Watch TV from the 90s and earlier

One inaccuracy/anachronism: this simulation has a second of static between channel changes. Analog TVs were never like that. Channel changes were near instantaneous, and there was never any static unless you tuned to a dead channel.

All those pauses and waits are an artifact of later computerized/digital technology.

> Analog TVs were never like that. Channel changes were near instantaneous, and there was never any static unless you tuned to a dead channel.

IIRC, it wasn’t uncommon for UHF dials to be continuous while VHF had precise stops and switched directly from channel to channel, so in UHF, as a practical matter, you'd have static between tuned channels, while that was not the case in VHF.

Its been a long time since I had a TV work a tuning dial, but that's what I recall.

> IIRC, it wasn’t uncommon for UHF dials to be continuous while VHF had precise stops and switched directly from channel to channel, so in UHF, as a practical matter, you'd have static between tuned channels, while that was not the case in VHF.

That must have been a pretty old or cheap TV. All the dial TVs I ever used had stops for all the channels, VHF and UHF. And even when I was a kid, pretty much all TVs didn't have dials, but some kind of digitally-controlled analog tuner.

I remember tuning from channel 2 to 60 or so in maybe about a quarter second or less. Definitely so fast I didn't really register it as a delay.

That's right. Before all that you'd typically spend a few minutes going through all the frequencies to set the channels.

> That's right. Before all that you'd typically spend a few minutes going through all the frequencies to set the channels.

I don't think that's quite right.

IIRC that was basically a function to scan for inactive channels so they could be automatically skipped when flipping through channels sequentially. That scan was often automated.

The frequencies were already set in the TV, and I don't recall any capability on any set to change them (except to flip between the "over-the-air" channel/frequency mappings and the "cable" mappings).

> That must have been a pretty old or cheap TV.

Well, they weren't all old when I used them (some were; TVs were expensive to replace so got kept a while.) Maybe the ones without UHF stops were, though, its been quite a while.

> And even when I was a kid, pretty much all TVs didn't have dials

Likely, you were a kid more recently than I was.

I want to say I remember static between channels, but TBH it's been too many years to say for sure. My parents gave me a 12" black and white TV in the late 70s or very, very early 80s and I want to say it'd had static when switching channels.

I know, though, that I had to adjust the antenna for some channels. The knob did have specific stops, but you had to tinker with the antenna position for some channels.

Perhaps this will help, there's a video demonstrating a UHF device where they switch channels to show the device output: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahtRI-_A1j8

It doesn't quite show static the way the website does, but it's also not exactly what I'd call "near instantaneous."

Whenever you got yourself a new TV, you had to set the channels once. Afterwards it would just remember what you already had.

> It doesn't quite show static the way the website does, but it's also not exactly what I'd call "near instantaneous."

I think that effect might be exaggerated because he's tuning across several channels in one turn (e.g. https://youtu.be/ahtRI-_A1j8?t=88) and those channels would be full of static. The device he's showing apparently spaces out its transmissions 4 channels apart.

What I meant by "near instantaneous" was that the delays were short enough that I don't recall registering them as "I'm waiting for this," and when started I using digital TVs I registered the channel-switch speed as a noticeable and annoying regression.

I guess my point is the simulation has a digitally-slow pause with static, which seems like anachronism with a coat of retro-colored paint. I may have overstated things, because I mainly watched TV after the dial era (and the 90s were definitely after the dial era).

   The device he's showing apparently spaces 
   out its transmissions 4 channels apart.

There were usually at least a couple empty channels between stations where I lived

3, 6, 10, and 12 were the stations for us