely stellar content that's come out in the last generation, I've no nostalgia for OTA TV of yore. I really like what I have.
People bought TV Guide magazine, which was pages and pages of listings, or looked at the TV page in the newspaper.
You also generally had the airtimes for your favorite shows memorized (I bet a lot of people who were alive in the '90s could still tell you when, e.g., Seinfeld, ER, The Simpsons, and The X-Files were on and on what channel number).
The live experience was better for zoning out. That’s about it. You had no choice.
Today I can spend 20 minutes just browsing and never settle on anything. I’m never able to just zone out.
Viewing figures for some programmes were staggering due to the obvious reason - little choice. For example I seem to recall that some episodes of say Neighbours (Australian soap), had more viewers in the UK than the entire population of Australia! The marriage of Charlene (Kylie M) and that blonde bloke (Jason D) was one.
Definitely going to consider using this.
A lot of black-market IPTV services (the kind with "30 000" channels") will have dedicated channels. A Simpsons channel, etc. where you just get whatever episode it's currently playing.
It is nice not to have to pick an episode.
My kids were often with me during adult hours (work, etc) and I'd put it on for them. But I was also half-captivated by the idea of anonymously delivered content.
It would be fantastic to find a modern equivalent except delivering an endless slate of novel, off-kilter and largely inexplicable content.
I once saw this awful movie in mid-1970s. I couldn't remember the name, just bits of the plot.
archive.org had it: https://archive.org/details/EndoftheWorld
HEAD ON: Apply Directly to the Forehead:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwD7RveNE
W.E.T. P.E.T.S.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMbsZU83ajc
Fine Corinthian Leather:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0diMFShiUU
Bic Banana Ink Crayon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv5O2zwyQGo
Flea Market Montgomery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk
Crazy Eddie:
kinda tempted to get a CRT just for it to make it even better
And plenty of people have time to relax and watch a 3 hour movie. They wouldn't make them otherwise.
The again I also find the idea of turning on a show or film just as background filler/noise to be quite weird as well but many people seem to do it so I guess I'm the weird one for either paying complete attention to a film otherwise I find it distracting
shrug
if it's good I'll rewatch it, if it's something I've already seen then I'm not missing anything at all. There's so many movies I've turned off when the beginning is boring, it's a decent way to watch new movies and it's how movies on TV used to work.
I'm trying to watch Robert Altman's filmography slowly, and there's so many slow 3 hour movies that watching them in small pieces until they click and actually make me interested in the entire thing helps. if it's all action or something maybe it seems pointless, but some films are a very slow burn, and this helps.
also it's not just movies, but TV too. I would use the shuffle button on comedy shows I've seen a million times before, now tv style drop in works just as well as that when I just want a laugh but don't really care what episode of something I'm watching. now I don't even have to pick a series, I can just pick a channel labelled comedy.
did you grow up with cable tv? maybe it's generational or regional thing
Edit: even the 5 seems to include composite video, but it requires a little bit of soldering.
Not sure whether he even implemented that Weather Channel simulator or I’m mixing things up in my head. But I remember that it was pretty impressive.
You had some control back then, too -- you could change the channel. I don't know anywhere that had a single OTA channel in the 1990s.
(And "Stargate SG-1" was on cable.)
Not in 'Rest of World'. It was on Channel 4 in the UK, over-the-air.
Think twice
Sometimes laws aren't even laws but thru bad judgment and manipulation, they can be enforced as if they were. Copyright's endless complexities land it here a lot. Perhaps we should expect that when we let an industry buy it's way into - tinking with and creating law.