TV Time Machine: A Raspberry Pi That Plays Random 90s TV

WarOnPrivacy

    Growing up in the 90s, television was a different experience.
    You turned on the TV, and whatever was playing at that moment
    would become your entertainment.

    Strangely enough, I miss that feeling of having something
    selected for me, something I cannot influence.

I grew up a few decades before and I lack the author's nostalgia. I think some of that is because my exposure to OTA TV was much longer. Some was because I missed TV's first Golden Age and TV trended toward awful afterward - with some exceptions (Taxi & 1980s NBC Thru night are 2). I never had cable so I can't factor that in.

Between having control over what I watch and some of the absolutely stellar content that's come out in the last generation, I've no nostalgia for OTA TV of yore. I really like what I have.

smelendez

Also, people knew what was on TV before they turned it on.

People bought TV Guide magazine, which was pages and pages of listings, or looked at the TV page in the newspaper.

You also generally had the airtimes for your favorite shows memorized (I bet a lot of people who were alive in the '90s could still tell you when, e.g., Seinfeld, ER, The Simpsons, and The X-Files were on and on what channel number).

mingus88

Yeah, I grew up on a rural OTA antenna with one clear channel and two dodgy ones.

The live experience was better for zoning out. That’s about it. You had no choice.

Today I can spend 20 minutes just browsing and never settle on anything. I’m never able to just zone out.

ghaff

Certainly as an adult I was never really a channel surfer I had a lot of programs I wanted to watch and if I cared enough I would set the VCR once those were available.

0cf8612b2e1e

I have long thought Netflix should offer such a service. Have a sitcom channel that plays constantly from a slowly evolving list. Even better if I could just pick say Seinfeld and get random episodes from an episodic show. I do not want to have to expend energy picking a season+episode, just trying to decompress.

starkparker

Isn't this just Pluto TV? Like, https://pluto.tv/us/live-tv/633354b63df9700007f6a1b7 is the sitcom channel, https://pluto.tv/us/live-tv/66ba495ffe11e5000881f049/details is the channel of just Cheers and Frasier, etc. Just playing non-stop through one episode after another on a schedule as quasi-"live" TV.

0cf8612b2e1e

That is exactly what I imagined! However, I would prefer a service I already use, free of commercials.

Definitely going to consider using this.

null

[deleted]

joshmarinacci

Netflix wants you to watch their own shows, not TV from the 90s that they have to pay licensing fees for.

0cf8612b2e1e

Ah of course. Naturally there is an economic incentive to not deliver the product I want.

slig

WatchSeinfeld dot net, works on my TV browser.

mingus88

Plenty of other services do this. Plex has a whole cable-style directory of “live” shows

jeleh

For an instant time machine feeling:

https://myretrotvs.com/

from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44942602

5555624

>Growing up in the 90s, television was a different experience. > >You turned on the TV, and whatever was playing at that moment would become your entertainment. > >Nowadays you yourself are in control, you choose what you want to see, whenever you want.

You had some control back then, too -- you could change the channel. I don't know anywhere that had a single OTA channel in the 1990s.

(And "Stargate SG-1" was on cable.)

ghaff

I had zero when I moved into my current house in the mid 90s until I was able to get cable maybe a couple years later. (And now I have zero live channels again since I cut the cord.)

WarOnPrivacy

In 2005 I came across of video stream (mp4? viewable in VLC) of early 20th c. cartoons. There were dozens and dozens of them and nothing else. I never worked out who was behind it, just that it's IP was in western Europe. It was up for at least a year.

My kids were often with me during adult hours (work, etc) and I'd put it on for them. But I was also half-captivated by the idea of anonymously delivered content.

It would be fantastic to find a modern equivalent except delivering an endless slate of novel, off-kilter and largely inexplicable content.

add-sub-mul-div

You can self-host ErsatzTV and have the Plex/Jellyfin Live TV section show the channels you've programmed yourself. Highly recommend.

pkdpic

I have been waiting for this for a long time. Very happy to see this thank you to the dev / devs! hands-emoji

DonHopkins

I'd love to have a database of once-annoying but now-nostalgic TV commercials to intersperse between the shows, and insert into commercial breaks. (Those dramatic pauses in Star Trek TOS just aren't the same without a Crazy Eddie interruption.)

HEAD ON: Apply Directly to the Forehead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwD7RveNE

W.E.T. P.E.T.S.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMbsZU83ajc

Fine Corinthian Leather:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0diMFShiUU

Bic Banana Ink Crayon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv5O2zwyQGo

Flea Market Montgomery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk

Crazy Eddie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6S2yiuSWE