I remember when all television was black and white. In the 1960's, TV Guide used to put B&W or COLOR next to the television show's name. You had to *Get Up* to change the channel or adjust the 'rabbit ears'.
If a plane passed by, you had to wait for the signal to come back. The Victor television we had was advertised as 'portable', opposed to 'console'. That 'portable' weighed in at over 100 lbs. My mother used to laugh at it was billed as 'portable'.
Around the channel selector, there was the fine tuner. That's if the station's signal was not quite right. Some days, you turned it to the left, other days, to the right.
Our neighbors had a TV with a remote. It had a cord. When remotes went cordless, you had three choices: Power, Channel Selector & Volume. It used 'ultrasonic technology' and you had to push the slider very hard to get it to click, no batteries, though. Usually the TV would 'hear' it. No difference there.
When you turned the TV on, it would take about fifteen seconds for the tubes to warm up. The sound would come on at about ten seconds and then the picture about five seconds later. When you turned it off, it went off right away except for this white dot in the middle of the screen. That would take about seven to ten seconds to fade out. So sad.
TV was heavily censored. When Lucy of "I Love Lucy" was "with child", she couldn't say "pregnant" on TV, she was an "Expectant Mother".
Nothing gross ever was on the TV and you could trust them not to scare you, except during Hitchcock or Twilight Zone. When pictures started coming back from Viet Nam, it all started to change. A scared public makes more purchases.
Now, I have to close my eyes during the Discovery Channel promos while some jack eats a worm on TV, or some girl gone wild embarrasses me in front of my wife. Sure, I can change the channel, but ITS A COMMERCIAL. You used to change the channel because of bad programming. Thanks for setting a good example, media.
No, really; there are times I'm GLAD it's not High Def.
I can afford it but I can see my current television fine enough. I push the remote, the television turns on. I push another button and it changes the channel.