Let's talk

[Sandy Berger]

Okay, I'll start off this new board with a rememberance and a complaint.

Remember when the only choice in buying a TV was the size of the screen? Yes, for awhile you could also choose between black and white or color, but that didn't matter. Before the days of heavy credit card use, either you had the money for a color TV or you didn't. So that choice was kind of premade. Our first TV was a 19" black and white Zenith.

Now you have to do research for months before you buy a TV. Should you get LCD, plasma, or DLP? 720i or 1080p? Hidef or Hidef ready? 36" or 50"? Samsung, Sony, Mitsubishi, Hitachi ,Toshiba, JVC, Phillips, Magnavox , Panasonic or other? Once that is decided.  Should you get cable or satellite?

I love the picture quality of the new TVs, but the choices can drive one up the wall!

[wilbo]

Our First T V early 1950 black and white had a small oval shaped screen.
T V station only on a few hours each day with programs but you could always watch a good Test Pattern, wonder what ever happened to those.


About 1927 my dad bought the first radio we lived out in a rural area and each Saturday night neighbors would come visit just to listen to the radio. 

What a different world we have today.

[bigtoe]

Just have to sit back and laugh and scratch the head in amazement at how things have definitely changed since our youthful child hood days. Just returning from afternoon walk and putting away a very tiny AM-FM radio with ear plug speakers that I use to keep my mind busy when the exertions start to get a bit on the heavy side and I still have a couple of miles to go before getting back home....

I reflect back on my first "personal radio" that I had in early elementary school which primarily consisted of a crystal stone and a copper arm plate that extended to the stone and was mounted on a small flat board that now seems to have been perhaps 4" by 6" in size... I can't recall what the copper metal strip was attached to at the other end, I just remember that a set of ear phones came off of that so I could hear whenever I adjusted the stone around to just the right position so the radio waves broadcast by a local radio station some 2 miles away could be heard... I don't remember being able to draw in any other station. Many a time I fell asleep as I always mounted the board at the base of an open bedroom window where I now remember having another wire attached from the device to the screen - perhaps the antenna.

I could hear those great adventures of cowboy heroes in stories, other radio adventure readings that had all the sound effects to go along with the voices reading the different parts to make you believe all was live and you were right there seeing and hearing the events unfold right before your imagination. I learned to love listening to ball games being broadcast of local high school and college teams playing football, basketball, and baseball....... hahaha, how many times I got in trouble as a parent would come into the bedroom and tell me to take off those ear phones and get to sleep as it was way past bedtime........

Quite a stretch from that old crystal stone "radio" to the transistorized receivers of today listening to music, news, talk shows, weather reports, sports, and so much more........

The interest in radio then wained a bit when we finally got a Philco B&W TV with that oval screen and it's wonderful "horizontal line flip" that had to be manually adjusted every once in a while during a show so you didn't get sea-sick watching the programming roll up and over, up and over,..... that came in an entertainment set box that included the record player and a dial-up radio........ Wow, now that was "hog heaven" and really, really living the good life as the whole family and relatives squeezed into the living room to watch Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and so many more greats .........

...A bit of a "distant past" from todays Cell Phone that you watch TV programming on or listen to downloaded MP3 songs with, or talk to anyone anywhere in the whole world hands free thru Bluetooth technology as long as they have at least a hardwired phone of some sort nearby to them..... and you carry that all in one device that you carry in your little ol' shirt pocket..........Hmmmmmmm

[Snape]

Yup, and it was all foretold by the writers of Dick Tracy, wasn't it (and we laughed at Maxwell Smart's shoe phone, too

[Kak]

 I remember my first transistor radio, it was ice blue and you could keep it in your shirt pocket. I loved that thing!
 They don't make radios that small anymore. If they do I want to know about it.

[mikeo80]

My experience with technology dates from the 1960's and on. I remember vividly the flight controller's words to John Glenn. "God Speed, John Glenn."

I remember the horrible words from Walter Cronkite. "President Kennedy is dead..."

I also remember the moving Apollo 8 telecast while they orbited the moon. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...."

Like most people alive at that time, I watched a ghostly figure come down the ladder of the lunar lander. "That's one small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

I have seen the personal computer grow from the Radio Shack Model I A to the marvels that sit on our desks at work and home.

And these memories are nothing as compared to my grandmother. She told tales of seeing a Wright flyer pass over the little town of Becaria, Pa. She lived to see the lunar landing.

My Dad remembers electricity coming to his house. He remembers radio and the Model T.

[damarisfish]

What about watching TV on the computer? By the time we pay for our internet access all we can afford is basic basic cable, and that does not get us the network we Really want to watch. Thankfully that network is available online with a free viewer. What about that $30 Watch-TV-on-Your-PC software? Are more & more networks making their shows available on the internet? As our non-HDTV TVs die, maybe we will just network another computer to that corner of the room.

[TallJohn]

For a limitless (and free) way to watch tv on your pc goto http://www.wwitv.com and have fun.

Another way to watch tv on your pc is to buy what are being referred to as 'media shifters'.  Like goto the local store and buy a Slingbox. Then you can turn on basically anything you have at home and watch it on your pc. (It's really neat, but a pain to setup, and luckily they have good customer service to walk you threw it).  You could also just try http://www.slingbox.com 

These devices are really in their infancy. The neat thing about them is the way they work.  I grew up as a military brat. We lived all over the world where tv meant reruns of 'dukes of hazzard' dubbed into what ever country we were in at the time.  Imagine being about to watch AMERICAN TV (with all it's flaws it's still the best entertainment in the world) anywhere you have internet (higher the speed the better). What a wonderful world!

Enjoy that free website.  Remember, when watching tv on your pc the faster your internet speed the clearer the picture.

[imike24]

Yeah. I would prefer to watch tv on the original set because the internet connection always a problem.


***Modification by Moderator*** The  string of advertising links were removed from the bottom of the posting as they were inappropriate spam web sites....

[rlhaan]

Here's another one for you.

How many people out there know what a slide rule is? Or how to use one?

When I graduated from Michigan State College of Engineering in 1960, there were no handheld calculators much less any personal computers.

I bought my first electronic calculator around 1971 and my slide rule now lies dormant in my desk drawer!