dghughes 10 years ago

I got a kick out of one channel where the guy said in 1991 "The rise of political correctness on college campuses".

Oh my! The more things change the more they stay the same.

  • unfamiliar 10 years ago

    I laughed at the recent South Park episode where some old guys are talking about the new wave of political correctness: "Yup... the last time this happened it lasted about 6 years"

  • teacup50 10 years ago

    In this case, new applications of the same law (Title IX) sit at the center of the debates in both '91 and today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX#Further_legislation_a...

    The room for broad interpretation and the administrative issues with this particular law have never been resolved, so we've been seeing the same complaints emerge over different applications over very many years.

    "The more things stay the same" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, though :)

  • atomi 10 years ago

    Prescription medicine being too expensive and Middle East strife news from '91 as well.

  • toyg 10 years ago

    You wouldn't have seen that in 2002, when islamophobia was at its peak.

obituary_latte 10 years ago

I need scrambled HBO late night to feel it's real.

I used to be able to slam the top of the cable box sometimes to unscramble the feed. Talking about a proper cable box with a dial. 1-60. This might be why punching equipment is now my first line of recourse when dealing with technical issues.

Anyway, a box I can thunder slam would be a nice addition. If not, that's cool.

  • TrevorJ 10 years ago

    Ah, good ol' percussive maintenance.

  • bitwize 10 years ago

    I used to have a 90s TV with a bad color chip. To prevent my game of Sonic the Hedgehog from going completely puke brown in hue I had to whack the side of the TV. (Sonic wasn't weird then... another nostalgic memory.)

    Of course, much like cartridge blowjobs, hitting the TV may have been based more on superstition than reality.

    • tempestn 10 years ago

      We had an old cabinet TV that required a good smack in just the right spot on the left side to prevent most of the picture being green. As I recall the green-ness varied in saturation from the left to the right for some reason.

      Over time the required smack became more and more forceful, and the smack target became smaller. Fortunately it kept working until the time came for a new TV though. Afterward I kind of missed that. (Sort of like I now miss the great triumph of getting my parents' old lawn mower to start.)

  • mrspeaker 10 years ago

    also, channels used to change instantly. Digital TV introduced the channel up and down pause ;)

zappo2938 10 years ago

There is one obvious mistake. The 90's didn't officially begin until September 24, 1991 when Nirvana dropped Nevermind. Anything before that is still 80's.

  • brandonmenc 10 years ago

    I'd argue that the new era was ushered in by the controversy-engulfed March 1989 release of Madonna's "Like A Prayer."

    • dsmithatx 10 years ago

      For me the 90s began November 1989 watching the Berlin wall fall on TV.

  • bloat 10 years ago

    In the UK the 90's started when The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays appeared together on Top Of The Pops. November 1989.

disillusioned 10 years ago

YouTube Time Machine has been doing this for awhile, and they do a _great_ job at it:

http://yttm.tv

  • Alex3917 10 years ago

    Also http://neave.tv/

    Words can't even describe...

    • thehoff 10 years ago

      I...uh...hrmm...wait...what?

    • polishninja 10 years ago

      I have to agree. It reminds me of the strange little shorts MTV used to have between commercials and shows.

    • samtp 10 years ago

      http://vj.tv/wallflower/

      VJTV Wallflower also used to a good one to put on in the background on unused monitors in hip restaruants/lounges/offices/cafes. It makes a seamless playback experience and smooths the transition between videos.

      Seems to be down now, but they use a Vimeo playlist for their videos here:

      http://vimeo.com/groups/wallflower

chrissnell 10 years ago

This is amazing. I'm watching a newscast covering the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. They have someone on there speculating about how they could evacuate people off the roof with baskets and helicopters. It's so eerie, watching this now.

Before that, there was a newscast talking about teen obesity in the US--only 15% of teens were overweight.

And the clothes...pleated khaki chinos, jean shirts, paisley ties. LOL.

equil 10 years ago

Neat. Came across this ad from AT&T about connectivity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kfIFDX9kE4

  • simoncion 10 years ago

    Yep. Something like ~20mbit symmetric fiber service was supposed to be rolled out by the incumbent telcos nationwide back in the 1990's. Super glad to see that they kept to their promises.

