TECHNOLOGY | LEARNING | THE 1990S
Learning To Be Thankful Is Easy: Tech Ed. Vol 3
Watching TV on your computer in the 1990s… Good luck with that!
INTRODUCTION
In this volume, you will learn what was involved with getting cable TV channels to play on your desktop computer in the mid-1990s when internet streaming was still much in its conception stage and before any TV broadcasting company had any sort of online presence.
This series is of interest to anyone who…
1) Didn’t experience these things first hand and is curious about the history of computing
or
2) Was there during that time period but never “got into computers” (perhaps you knew someone who did)
or
3) Was already using computers then and would like to reminisce about those days
The information is kept vendor-agnostic wherever possible, with a handful of exceptions that refer to recognizable brand names of the time for context. There also are no dry timelines of events!
BONUS: You don’t need any preexisting technical knowledge to follow along.
THE SCENARIO
Somewhere in a computer magazine, or perhaps overheard at a computer store or from someone you knew, you found out that there is a type of expansion card you can get for your MS-DOS (or perhaps it’s a Windows 3.1 or Windows 95) desktop computer that will allow you to watch cable TV on it, record shows and movies, and sometimes double as an even better graphics card than you already have in your computer.
This was of great interest to anyone who liked to watch TV because…
1. Your existing CRT computer monitor could double as an additional TV without needing to buy one
2. You could locate your computer just about anywhere you wanted to in your home and use a splitter to run a CATV coax cable there
3. You could record TV shows and movies on your hard disk drive (HDD) for later viewing
4. No need to pay the cable company for running a new cable and connecting it to a fixed outlet on one of your walls (inconvenient, or sometimes even impossible if living in a rental)
5. No need to pay the rental fee for an additional set-top box
6. No need to pay the rental fee for or buy an additional recording device
WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP?
First, you would need some sort of paid monthly cable TV subscription at a cost of around $30 for a basic cable package plus a handful of premium channels covering things such as sports, movies, international news, etc.
Second, you would need to make sure that you purchase a tuner card that is compatible with your existing operating system. Meaning that the drivers (software written for utilizing the card’s hardware functions) had been tested for use with your current operating system.
Perhaps the most popular one since the early days was the ATI All-In-Wonder TV card, which might have run you between $140–200 at the time.
Note: USB “Plug and Play” technology was barely starting to appear and not commonplace yet, so it was almost never as simple as just plugging something in and watching it “magically” work. It would take a little longer before the USB 1.x standard would come to be available with most types of computer peripherals, and, even then, up until at least the Windows 98SE era, it was commonly affectionately referred to as “Plug and Pray” technology.
Third came the multi-part installation process.
1. Decide which existing outlet you want to run your cable TV connection from, install a splitter at the outlet itself, with one end connected to the cable going to do the existing TV set-top box and the other end connected to the cable you’ve run to your computer
2. Shut down your computer, unplug it from its power source, unscrew the case open, find the correct expansion slot to plug the card in (visually and using the instructions provided with the card itself), unscrew the metal plate covering the opening for the slot in the back of the computer, and, finally, plug the card in
3. Set the necessary jumpers or DIP switch configuration on the card according to the instructions
4. Connect the necessary wire to your computer’s sound card according to the instructions that came with the card, and connect the coax cable to the back of the card, through the open slot
5. OPTIONAL: If the capacity (storage space) of your HDD was low, you would likely need to also buy an additional hard drive and install it in your computer for the purpose of using it to record your TV shows or movies. This would involve understanding how many and what kind of IDE devices were already installed in your computer, connecting the new HDD to a (motherboard) controller and cable that had an available slot, and setting the jumpers to their correct position for master and slave device order so that everything would be recognized and your computer could boot properly (rather than fail to boot due to a bad configuration)
6. Screw the case back on plug in and start the computer
7. Use the floppy disk or CD to install the OS drivers and the software that allows you to schedule your programs for recording
Fourth came the configuration process. Set the video signal format (NTSC for the Americas, PAL for Europe and Asia), auto-scan the available channels, label the channels as you like, download the cable TV scheduling information for your region if available, and, finally, start using your card.
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO WATCH TV THAT WAY?
On an MS-DOS computer, where you were normally used to seeing plain text and rudimentary game graphics, to be able to watch TV channel in a small window in the corner of your monitor while you executed some DOS commands or ran a program (only one at a time!), was quite literally mind-blowing.
On an early Windows 95 or Windows 98 computer, the addition of a graphical user interface allowing you to view schedule information and schedule programs for recording was that much more impressive.
This setup would be viable for several more years and was a good way to repurpose an old desktop computer and CRT monitor by, for instance, adding it to a guest bedroom or office.
Eventually, as broadcasting standards evolved, and laws were passed in countries such as the US and Canada, the CATV companies were made to convert their signals from analog to digital to support HDTV. And while HD tuner cards have existed for some time now, using such cards no longer made much sense once online streaming technology became more prevalent and practical to access in the home as well as on the go.
CONCLUSION
As seen in this article, watching TV on your desktop computer in the 1990s was not a walk in the park. It required finding a card that was compatible with your computer, learning about and configuring some hardware and software, manually splitting your cable TV connection, and optionally purchasing and installing an additional HDD in your computer… all without the convenience of USB technology.
Q. If you had to go through all of this trouble to watch TV shows and movies on your computer nowadays, would you do it? What if it was the same for watching on your smartphone?
PREVIOUS VOLUMES IN THE LEARNING TO BE THANKFUL IS EASY SERIES
Vol. 1 — Desktop computing before Windows and Macintosh
All the best,
Pascal
PS: You can read more about me here.
