This is NOT a job for superheroes: Blast from the non-digital past

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Blast from the non-digital past

One of those amusing anecdotes is the one that had a teenager coming across his grandparent's vinyl long-playing records, amazed at how big those old "CDs" were. Then there's the other one who had to use a rotary-dial telephone and couldn't figure out what to do. "How do you work this thing?" she asked.

We've indeed come a long way in terms of technological advancements and it's easy to take the progress for granted...until someone from Generation Y (Yahoo), Generation M (Multi-tasking), or Generation Nano talks with a fella from the rotary-dial era and beyond, and points out the differences.

Enjoy this one:

TV's 'ancient history'

By Karen McQuestion

Today I mentioned to my 16-year-old son that hearing "The Star-Spangled Banner" always made me think of going to bed, since that's the song they used to play right before TV went off.

Charlie was puzzled. "When TV went off?" he asked.

I didn't realize I'd made an obscure historical reference. He listened skeptically while I explained that television hadn't always been on 24 hours a day, that at one time it came to a halt every night around midnight.

"They'd show the American flag," I explained, "play the national anthem, and an announcer would say, 'This concludes our regular programming.' "

Charlie didn't say anything for a moment. "Then they showed infomercials?" he asked.

"Well, no," I said, wondering why this was such a hard concept to grasp. "Then there was nothing. TV was off for the night."

He looked so incredulous I started to feel as though I was making the whole thing up.

1 comment:

John Jansen said...: Fascinating! That there was a time when TV went off the air for the night is something I had long forgotten until I read this.

This has prompted me to recall -- with not a little nostalgia -- occasions when, as a lad of five or six years old, I would occasionally wake up before 6:00am on a Saturday morning to watch "Captain Kangaroo". A few minutes before 6:00, the dark, silent screen changed to a white background with the TV station's logo, and an announcer read some information about the station -- at one time, I probably had the script memorized; all I remember now is that he mentioned where the station's transmitter was located, even though at the time I had no idea what a transmitter was.

And then came the Captain, Mr. Greenjeans, et al. Ah, those were the days...

I never knew that the Star Spangled Banner was played at the end of a day's programming. Doing so today would probably be construed as an act of jingoism and would no doubt prompt a lawsuit by the ACLU.; 1:29 AM, April 08, 2006