Funny story: When I bought my first house in my early 20's, I was too poor to even consider cable. Heck, I didn't even have any fully-functional TV's, they were all hand-me-downs with various deficiencies. One without sound, another without UHF... you get the idea.
So true! The amount of commercials is crazy! Sometimes in a 30 minute show almost 8 minutes of commercials!
And even The Weather Channel has gone downhill during the last few years. Too much Infotainment content and breathless reporting.
Funny story: When I bought my first house in my early 20's, I was too poor to even consider cable. Heck, I didn't even have any fully-functional TV's, they were all hand-me-downs with various deficiencies. One without sound, another without UHF... you get the idea.
So, I head to Radio Shack to buy a reasonably good antenna, as my house was well-located near the top of a south-facing hill, about 40 miles north of Philly. Despite the distance, I figured I'd actually pull in a few stations clear enough to at least see the news. I was working full time + part time school + renovating the old Victorian house, so there wasn't much time for sitting and watching, anyway.
It just happened that Radio Shack was discontinuing several of the antennas at the time, since cable companies were stealing all of their antenna sales, and they had this absolute monster of an antenna on sale for the same price as the more modest one I had planned to buy. If I recall, the thing had a wing span of 16 feet, and an overall length around 30 feet. It looked like a damn ultralight aircraft.
So, I bring the monstrosity home, and set it up in the attic of my carriage barn. It literally filled the whole attic, you had to crawl under and around it, just to get up there and access anything. Comically huge thing. But... I found I was able to pull in channels from Baltimore up thru NYC! The Philly stations were so clear, they might as well have been on cable, whereas the Baltimore and NYC stations were a little grainy (like what I had expected for local channels). I had access to almost as many channels as if I'd paid for cable, but for free.
Eventually, the thing took a lightning strike, which blew out every connected device in the house and barn. After that I had no TV, until my wife moved in and signed us up for cable.
TI-99s are very rare. I'm assuming you meant TI-99a. If you had a true TI-99, you should have kept it.Same time as me, but ours was a TI-99, sold 1979 - 1981. I think VIC-20 came in 1980.
I remember when our school got one computer, to share among 25 teachers and 600 students, an Apple-II or II+. You could sign up for an after-school club to go use it, which ended up being like 3-4 kids at a time watching a teacher use it.
Dad had two ITT PC's (probably 286's) for work, and eventually bought us an Apple II-GS for home around Christmas 1986... no hard disks in any of these computers. Heck, we were amazed when we got a 3.5" floppy, originally 880 kB. Then even more so, when it jumped up to 1.44 MB HD/DS.
It felt like damn-near unlimited storage, at the time. How the heck would we ever fill a 1.44 MB disk?!?
I also remember paying $1200 at wholesaler pricing for 32 MB of RAM in my first Pentium computer. One of the two major factories producing memory at the time had experienced a fire (1994/95?), and the pricing of memory shot thru the roof for about two years. It peaked above $40/MB, in 4 MB SIM's.
Ah, the ladies, God love 'em. They may not be able to change a tire, but they can certainly take the bull by the horns and solve problems when motivated.After that I had no TV, until my wife moved in and signed us up for cable.
Putting a TV antenna in an attic.Funny story: When I bought my first house in my early 20's, I was too poor to even consider cable. Heck, I didn't even have any fully-functional TV's, they were all hand-me-downs with various deficiencies. One without sound, another without UHF... you get the idea.
So, I head to Radio Shack to buy a reasonably good antenna, as my house was well-located near the top of a south-facing hill, about 40 miles north of Philly. Despite the distance, I figured I'd actually pull in a few stations clear enough to at least see the news. I was working full time + part time school + renovating the old Victorian house, so there wasn't much time for sitting and watching, anyway.
It just happened that Radio Shack was discontinuing several of the antennas at the time, since cable companies were stealing all of their antenna sales, and they had this absolute monster of an antenna on sale for the same price as the more modest one I had planned to buy. If I recall, the thing had a wing span of 16 feet, and an overall length around 30 feet. It looked like a damn ultralight aircraft.
So, I bring the monstrosity home, and set it up in the attic of my carriage barn. It literally filled the whole attic, you had to crawl under and around it, just to get up there and access anything. Comically huge thing. But... I found I was able to pull in channels from Baltimore up thru NYC! The Philly stations were so clear, they might as well have been on cable, whereas the Baltimore and NYC stations were a little grainy (like what I had expected for local channels). I had access to almost as many channels as if I'd paid for cable, but for free.
Eventually, the thing took a lightning strike, which blew out every connected device in the house and barn. After that I had no TV, until my wife moved in and signed us up for cable.
. I was middle age before I heard of doing such. We always had it mounted on a metal pole, and usually with a pipe wrench hanging from it for turning. “No no, to far, turn it back the other way!” my Dad would shout. 
My mom taught me how to change a tire... just sayin.Ah, the ladies, God love 'em. They may not be able to change a tire, but they can certainly take the bull by the horns and solve problems when motivated.
My Dad had a directional exterior antenna with a motor on it and a control box in the living room. Didn't really seem to help reception all that much, but was great fun for me to play with....
Oldest daughter has changed a tire about half a dozen times. Wife would call me or a tow truck. Whichever way they chose, the tire still gets changed.