I have been waiting for this for a long time. Very happy to see this thank you to the dev / devs! hands-emoji

    Growing up in the 90s, television was a different experience.
    You turned on the TV, and whatever was playing at that moment
    would become your entertainment.

    Strangely enough, I miss that feeling of having something
    selected for me, something I cannot influence.

I grew up a few decades before and I lack the author's nostalgia. I think some of that is because my exposure to OTA TV was much longer. Some was because I missed TV's first Golden Age and TV trended toward awful afterward - with some exceptions (Taxi & 1980s NBC Thru night are 2). I never had cable so I can't factor that in.

Between having control over what I watch and some of the absolutely stellar content that's come out in the last generation, I've no nostalgia for OTA TV of yore. I really like what I have.

In 2005 I came across of video stream (mp4? viewable in VLC) of early 20th c. cartoons. There were dozens and dozens of them and nothing else. I never worked out who was behind it, just that it's IP was in western Europe. It was up for at least a year.

My kids were often with me during adult hours (work, etc) and I'd put it on for them. But I was also half-captivated by the idea of anonymously delivered content.

It would be fantastic to find a modern equivalent except delivering an endless slate of novel, off-kilter and largely inexplicable content.

I have long thought Netflix should offer such a service. Have a sitcom channel that plays constantly from a slowly evolving list. Even better if I could just pick say Seinfeld and get random episodes from an episodic show. I do not want to have to expend energy picking a season+episode, just trying to decompress.

>Growing up in the 90s, television was a different experience. > >You turned on the TV, and whatever was playing at that moment would become your entertainment. > >Nowadays you yourself are in control, you choose what you want to see, whenever you want.

You had some control back then, too -- you could change the channel. I don't know anywhere that had a single OTA channel in the 1990s.

(And "Stargate SG-1" was on cable.)

You can self-host ErsatzTV and have the Plex/Jellyfin Live TV section show the channels you've programmed yourself. Highly recommend.

I'd love to have a database of once-annoying but now-nostalgic TV commercials to intersperse between the shows, and insert into commercial breaks. (Those dramatic pauses in Star Trek TOS just aren't the same without a Crazy Eddie interruption.)

HEAD ON: Apply Directly to the Forehead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwD7RveNE

W.E.T. P.E.T.S.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMbsZU83ajc

Fine Corinthian Leather:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0diMFShiUU

Bic Banana Ink Crayon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv5O2zwyQGo

Flea Market Montgomery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3oHpup-pk

Crazy Eddie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6S2yiuSWE

For an instant time machine feeling:

https://myretrotvs.com/

from: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44942602