Journal mcgrew's Journal: 1950s TV 5
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A year or so ago, an executive from an electronics company (Apple, if I remember correctly) spoke of the lack of innovation in television sets since the 1950s, and my reaction was âoeHeâ(TM)s either stupid or thinks I am.â
In the 1950s televisions had knobs on the set for changing channels. Remote controls were brand new, expensive, limited in capability, and used ultrasound rather than infra-red.
The screens were vacuum tubes, and most were monochrome. Color television was brand new, and it was nearly 1960 before any stations started broadcasting in color. Rather than being rectangular, color sets were almost round; even black and white sets werenâ(TM)t true rectangles.
They had no transistors, let alone integrated circuits; the IC had yet to be invented, and transistors were only used by the military. They were a brand-new invention. TVs didnâ(TM)t have the âoeno user-servicable partsâ warning on the back. When the TV wouldnâ(TM)t come on, as happened every year or three, the problem was almost always a burned out vacuum tube. One would open the back of the set and turn it on. Any tubes that werenâ(TM)t lit were pulled, taken to the drug store or dime store for replacement. If that didnâ(TM)t fix the problem you called an expert TV repairman.
The signal was analog, and often or usually suffered from static in the sound, and ghosts and snow in the picture.
There was no cable, and of course no satellite television since nothing built by humans had ever gone into space.
However, there is one thing about television that hasnâ(TM)t changed a single iota: daytime TV programming.
In the 1950s most folks were well paid, and a single paycheck could easily pay for a familyâ(TM)s expenses. Most women, especially mothers, stayed home. As a result, daytime TV was filled with female-centric programming like soap operas, game shows, and the like. Usually there were cartoons in the late afternoon for the kids.
Today the rich have managed to get wages down so low that everyone has to have a job. The demographics of daytime television have radically changed as a result. Now, rather than housewives (of which few are left, and we now have house husbands), who can watch daytime TV? Folks home from work sick, both men and women, folks in the hospital, the unemployed, and retired people.
Yet daytime TV is still as female centered as it was when I was five. Soap operas, talk shows with female hosts and female guests discussing topics that would only appeal to women, and game shows.
Whatâ(TM)s wrong with the idiots running our corporations these days?
Nice plug for soylent, there (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wrote it in Open Office and pasted it here and at S/N. And yes, they do seem to have solved the unicode problem. Slashdot should be embarrassed.
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And yes, they do seem to have solved the unicode problem.
I wonder if the unicode problem came with an "added feature" in a more recent version of the code here, then? I seem to recall seeing that the slashcode that was available was several years old when soylent launched, maybe something that was added in more recently caused unicode to turn to arbitrary mish-mash?
Slashdot should be embarrassed.
In general, yes. Or are we just talking about unicode?
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S/N is using 2007 slashcode, and they did a lot of work on it.
And yes, /. has a LOT to be embarrassed about, not just unicode.
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S/N is using 2007 slashcode, and they did a lot of work on it.
I didn't even realize there was slashcode available from that recent of time. The slashcode pages are so cryptic and useless it is really hard to tell.
And yes, /. has a LOT to be embarrassed about, not just unicode.
I'm reasonably sure that the people who still work for slashdot spend most of their "work" hours looking for a job to move to (preferably before the lights are turned off for good).