Wow, Moses Znaimer was a cornerstone of my early media consumption with CityTV and MuchMusic. Next time I am in Toronto I am definitely checking this out. Thank you.
Also a good example at how technology has made things slower. An analog TV can change channels mid-frame; try that on a digital TV and you're met with a 0.5 to 1 second delay, just like on this site. It's not much, but it adds up.
I remember coming home from school and tuning in to the Disney afternoon. When it was over, there wasn't really anything else on so you turned the TV off and did something else like go outside or do homework (okay, that last one was a lie.) Same thing with Saturday morning cartoons, I think maybe American Gladiator was the last thing a kid would want to watch before noon and again, turn TV off and do something else. Though there was the A-team and MacGyver at some point.
Oooh, this is like a rebirth of YouTube Time Machine, which went defunct awhile back. Ads end up being my favorite... they're such a weird bit of the zeitgeist: prices, style, attention seeking techniques... so interesting.
I'm prone to nostalgia and love projects like this. It's a very unique feeling that's hard to describe. I wonder why we feel these things for the past we've experienced.
Because it’s the closest thing to proof that people truly do live entirely different realities. Whoever you were staring at those shows at that age is simple not you now and can never be you again. It’s almost supernatural. If you follow this line of thinking, it’s possible to live entirely different existences, almost in another body (you can take that however far you want, reincarnation, life after death, being unplugged from the simulation, etc).
It’s a mystical way of asking “what exactly was the past really and how transient am I now at this exact moment?”.
I just realized I was listening to news of the 911 attacks in the background for at least 20 minutes. Then heard the sound of static as it changed to a different stream. Super cool, I love this.
It's fairly simple to put a Pi inside a tv and hook it up, but it does feel almost like the real thing
[0]: https://blog.davidv.dev/posts/revamping-an-old-tv-as-a-gift/