Posted: 4/19/2006 2:45:22 PM EDT
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I do. We got hooked up around 1979 and we had about 25 channels including a Showtime (a movie channel  ) and it was so many channels you couldn't possibly watch everything even though they played Hooper (1978) and H.O.T.S. (1979) every couple of hours.Within a year we had expanded to ALL THREE movie channels (HBO, Showtime & The Movie Channel) and we just KNEW we were the envy of the neighborhood. I remember the first couple weekends I'd stay up all night watching TV because with 3 movie channels and about 25 cable channels there were about a million things to watch. When we got a VCR the same year we made the realization that we could amass a huge movie library and within a year had almost 100 movies that we recorded off cable. I wouldn't have that sensation again until I got satellite TV with over 300 channels and a DVD player with over 500 titles in my library. I remember the first couple nights I didn't go to sleep. We've come a long way from the first people to get TVs in the late 40s and early 50s who had about three channels. I wonder what's next... |
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I remember the slider switching unit...on a TV with no remote. It was cool to leave it on Ch #3 Also remember the big fat Top Loading VCR it sat on top of that had TV tuner knobs built in. I am olny 34 in may. So some of you other older guys remember far more (or less  )
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 Actually, I'm 38 and, damn pleased to be it. I think my generation (I consider people now about 36-42 to be a stand alone unnamed generation) to be the last that REALLY had a chance to be kids in the purest sense.... "Pong" was as good as it got AFA video games. It's just my perspective, but, we still went out alone to trick or treat, and, ran around in the woods, jumped bikes on cinderblock and plywood ramps and, went fishing. I don't recall seeing neighborhood kids doing any of those things for at least two decades. |
True...I have a 12 year old step son that wants to sit on his rump on a computer all day and night and only does things when his dad makes him play baseball or football for a school he doesn't even go to... 
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I strongly agree with that. |
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I remember way back when A&E didnt suck, and actually had some really cool shows on it. Now a day I cant even belive the liberal crap, and shock garbage they play, are they trying to demoralize people or wait? Just a few examples of the absolute garbage they have Growing up Gotti Dog the Bounter Hunter Airline RollerGirls? I cant belive it hasnt been cancelled yet God or the Girl |
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It was in the late 70's for me as well. Our cable box was the one with the row of push buttons on the top face. On the very top was a key lock for parental control of the evil demon movie channels. Friends and I found out early on that even with the parental lock engaged, you could by-pass it by slightly pushing the desired movie button down to where it would engage the channel but not actually lock the button in the down positon. I can remember MTV first coming out. U2's "Gloria" and Flock of Seagulls "I Ran" were the first two videos I can remember seeing. That was when MTV actually showed music videos non-stop, no commercials. Just the occasional VJ. (Martha Quinn) |
Glad to know there's somone out there that feels like this. Mrs Goon agreed, but, she's my wife, so....  ....I'm included in Generation X, which I do not feel I'm a part of, and, I guess it's the "Me" generation that I'm on the cusp of. Even "Pong" was a role play experience for us..... I was always Jimmy Conners, and, my buddy was Bjorn Borg....Man...  Good times.I'm no fuddy-duddy, but, the intraweb and videogames have killed off the base imagination and innocence of kids today. |
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Yup, We got a box wqith a switch on it, you tunred the TV to channel 3 and then you turned the switch on te box and you got to watch TBS, IIRC, there was only a couple channels. This was way back around 1974 or so. By the ealry 1980s we had what resembles cable now, and HBO was the thing to have.... |
Yes, I remember the 5 VJ's back then, I think the chubby black guy is dead now. |
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I moved out of the parents house after I graduated from high school for about a year and then moved back in. In that time my parents had gotten a 25 inch color TV and cable. This was back in 1980. The first movie I watched on cable was Quadrophenia. The first movie I watched on video tape was Escape from New York (I didn't watch it at the theater) in 1981. I was so into watching the movie that I stopped getting nookie from the girlfriend. I first got cable when I was living in the barracks. The Navy had built a cable satellite dish and laid cable to housing and the barracks, then contracted it out to a private civilian firm to run it. For the first year basic cable was free. After that year they started charging for it, and added a bunch of stations. You needed a converter box to watch any TV. One of the guys got a converter box and hooked it up in-line with the cable, so everyone downstream got free access. 
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I've never had cable, went straight from the OTA to dish network, my entire childhood I must've been the only kid on the block without cable. Now I've got 300+ channels, HD, DVR, probably compensating. Kids still ride bikes, fish, and play in the woods around here. Hell, I still ride my bike(motorcycle), fish (from a boat), and play in the woods (usually armed) around here. Suburbia sucks, move. |
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we got cable when i was in highschool (about 4-5 yrs ago) because we wanted high speed internet. it was $40 for roadrunner and $12 for basic cable. if you didnt have cable, it was $50 for roadrunner. that was an obvious decision. i just wish we got discovery channel at home |
I remember shortly after we got cable I found out this new channel called MTV. The first day I turned it on I saw the VJ explaining the "music video" format to everyone. Then they played... "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. It wasn't until years later that I realized I witnessed the birth of MTV. |
Holy crap, I forgot about all those movies! HOTS!! And don't forget all the Joan Collins movies, too. We still had the old style TV that you could individually tune in the channels, and you could get the channel for the Showtime to come in a bit squiggly, but good enough to see a boob or two! And the first video I saw on MTV was The Waitresses - I Know What Boys Want!! |
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Year Type Cost 1959-1973 Analog TV, 3-5 Channels Free 1974-1978 Cable, 8-10 Channels, early HBO 8.99 - 12.99 a month 1978-1982 Nothing Free 1982-1984 Analog TV, 5 channels Free 1984-1985 Cable, 20-30 channels 19.99-21.99 a month 1985-1992 Analog TV, 4-7 channels Free 1992-1997 C-Band sattelite, 30-50 channels 100-250 per year 1997-2006 Digital sattelite, 100-200 channels 29.99 - 65.99 a month |
And it comes full circle. I am again without cable or satellite. I only miss history channel. The money was better spent elsewhere. |
I remember the wired remote that had a 3-level switch on the left side, and a horizontal row of buttons. You'd move the switch to the row you wanted then pushed the appropriate button....but if you pushes multiple buttons, you could get channels that you didn't pay for. I can't find a pic of one of those. |
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I vaguely remember some sort of cable service in he Columbus, Ohio area in the mid-late 70's. I would have been about 9 yrs old. I remember it because certain channels required this round key you stuck in the back of the box. One channel in particular, channle P10 has some educational shows with naked men and women do things I didn't get. |
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I really don't remeber personally when my family first got cable, which was in the late 80's. All I know is it was Chicago Cable. That company no longer exists. Reason why is because, according to my dad, service sucked. We cancelled cable in the late 80's then around 1998 my family decided to go back to Cable. It was basic for a while. We had Multimedia Cablevision, which turned into TCI, then AT&T, and now is Comcast. Now we have digital cable along with a cable modem for internet. |
Yeah, that's exactly the box I remember. |
I was there... |
| I can remember that the event that "made" CNN was the MGM Grand fire in Vegas. Most of the regular networks, pretty much stayed with regular programming, mostly Soap Operas and CNN went full coverage on the fire and the the numbers of people that went and stayed on the fire was huge. Up till then CNN was more of a curiosity. |
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I graduated college and moved out of my parent's house in 1993. My parents have never had cable, but I got used to it as it was supplied to college dorms. I ordered electricity, telephone, and cable on the same day. Basic basic cable was less than $12 a month. Expanded basic was only about $24. Now, with the digital cable package I've got, along with the broadband internet, I'm paying $148 a month. |