The static on old CRT TVs with rabbit ears was the cosmic microwave background. No one in the last 25 years has ever seen it.
Well, not really. The cosmic microwave background radiation was a tiny fraction of that noise. What everyone saw was mostly thermal noise generated by the amplifier circuit inside the TV.
People born before 2000 think older technology just evaporated the minute the millenium ticked over.
Like when the black and white world suddenly got colorized! My grandpap told me about them old days - when the lawn, the sidewalk and the sky were just different shades of gray.
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Grandpa was telling you about 50 shades of grey?
Grandpa knew things. Apparently so did grandma.
Tube TV’s remained in common service well into the 2010’s. The changeover from analog to fully digital TV transmission did not happen until 2009, with many delays in between, and the government ultimately had to give away digital-to-analog tuner boxes because so many people still refused to let go of their old CRT’s.
Millions of analog TV’s are still languishing in basements and attics in perfect working order to this very day, still able to show you the cosmic background, if only anyone would dust them off or plug them in. Or in many retro gaming nerds’ setups. I have one, and it’ll show me static any time I ask. (I used it to make this gif, for instance.)
In fact, with no one transmitting analog television anymore (probably with some very low scale hobbyist exceptions), the cosmic background radiation is all they can show you now if you’re not inputting video from some other device. Or unless you have one of those dopey models that detects a no-signal situation and shows a blue screen instead. Those are lame.
Last time I thought about static I wondered why colour TV didn’t show colour static.
Turns out the colour signal was on very specific frequencies, and if it wasn’t present, it would assume it was a black and white signal and turn off the colour circuit.
Do you think CRTs just magically disappeared after the turn of the millennium?
They lied to us. The real Y2K was the CRT rapture.
No, I just couldn’t remember exactly when. And as another commenter pointed out, what I should have said was analog TV’s.
CRTs was in use well into the 2000s
I think they call it “analog horror noise” now, along with vhs cassettes.
…
Feel the passage of time XD
2001 here literally grew up with CRT static, you have your years a bit off there.
I was about to say, i think we had a CRT till about 2010. My grandma still has one upstairs so even my youngest cousins still grew up with it.
I bought a plasma in 2009 that would show static if I turned it to cable channels without cable plugged in. Plasmas were susceptible to burn in and since I would game a lot I could see health bars etc start to burn in after a while. Whenever that would happen I would turn it to the static screen - making each pixel flip from one end of the spectrum to the other rapidly like that would actually help remove the burn in.
No one in the last 25 years has ever seen it.
I mean you can still find a CRT today and turn it on if you like, they’re less common for sure, but they’re still around if you’re looking for one
Kids born after 2000 aren’t looking for one
Dude I’d kill for the opportunity to get my hands on a half-decent CRT
CRTs are popular with people who have retro games consoles.
They’re surprisingly difficult to acquire though. Big, heavy and either very expensive or free.
i know i am.
You’d be surprised, some people born in the 2000s want them for the retro factor now
Well that’s a lie, I know an early 20 year old who’s into retro games and has definitely been to an arcade with CRTs in the past year or so. It’s not a stretch to imagine he’s seen static on one
While I’ve grown up with CRTs (90’s kid) I’ve never seen the actual static in real life, only simulations.
I don’t think channels ever went out, and if the TV was listening to a connection that didn’t give anything it just shone bright blue.
Umm… I had a CRT until 2009 and even sold it to someone.
Was it just me or has anyone seen or make out patterns while staring at it? I sometimes found it amusing
Cosmic microwave? Is that what you are calling “ants in a snowstorm” these days?
“War of the Ants”, where I’m from (sweden).
ok Sweden wins this one
Ant races
Ask your friend which side is winning, say you’re rooting for the black ants, then turn off the TV and claim victory.
Well, if they had watched any HBO show, they kind of saw it !
I was born in the 90s, my brothers were born in the early 2000s. We had a CRT into the early 2010s . Maybe people who weren’t poor haven’t seen real TV static but even then I doubt it. Hell, remember those god awful “flat screen” CRTs? My old station still had one of those that we used to watch TV on in 2018-19. It’s probably still there lol
Yep, my family had a CRT that we used until sometime around 2015.
