Submitted 2 months ago by Hobbes@startrek.website to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/542bf4cc-10ae-4db1-bf61-a7b63400d254.jpeg
The static on old CRT TVs with rabbit ears was the cosmic microwave background. No one in the last 25 years has ever seen it.
Our cable provider (my parents like cable TV) had analog channels even like 2 years ago, but they started encrypting everything which required purging the analog selection.
This sucks. At worst analog would be grainy, digital just keeps cutting out in worse conditions.
I wish there was also still analog OTA TV for this reason. Much easier to pick up usable signal.
Sixth and Seventh Generation video game consoles were still using scart/composite/component outputs for CRT up until their discontinuation in 2017 so I’m pretty sure a lot of kids would have had a CRT to game on as well was watch TV in their rooms.
Remember, kids typically get the hand me downs when the adults get new shiny.
Also, a lot of kids don’t have the slightest idea of what the “save” icon in their apps represents. They just know it’s the save icon because it’s everywhere
To be fair though, many kids nowadays have never seen a save icon as autosave is now practically everywhere
I was born after 2000 (though not too long after) and this is actually one of my core memories. I think about the sounds of the static and the sound of the CRT turning off.
Also, we had a really old tv in our basement till at least 2008 that had no remote, just knobs and I remember messsing with the “hue” dial all the time trying to figure out how it worked.
The only reason that tv worked so late is that we had a black box connected to the antenna which I later learned was converting the digital signal to analog for the TV.
Also, you’ve just reminded me that I remember the switch from analog to digital. Specifically, I remember watching Elmo talking with some adult on TV about the change. Now I really want to find that video. I think the guy was wearing a suit had short dark hair and glasses. I also think the background was pinkish purple. I want to know how accurate my memories from so long ago are. (I’ll add the link to the video in an edit if I can find it)
Opening line of Neuromancer doesn’t make much sense any more "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
“The sky above the port was blue, with a grey rectangular box with writing saying ‘No signal found.’”
I was born in the 90s, my brothers were born in the early 2000s. We had a CRT into the early 2010s . Maybe people who weren’t poor haven’t seen real TV static but even then I doubt it. Hell, remember those god awful “flat screen” CRTs? My old station still had one of those that we used to watch TV on in 2018-19. It’s probably still there lol
I actually liked the flat screen crts. I have a 1080p flatscreen crt and I love it. Can’t use it though because I’m scared my kids will get crushed by it.
When I was growing up the cat used to interact with the TV. It was on the floor for a while so it was fun.
Yep, my family had a CRT that we used until sometime around 2015.
They haven’t?
I have a TV from ~2010 that still gives me static when something isn’t connected.
Many likely haven’t seen a channel sign off for the night with a test pattern up til they come back on
DAE remember that movie White Noise? The climax was fucking horrifying and I admit that it haunted me for quite a while.
For better or worse, kids today probably won’t get it.
Is it worth scarring myself to know the context?
You can still hear it on the radio. Although most of the noise floor is probably man made.
Movies depicting this haven’t vanished from existence though
The trope of video/audio breaking down into static is an easy shorthand that is unlikely to be forgotten, probably even well after all the devices capable of doing so have long since been buried in the landfill.
It’s especially hilarious in media depicting the far-flung future, where apparently all technologically advanced space men and their communications devices – not to mention high powered central supercomputers and so on and so forth – apparently still work over NTSC television signals. Even by the early 1980’s it should have been entirely predictable that in “the future” anything like that would be digital, considering we already had widespread digital audio media (CD’s), and digital video was already making inroads into the computing industry.
or a new smaller tv sitting on top of the old, wood frame tv as a stand now
My mother had one of these. I got to use it as a hand-me-down as a teenager because my mother was abusive AF.
For clarity, the subject of the TV wasn’t the abusive part. Her rationale of “I didn’t have one when I was a kid so you don’t get to have one while you’re a kid” was. It didn’t apply just to the TV.
Same lol. Only 3 channels until I was 12 or so and no internet in the house until I was 15 or 16.
You mean the attack of the ants?
Well, if they had watched any HBO show, they kind of saw it !
I still see it sometimes when connecting my Steam Deck to my TV
I have actually, we had a big old crt tv way back when
As person born after 2000, I used to play a lot of games on them Wii and GameCube mainly. The image and responsiveness really felt different. I do kinda miss them
Maybe not on their TV set, but there are more than enough references to it in TV and film that it’s still known almost universally.
Everything from old beloved films to Modern period shows. Its literally an overused way to establish the narrative isnt taking place in the present.
I have seen this on a much newer TV last year. It didnt just disappear
I had a CRT as our family’s main TV until 2017
A high end CRT is a solid choice and was hard to replicate until recently.
Part of me wishes they still made them.
I have an old mini tv(the kind that took C cell batteries) that can still pickup the good ol CMB!
You mean scrambled porn, right?
If they watch Poltergeist they’ll know it’s the TV people trying to get out.
Dude Flatscreen HDTVs were expensive even in 2008, and cable actually got worse for higher price so most people were hooked into local broadcast.
Umm… I had a CRT until 2009 and even sold it to someone.
Was it just me or has anyone seen or make out patterns while staring at it? I sometimes found in amusing
uhhh, yes i have? I’m pretty sure my younger cousins have lol
Sendpicsofsandwiches@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
My grandpa always just called it “The ant races”
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I saw on ‘how it’s made’ a conveyer belt of a bunch of apples and it reminded me of the TV static the way they all rolled around forming random structures like a crystal. From then on I always think of apples on a conveyerbelt when I see static.