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labrat-78 β You Know You're Old When.....
Published: 2009-01-20 04:15:23 +0000 UTC; Views: 821; Favourites: 12; Downloads: 0
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Description
You know you're older than dirt if you can remember seeing this on a black and white TV in the late 50's and up into the mid 60's.I was a child of early TV and if you saw this it was usually Saturday morning, (because you got up out of bed to watch cartoons all morning long and the station hadn't signed on yet) or you were up way too late and you instantly got your butt into serious trouble with Mom and Dad.
I did equal amounts of both.
This was never really a printed image, per se. It was burned into the backplate of an RCA model TK-1 Test pattern generator that was mounted on a 19 inch rack in the control room of all TV stations. It was first seen as early as 1939 and lasted well into the color generation.
And yes, EVERYTHING on that grid had a particular purpose. You youngsters have no idea just how complicated having a TV in you home in the 60's really was.
Makes a great desktop too.
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Comments: 26
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Aspect ratioβs not right. The circles are not properly round.
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Hey if you know what everything on this test card means. Could you please tell me. I'd like to know.
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This takes me back. I'd forgotten about the test pattern. I interned at a TV station in 1999 and got to see the inner workings. Pretty interesting stuff.
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I would have loved to get into the engineering side of the business. I started school for it back in the 70's but gave it up for a career in railroading.
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It's never too late to go back.
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The thought had crossed my mind but in this day in age, with the economy the way it is I would be committing suicide if I left and went somewhere else. Besides, I have 10 years until retirement from this job. That's something I really don't want to loose.
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Would it be possible for you to take classes part-time?
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The only courses I could take would be correspondence since although I do have a work schedule, it is constantly subject to change with out notice.
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There's a lot of universities that offer online programs for that reason. Look into it.
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I think I may after all the dust settles, whenever that is
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Sounds like a plan. Have a good one.
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Some stations still do sign off at night, though very few do anymore. Most of them utilize the "Paid Programming" to fill the gap (better known as infomercials).
I think with the advent of digital transmission systems, the concept of signing off will be a thing of the past.
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It's amazing how things have changed. On the PS3 they have something similar to help adjust the screen for certain games. They help adjust color, brightness, and centering things on the screen.
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all of those things are automatically done now. They take all the fun out of everything.
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It makes the standard color bars seem pretty uninteresting...
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once upon a time you had to literally "aim" the equipment. It was more like a target than anything else.
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I kind of remember that stuff from when I was a kid. The television had a whole bunch of extra controls on it that my dad occasionally adjusted to improve the picture. That was a 13" Sylvania set that my family used as the only television in the house from 1984 'till 1994, when my dad replaced it with a 27" Magnavox tube and a stereo VCR. That old Sylvania kept working though...right up until around 2000.
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Yea, they got to pay someone to put that stuff up. No one else wants to watch it most of the time. LOL
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Stations not signed on yet? What on earth do you mean?
The days of stations signing on and off are so long in the past that I dare say many people today either never experienced it at all or have simply forgotten about it. Between cable, satellite and the Internet, no one today concerns themselves with such things.
While this test pattern is a little before my time (though by just a couple of years, really), I well remember stations signing on and off.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
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When someone asks me what happened to this country I tell them it all started when Doctors and Lawyers got the ability to advertise and TV and Radio stations started to NOT go off the air at night.
It has been on the decline ever since
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