In the late '80's I lived in an apartment building with a box that sent the TV signal to each apartment. HBO was the only premium channel so if you paid for HBO the technician would remove the mechanical HBO blocker from your circuit. My cable service stopped working once and the only way It could be fixed was to remove the HBO blocker so I got free HBO for a few years. Nice!
I remember those days you could hack the cable boxes or buddy up to the tech for free HBO! I struck a deal with my neighbor to split the bill in college and we strung a cable over the driveway
I think my Mom's friend told us if you offer the cable guy some money, they would give you HBO/Showtime, but no one in my family was bold enough during that first installation to offer. I curse my childhood cowardice.
I'm an English major, not an engineer, so perhaps this is impossible, but it would be fun if someone could rewire one of those things to toggle between streaming services, or channels on YouTube TV.
Great idea! I would love to find some sort of use for this box. With the number of streaming services we have now, this box might not have enough buttons.
My father would make me stand at the tv and switch that damn box until he found something he liked! A human remote! I was so happy when we finally got a remote control tv. Thanks for the flashbacks👍🏻😂
We didn't have cable when I was a kid, but we did occasionally visit a family when we were with my dad on the weekends who did. Most of my early memories of cable, including MTV, Fraggle Rock, and You Can't Do that on Television were from when we visited that family. They had one of these boxes and my brother and I were allowed to watch TV as long as we didn't "play with" the controller, we had to be considerate. It was really fun technology at the time, especially for two young boys who were used to having to get up and turn a dial to change the station
I remember using one of the later boxes we had for the tv which hade an IR remote. The fine tuning function actually allowed you to get past some of the earlier video tape copy protection.
In the late '80's I lived in an apartment building with a box that sent the TV signal to each apartment. HBO was the only premium channel so if you paid for HBO the technician would remove the mechanical HBO blocker from your circuit. My cable service stopped working once and the only way It could be fixed was to remove the HBO blocker so I got free HBO for a few years. Nice!
The dream!
I remember those days you could hack the cable boxes or buddy up to the tech for free HBO! I struck a deal with my neighbor to split the bill in college and we strung a cable over the driveway
I think my Mom's friend told us if you offer the cable guy some money, they would give you HBO/Showtime, but no one in my family was bold enough during that first installation to offer. I curse my childhood cowardice.
I guess that for me it was the easiest way for the cable guy to fix my problem. My favorite HBO program was The Larry Sanders Show.
I'm an English major, not an engineer, so perhaps this is impossible, but it would be fun if someone could rewire one of those things to toggle between streaming services, or channels on YouTube TV.
Great idea! I would love to find some sort of use for this box. With the number of streaming services we have now, this box might not have enough buttons.
Cool story; didn't know the origins were rural broadcast. Kinda like starlink/others today for rural broadband
My father would make me stand at the tv and switch that damn box until he found something he liked! A human remote! I was so happy when we finally got a remote control tv. Thanks for the flashbacks👍🏻😂
We didn't have cable when I was a kid, but we did occasionally visit a family when we were with my dad on the weekends who did. Most of my early memories of cable, including MTV, Fraggle Rock, and You Can't Do that on Television were from when we visited that family. They had one of these boxes and my brother and I were allowed to watch TV as long as we didn't "play with" the controller, we had to be considerate. It was really fun technology at the time, especially for two young boys who were used to having to get up and turn a dial to change the station
I remember using one of the later boxes we had for the tv which hade an IR remote. The fine tuning function actually allowed you to get past some of the earlier video tape copy protection.
The black box was what changed my life! 🤣🤣🤣