Our first TV - which came out in 1958 - had a five inch screen. You had to put blue or red cellophane paper over the front to cut down on enough of the snow to actually see the picture. We only got ONE channel - CBS - because the only station which had been erected close enough to our place for us to be able to receive a signal was a CBS station. You had to have a box[-shaped antenna on top of the house - (rabbit ears hadn’t been invented yet) - and if there was a storm and your antenna was blown off the roof - you had no TV until the next day when someone got a ladder out, climbed up on the roof and put the antenna back up! Then people inside had to look at the picture and tell the guy up on the roof which direction to go with the antenna so that you actually got a picture - inside the house - on the TV set!
Dapperdan61 Premium Member about 15 years ago
There was a time when there was actually only a handful of channels in Black & White no less, Shudder
MisngNOLA about 15 years ago
Yeah, ABC, CBS, and NBC, and the PBS station in snowy black and white. (In New Orleans they were WVUE, WWL, WDSU, and WYES)
bradwilliams about 15 years ago
And if you were not home to watch you missed your favorite show. No VCR DVR DVD or internet!
DebJ4 about 15 years ago
Our first TV - which came out in 1958 - had a five inch screen. You had to put blue or red cellophane paper over the front to cut down on enough of the snow to actually see the picture. We only got ONE channel - CBS - because the only station which had been erected close enough to our place for us to be able to receive a signal was a CBS station. You had to have a box[-shaped antenna on top of the house - (rabbit ears hadn’t been invented yet) - and if there was a storm and your antenna was blown off the roof - you had no TV until the next day when someone got a ladder out, climbed up on the roof and put the antenna back up! Then people inside had to look at the picture and tell the guy up on the roof which direction to go with the antenna so that you actually got a picture - inside the house - on the TV set!
MotherOfMoses about 15 years ago
As a matter of fact TVs did have doors on them when they came out. They also had a lock & a key, not to mention legs.
ForeverAllstar about 15 years ago
whoa…crazy what tv was like back in the day!