    • pyvpx 10 years ago

      they kept the tax breaks!

      • simoncion 10 years ago

        And lost the money in really bad foreign investments!

tlrobinson 10 years ago

Nice.

BTW, if the creator is listening, if you add "pointer-events: none;" to all the elements above the YouTube player we'll be able to close the ads.

hockley 10 years ago

Really captured the experience of 90s TV. No fast forward. Instead, you have to change the channel every 10-30 seconds until you found something that held your attention. There was an anxious boredom that permeated the 90s.

asenna 10 years ago

For some reason I always knew something like this was coming. All that content form the 90's must be stored somewhere out there and one of us would recreate the channels in a way that we could relive it.

I really wish this gets to something real and that I might be able to show my kids in the future the cartoons that I grew up on.

Great work on this project!

  • trentlott 10 years ago

    You'd probably enjoy Nick Reboot or Toonami Aftermath, which are both community-generated channels that show that old content.

    T.A. has a regular schedule, and have even managed to dig up old commercials and promos for the channel. It's pretty magical.

tlrobinson 10 years ago

I'd love something like this but for the internet. Wayback Machine is cool, but pretty slow, and modern browsers tend to render things a bit differently.

Someone should be able to compile a 1990s web browser with Emscripten, right?

WaxProlix 10 years ago

It was a bizarre era. Almost reminiscent of Rick and Morty's Inter-Dimensional TV bits.

  • seivan 10 years ago

    Haha, yeah I got glimpses of Man vs Car!

DavidAdams 10 years ago

Ran across a young Conan O'Brien appearing on young Jon Stewart's MTV talk show.

cgriswald 10 years ago

Wow. Check out my80stv.com Specials. It has KCSM's Computer Chronicles. Lots of old school tech is demonstrated, current events are discussed, people wrongly predict the future... It's amazing.

BorisMelnik 10 years ago

brilliant! one small criticism - 60, maybe 99 channels MAX!

yes I am sure some folks had more, but double digits were the standard. and yes I'm a 90's teenager, 80s child.

pnewman3 10 years ago

All that's missing is Butthead commenting on all this.

bobajeff 10 years ago

Everything loads for me except the (I assume) videos and I get a special message:

"WARNING: This site only works on desktop browsers currently :|"

Does this use Flash or something?

dayaz36 10 years ago

This was on Product Hunt like a year ago! :D

barbs 10 years ago

This is great, though I'd love to see something localized for Australia (and other countries)

  • TickleMeHellNo 10 years ago

    Psh, it's already localized...

    ..to southern ohio. I miss my missouri commercials.

joe5150 10 years ago

Very cute project. It makes me wish that there were really a way to watch some of this stuff.

  • eatonphil 10 years ago

    Youtube does have a ton of the cartoons from the 90s.

    • joe5150 10 years ago

      Yes, but it's very hit and miss, they tend to leave a lot to be desired re quality, a lot of them are mirror-imaged to get around automatic copyright detection, or the sound is bad, or...and so on.

      • userbinator 10 years ago

        Don't forget that at the time, HDTV was almost non-existent, and VHS tape at ~240p resolution was the most common recording medium.

        • joe5150 10 years ago

          Yeah, understood, but what I mean is that I don't want to watch 17 year old bootleg tapes that random people have uploaded to YouTube, I want Viacom or somebody to actually put this content online in whatever is the best quality they have.

par 10 years ago

The accuracy here is frightening!

cryoshon 10 years ago

Is there a way to tell exactly what you are watching at any given time?

  • TrevorJ 10 years ago

    The title's down towards the bottom of the interface

sreyaNotfilc 10 years ago

Holy Cow!

Life Stinks Trailer! I thought I was the only who remembered that movie!

azinman2 10 years ago

Gets to loading 99% and stops there for me.

  • linker3000 10 years ago

    You lucky, lucky person. 74% for me.

tomphoolery 10 years ago

that tube glow thing is awesome!

markbnj 10 years ago

This is awesome. Great work.

pyrocat 10 years ago

How does this even work?

TickleMeHellNo 10 years ago

Flipped through channels, saw a Wallflowers music video, stopped.

Same thing happened 18 years ago. Nice to relive that.