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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: Pyromania on April 06, 2016, 04:34:39 AM

Title: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: Pyromania on April 06, 2016, 04:34:39 AM
Quick snippet from the story

"In terms of planning our lives around what our TVs spit out, we've come a long way from the overly condensed pages of TV Guide.

In fact, the magazine was already looking awful obsolete in the 1980s and 1990s, when cable systems around the country began dedicating entire channels to listing TV schedules.

The set-top box, the power-sucking block that serves as the liaison between you and your cable company, is a common sight in homes around the country these days.

But before all that was the Commodore Amiga, a device that played a quiet but important role in the cable television revolution.

The Amiga was a much-loved machine, huge among a cult of users who embraced its impressive video and audio capabilities, which blew away every other platform at the time of its release.

As a multimedia powerhouse, it was ahead of both the Apple Macintosh and the IBM PC by nearly a decade at the time of its 1985 release, and its launch price was a relatively inexpensive $1,295, making the computer a bit of a bargain at launch. And seeing as “Amiga” is the Spanish word for friend with a feminine ending, it was also friendlier than its office-drone competitors."

Read more at the link below.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-commodore-amiga-powered-your-cable-system-in-the-90s
Title: Re: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: polyp2000 on April 06, 2016, 06:44:37 AM
A nice read. Thanks for the post.
Title: Re: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: Zardoz on April 06, 2016, 05:14:36 PM
I remember this stuff. when it first came out. Amiga's defiantly use a lot in video back then.
Title: Re: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: jdupuis on April 06, 2016, 10:24:12 PM
Ahh, yes!

The only computer back then that had Broadcast Quality Graphics. Sports casting video overlay, weather graphics overlay and the list goes on. NTSC and PAL. Well before a PC broke the 16 bit limit. What broadcast station didn't use an Amiga? Gotta love it!

Cheers!!
Title: Re: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: klx300r on April 07, 2016, 05:29:38 PM
nice read, thanks for posting

every once in a while I still see the good ol guru meditation screen on a local news channel especially after 11pm
Title: Re: How the Amiga Powered Your Cable System in the '90s
Post by: Crom00 on April 08, 2016, 12:51:21 PM
Yep sometimes I would see the workbench screen followed by an operator typing in program guide listings. There was a local station broadcast station a block from my house and they used amiga 2000's with a supergen and a VT2000. I interned there a bit.