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Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

I think the point is that my children will likely never know what a television tuned to a dead channel looks like. I've almost forgotten, myself.

I say that as someone that finds that line rather nice.

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You reminded me of a post JWZ made a while back with a TV in his bar. It's neat how these things can be embedded into our collective experince.

(Copy and paste the link, referrer shenanigans.) https://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/01/snow-crash-simulated/

I didn't realize newer televisions simulated the static. That is rather amusing, in many ways.

Also, thanks for mentioning the copy/paste referrer nonsense. Didn't realize they blocked referred links from here and was curious what the reference was for a time. :)

> I say that as someone that finds that line rather nice.

It is a very nice line.

However, it's dated to the point of losing its meaning.

Like rotary phones :-)

A television tuned to a dead channel looks like the HBO logo... A quick google search said it was still in use as of 2015.

What? I was assuming it meant a static "white noise" image. And... yeah, I remember them happening. But in modern transmission systems, that is a complete fabrication. There is nothing about getting white noise to transmit to look like that, and it in fact takes more effort to create such a screen.

Last television I hooked up using a digital antenna would simply not show anything if the signal didn't exist. If you had poor signal, you'd get more compression artifacts. Nothing there should translate to the white noise image.

Right?

Type in HBO Static Intro and you'll see what I mean. Example on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC_uTMkmH08

OK, yeah. I know what static is. It isn't like HBO invented that. So, back to the original point. I suspect that it is a short matter of time before nobody really knows what that is anymore. My kids have certainly never seen it. And it is no longer what a television on a "dead" channel shows.

My point was only that if your kids watch HBO they do know what the image in Neuromancer looks like, even if they don't realize what the HBO logo was based on.

But that fails. The line is that it looks like a television tuned to a dead channel. Not that it looks like a television during the HBO logo.

Could they research it and find the answer? Yes. But that is different from just knowing it.

This makes it unlike the stage imagery, which is still accurate.

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