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Progress and The Diggy Box

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Me and Our Gert have just joined the digital age.  We had to; the old telly wouldn’t work.  Apparently it was anabolic which was no good.

So what we’ve got now is a big flat screen the neighbours watch from the other side of the garden fence and a diggy box.

I’m comfortable with this.

My mam and dad’s first telly was like a wardrobe with a porthole.  Inside it concealed a bewildering collection of upturned bottles which looked like pictures I’d seen of the Kremlin and which glowed red when you turned on the telly.  (In fact watching the bottles glow was often more entertaining than watching what perpetually rolled upwards or downwards in the porthole).

Anyway, the point is this.  You had to turn on the telly a good minute before your programme to give the bottles chance to warm up.

Which is why I’m so comfortable with the diggy-box.

◄ The Plays of William Shakespeare - (or Where I Get All My Talentfulness From)

Tickle Cock Lane ►

Comments

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M.C. Newberry

Fri 22nd Feb 2013 14:34

It was the vertical hold that sorted the up and down roll, and the horizontal hold that stopped the image separating sideways - when the top might be on the right and the bottom half on the left of the picture. Like cars, "they" have taken the control of things from us mere mortals and given it to "the machine". E.G. we now have the old manual wind-up lever for a car window offered as an "extra" on one make of car!! And who can tune today's carburettors with a little dexterity between finger and ear, like we could then? Is this really "useful" progress?

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Dave Carr

Fri 22nd Feb 2013 07:09

When I say Stilton it was just some home made stuff my dad made from milking the cat.

We used to get terrible problems with the horizontal hold. Just getting to the jackpot in Double Your Money and Hughie Green's head would be below his body. Then the screen would start rotating till you twiddled the knobs.

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Yvonne Brunton

Thu 21st Feb 2013 00:31

Snooker in black and white there's a thought to conjure with. As good a a ventrilquist on the radio!

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John Coopey

Wed 20th Feb 2013 18:20

Grandstand in black and white featuring vintage cars being driven up a muddy hillclimb by a husband and wife team in victorian costume. She would sit and bounce on the bonnet for extra purchase. Meanwhile, on itv, wrestling with jackie pallo, mick mcmanus and billy two-rivers. They don't know they're born.

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M.C. Newberry

Wed 20th Feb 2013 15:51

I think the rental for our TV was 7/6d - less than 50p - per week. Ah...those halcyon days when "Grandstand" was in B/W and snooker wasn't featured!

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John Coopey

Wed 20th Feb 2013 15:17

Julian, they don't know they're born! Why, in my day...

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Julian (Admin)

Wed 20th Feb 2013 11:54

You had Stilton? Luxury!
All we got was Fanny and Johnny. Note to our younger viewers: I am not making this up.

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John Coopey

Wed 20th Feb 2013 09:47

Our neighbours had an original pay-per-view set. You put a shilling in a slot and it gave you an hour or so of telly. Forward thinking or what? This predated Sentanta, ESPN and Sky by half a century!
I think these should be re-introduced to see how the viewing figures for cookery, house renovation, holiday, celebrity, and "talent" programmes would stand up if you were spending money on them directly.

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Dave Carr

Tue 19th Feb 2013 22:08

Once of a day you could warm up your stilton in the back of a telly. Ahh me!

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Yvonne Brunton

Mon 18th Feb 2013 20:25

Forget warming the bottles up - just drink them!

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M.C. Newberry

Mon 18th Feb 2013 15:20

Anabolic?! You'll be wanting steroid sound next!!! My digital TV has an inbuilt tuner and doesn't need the diggy box - which, by the way, should still enable an old TV to receive programmes. I've kept both items just in case my current TV ever breaks down and I need a replacement. Our first TV, when living on a hill in rural Wiltshire, was a Murphy 17" that worked with a single VHF radio aerial...we were THAT high at 500ft above sea level!!! I still remember the joys of Popeye and Olive Oyl in glorious black and white! Happy innocent days. Thanks for taking me back.

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Julian (Admin)

Mon 18th Feb 2013 12:01

Many had a portable aerial on top of the TV, shaped like Tony Harrison's poem's title. More fun than watching the valves glow was the art of moving the aerial around the room trying to get the picture to stop scrolling, or to remove the blizzard from the screen. The unfortunate aerial bearers usually found just the right spot to be in the air behind the TV, so could not watch the set themselves, but had to stand there to that others could see the end of What's My Line, or Grandstand, whatever. For the greater good...
We had ours on rental from the Coop. I have a feeling the brand was Defiant, or similar. It was forever being repossessed because my mam had got behind with the payments. I remember once she made me go and keep the repossession man talking at the door so she and my Nan could watch the end of Coronation St. before he took it. Happy days, eh?

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Margaret Holbrook

Mon 18th Feb 2013 11:14

looks very similar to the one that graced our front room. It lasted forever, or so it seemed. All of my friends had telly's on very thin legs that were so modern. Eventually the tube went, and could no longer be replaced, oh, and you could get the radio on it as well!

Loved reading about it.

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