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Who else remembers cable "black boxes?" (Ah, nostalgia.)

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I remember very early cable boxes where you could fiddle with dip and pot switches to unlock stuff. Eventually you had to buy the black boxes. Finally it seemed like you had to update your box at least once a month to keep up with changes in scrambling.

I also remember the early days of having a satellite dish. Businesses and some people would have these big-ass dishes on their roof or in their yard and pull unscrambled feeds directly from the satellites. All the pay channels were free and network feeds didn't have local commercials or news breaks inserted yet. It was a great time to be an NFL fan as there was a local bar which would be playing four or five NFL games simultaneously from the direct feeds.
 
Of course I remember it. My best friend down the street had one and we used to watch wrestling PPVs because of it. Also after 6PM, spice network would air and we'd regularly watch that when his parents weren't home. Almost got caught a few times too.

A device that we had was something we called an "a/b box" (but not the a/b box you'd think of that allowed you to switch between RF signals), this was a device that allowed us to record Disney channel shows on VHS. Back in the day, Disney used to scramble their signal when you'd use a VCR, because they often showed movies that they did not release to the public or that were recently being released on VHS, and so we had this thing so that we could tape those old Disney movies. We called an A/B box, but I don't know exactly what it was.
 
The only thing I remember about old cable was the giant controller we had. It was connected to the cable box with a cord and had an individual button for each channel. You had to push the button down for it to change channels, and it was like a hard click kind of button I've not seen used in years.

You couldn't lose the controller at least.
 
gutter_trash said:
Cableboxes-550x328.jpg

oh yeahhhh
I remember this giant wired remote control but I don't remember the cable box though
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Came here to post a Jerrold <3
 
Toki767 said:
Cable companies must be so glad TV signals are digital now.
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It honestly doesn't matter anymore. The internet exists; if you wanted to steal cable TV shows, you'd wait an hour until it showed up on a torrent or website somewhere.

There are even shady sites that live stream PPVs.

Cable companies wish the barrier to entry was still a big piece of hardware you had to hook under your TV.
 
Heck yeah. Use to have multiple of these throughout the house. Watched wrestling, boxing, and movies. The black boxes I had requires special 4 digit codes for the naughty channels, they were easy to figure out.
 
My mother just had the cable guy hook us up with free service every year.

I don't know how we got away with it.
 
gutter_trash said:
Cableboxes-550x328.jpg

oh yeahhhh
I remember this giant wired remote control but I don't remember the cable box though
Click to expand...

Damn, man. That clunk when you switch channels. Bringin it all back.

tumblr_ly1885rjgt1qzt1yyo1_500.gif


When my parents first got cable it wasn't cable. It was just HBO. HBO was on from like 6am to mignight and then HBO was done for the day. HBO sent you the HBO guide so you could see what was on your HBO.

tumblr_mgsplkHg6T1ro8ysbo1_400.gif


Later Nickelodeon with the Big Silver Ball came in and I'm pretty sure that remote with the clunky buttons was involved in "changing the channel" within channel 3.

A few years later and we had a satellite dish in the days before all those signals were scrambled. They were just starting to scramble some. My parents would lock the dish to one particular satellite but if you set the thing to F9 and hit the little recessed button you could unlock it and move over to the porn satellite. You had to be sure you had time to set it back to the regular satellite so the dish could physically move in time before they got home. And that was my TV hacker moment I share with OP, my first exposure to porn.
 
Man. I remember all this stuff.

I remember when Cable came into the house and couldn't be split into different signals so you'd have one Cable box that would feed to every TV and you'd have to watch the same thing on every TV. We even had a special rabbit eared box to send the signal upstairs instead of running more cable.

Those were tough times.
 
I was lucky enough that my dad got two of them for the house. One for my parents bedroom and one was supposed to be in my bedroom and was for a while but I guess the fear of watching softcore porn (I was about 11 at the time) struck down that idea and the box was installed in the tiny 9 inch kitchen TV. When my parents were gone (which was kinda' rare) I was watching Playboy and Spice. And weirdly enough, Playboy and Spice didn't really play anything during the day. They would play shit at night time or late afternoon. Playboy would literally show nothing but Spice would play softcore ads for phone sex and selling condoms and lube. So I got to see something on occasion.

Watched a lot of movies that way. I made it a point to watch anything that was M rated for nudity.
 
First time being able to watch HBO as a kid in the 90's thanks to the black box. Oh and I got east coast channels too (basically same channel but they were on 3 hours ahead) so I would have like two HBO, two ABC, two CBS, two FOX etc...

Got to watch shows 3 hours earlier than I was suppose to.
 
I either saw Ultimate Warrior win the title, or my first anal penetration. Hard to tell through the squiggly lines, but it was fun nonetheless.
 
Used to watch softcore porn at my buddy's house because his parents had one. He hated us always watching shitty porn, but we were in middle school, what did he expect?
 
I remember always looking for a shady looking cable guy installing cable for someone else at our apartments. Those guy would always hook you up.

I think me and my roommate paid like $300 the first time we had this done (I think it was a Time Warner employee who hooked us up for free). We both watched a lot of porn and free movie for the next few days.
 
I never had a descrambler but always wanted one. The best I had was sitting on the PlayBoy channel in the hopes of it becoming descrambled. It happened a few times and each time I didn't touch the remote once. It was literally the plot of a Friends episode too. It was the best I had back then when porn on the internet was really scarce because video didn't exist and everyone had dial-up. Alternatively I had to either rewatch that one scene at the end of the first VHS half of Titanic or the striptease scene from True Lies over and over. Man, anyone remember rewinding?
 
I remember them. My father would always get access to them. He made sure not to unscramble the porn channels lol.
 
Yup we had one my uncle worked for Time Warner so we got it for free, it was awesome. I eventually figured out the code to unblock the adult channels...good times.
 
Imbarkus said:
tumblr_ly1885rjgt1qzt1yyo1_500.gif
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You can't just drop a GIF of that. You have to share the full audio-visual experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1NKoMNy5bY
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There isn't a single fucking channel that has ever existed that had an intro as epic as that.

gutter_trash said:
Cableboxes-550x328.jpg
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CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
CLACK
"Are you down there in the living room watching TV you little shit?"
"n-no, I was getting water..."
"Don't lie to me!"
"I'm not! God."
CLACK
CLACK
"-BANGER'S BALLLLLLLL! We got some great stuff by Iron Maiden---"
*furious volume going down*
"I HEAR THAT! YOU'RE ASS IS MINE..."
 
my uncle would bring his over for wrestlemania, boxing and movies from time to time. fun days when that happened. go to the grocery store and get a couple subs, a bunch of chips and drinks and just chill out. I was a little kid at the time so that was rad.
 
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