Nostalgia of old tv sets
- Thread starter LMFAOschwarz
- Start date
The boss of the house doesn't "like" technology and recoiled at the idea of something bigger than the 19" CRT when it started to fail. She doesn't want a TV that overwhelms a room intended for people to sit and visit. I managed to convince her to accept a 42" LCD standing on a tiny pedestal that once housed a DVD player. (Now it holds only an Apple TV.) With the top of the TV no higher than the back of the sofa, it is discreet. And we find it very comfortable for viewing—certainly much easier to see from across the room than that "tiny" CRT. The bonus of the low level is that one can sprawl on the sofa, or slouch in the armchair with a cat in one's lap. Mounting it higher than eye level while sitting is too much like sitting in the front row of the cinema. (Let me emphasize that for the young 'uns who grew up with multiplexes where the screen is barely any bigger than home TVs these days. Once upon a time, sitting in the front row was like trying to see the tower on the Empire State Building from the sidewalk below.)
I agree. My brother in law had his above his fireplace and my wife and I felt our necks breaking. We have ours at eye level when sitting on the couch.
And don't forget the usual type of 'remote control' for those older sets:
1) Take your ass off the couch.
2) Walk over to TV set.
3) Manually use hands/fingers to turn dial, (or push physical button on console.)
I mean, doesn't anyone remember the oft announcer phrase (back in those days) of:
"Don't touch that dial!" ??
Agreed. I remember the day we got a TV stand that brought the screen up to eye level, and it was so obviously a superior viewing experience from the first moment, you'd never go back.
I have no nostalgia for old tv sets and TOS. Soooo many episodes watched in black and white with "snow" obscuring the images and me banging the top of little portable tv hard to stop the picture from rolling. I can still hear my sister yelling "HIT IT!" when it started to roll 
My father worked in television but my mother believed colour tv would give you cancer so we never had a colour tv growing up. I was always amazed to watch shows in colour at other people's houses.
Despite having seen TOS in colour on video and then dvd multiple times I still remember it in black and white and I still get surprised at colours watching it sometimes.
My father worked in television but my mother believed colour tv would give you cancer so we never had a colour tv growing up. I was always amazed to watch shows in colour at other people's houses.
Despite having seen TOS in colour on video and then dvd multiple times I still remember it in black and white and I still get surprised at colours watching it sometimes.
That surprise at color happens when I watch an old Japanese monster flick called 'Daimajin' It's about a giant statue of a Samurai war god that come to life and destroys an evil warlord. I only saw it in black and white growing up, so when I came across it while living in Japan I rented the VHS. It was a complete wonder to see it in color. I prefer the black and white still as that gave it a wonderful atmosphere that was lost with color.I have no nostalgia for old tv sets and TOS. Soooo many episodes watched in black and white with "snow" obscuring the images and me banging the top of little portable tv hard to stop the picture from rolling. I can still hear my sister yelling "HIT IT!" when it started to roll
My father worked in television but my mother believed colour tv would give you cancer so we never had a colour tv growing up. I was always amazed to watch shows in colour at other people's houses.
Despite having seen TOS in colour on video and then dvd multiple times I still remember it in black and white and I still get surprised at colours watching it sometimes.
That's one I've never heard before. It isn't the old crt televisions we miss I think, but rather the whole sense of what we were experiencing when first watching Star Trek. It's easy to say it was a simpler time, but then it always is when you're younger with little real idea of responsibilities and concerns. Those old televisions were also all we knew and probably imagined anything better was far in the future and we might never see it. And when you're a kid even a few years can seem impossibly distant in the future. Those old TVs seem like dinosaurs now, but back then they were modern technology. We can smile at a Model T and think it's quaint, but in its day it was very modern and cutting edge automotive technology. Lets also remember that flat panel LCD and LED televisions are little more than ten years or so old on the market and for fifty years the tube TV was it as far as being able to watch video broadcasts and recorded media. If some of us today who grew up with tube TV might think they're anachronisms now just imagine what kids today might think who have never known anything but flat panels LCD and LED televisions.
I know what a vitrola is, but I've no experience of listening to music through one. I grew up with vinyl records and audio casette and while I was comfortable with them I also have no interest to go back to using those mediums. Same with VHS. I know what a silent film is, but outside of seeing a few such films on television I've no experience with seeing it on the big screen. I can't really imagine sitting through an entire silent feature in a cramped theatre seat and remaining engaged, but then I never lived in a time when that was the cutting edge experience of seeing a movie and there was no alternative. I know what radio programs are, but I've little experience with listening to them for hours on end. The idea that people and families would gather round the radio to listen to a scheduled program seems odd to me, just as some kids today mightn't easily imagine the whole family actually gathering to watch something together when they can all watch their own thing on their own TV or computer.
There's also the fact that back then Star Trek was Star Trek whether it be live-action or animated. Star Trek was the adventures of Kirk, Spock and the rest aboard the fantastic starship Enterprise. Certainly the idea of it being referred to as TOS and TAS along with the existence of TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT would have seemed utterly bizarre to us. In that sense it was indeed a simpler time.
In an age of blu-ray quality expectations, it's worth pointing out to those who don't remember just what kind of television images we often had back then.
When I discovered Star Trek in the early 70's, it was broadcast weekday afternoon at 4 o'clock on WWLP in Springfield, Massachsetts. (I can still remember the announcer saying, "WWLP, Springfield...WRLP, Greenfield).I was more or less living on the edge of their broadcast range, so every weekday afternoon at 4 o'clock I watched Star Trek on our black-and-white tv. Gaze upon these simulated images:
Some time later, we had gotten a color tv, and an adjustable uhf antenna. The difference to my young eyes was astounding:
The show was a grabber regardless if picture quality. I sometimes wonder if had been, in fact, a strange kind of enhancement. It was almost like looking through some kind of haze, and as color was revealed, so were more unnoticed details. With every increase in quality, there seemed to be no end to the discoveries. Funny to think back to it being a revelation that the crew different color shirts!
The special effects, also, were much more amazing on that snowy screen of yore. That's not a knock on the work: the imagery was perfectly suited to the typical broadcast standards of the time. Heck, even these guys looked good:
While I'm at it, this is the very first scene I saw of Star Trek:
I envied you guys who lived closer to the station!
Ah the glory Days, I'm from Agawam ma and lived in the Shadow of Proven MT where WWLP was Broadcast from. But I do remember when their sister station in Greenfield ch 32 showed Trek Weeknights at 8pm I used to have to menuver my Antenna much as you did to get a usable picture. Those where the days. I remember wwlp used to have Trek at 4pm and Space:1999 at 5 for awhile, then I used to go over to ch 27 in Worcester at 6 for my UFO fix, it was snowy but watchable.
What a difference from todays, Judge Judy's or Doctor OZ schlock, and we wonder why teenagers lack intelligence these days.
We get the Me-TV network where I live, and our upstairs TV is just antenna (it was too expensive to have someone run the FiOS line up there also), and on Saturdays at 9pm I'll go watch TOS up there, just to have a little of the feeling I had back in the day, of watching Star Trek on an antenna-based TV!
Yeah wish we had a ME-TV affiliate in our area, we get COZI and Antenna TV but no ME
I had to walk to school, both ways and no hills, but I never saw any 6 metres of snow. If I'd seen anything like about two feet or so then it was "fuck this noise I'm staying home,"
What's cool is watching it on an antenna, but the episodes are TOS-R. So you see the episodes with newer effects, but with the vibe of watching the series back in the day!
Since my parents still have the Sylvania, I should go over there one Saturday night and watch it there, and completely throw myself back in time! I absolutely can't believe the TV still works!
We didn't get out first color TV until 1969. Dad refused to buy a new one 'til our old one died, so Mum told my older sister to whack the side of it every time she went past it (and she did it too). I assume she didn't tell myself or my younger brother due to fears of us inadvertently finking to Dad.
It worked. And the first show I saw in color was Hogan's Heroes. Didn't start to watch Trek until 1971 because my parents, who watched crap like Batman or Lost in Space, didn't like Star Trek!
I only saw one or two first run.
It worked. And the first show I saw in color was Hogan's Heroes. Didn't start to watch Trek until 1971 because my parents, who watched crap like Batman or Lost in Space, didn't like Star Trek!
I only saw one or two first run.
I am a little nostalgic for a time when TOS was the coolest, most exciting, most wonderful thing on tv 
At least it was to me!
At least it was to me!
So true, Dave...so true. Whatever flaws these shows may have had, the ideas and imagination were truly inspiring!
I admire/envy KirkusOveractus for this: I've been hankering to re-visit the snowy broadcasts of yore! I'm even preparing some simulated video clips of such (which so far look really authentic and cool), but can't decide where to post them...
Every once in awhile I do watch an pre-HD era TV show on an older CRT. Not just for nostalgia, but that some shows seem to look much better on them than unconverted in HDTV (at least to my eyes). One example is DS9, it looks brand spanking new when I watch it on a 36 inch Trinitron.
