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Old Cable Boxes

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Deleted User 15835

Old Cable Boxes

Post by Deleted User 15835 » Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:23 pm

Just for fun I was looking at old cable boxes on eBay. In Bedford Twp Michigan, we had Jerrold 400 and 450s. Then later Scientific Atlanta. The Jerrold remotes were like a brick and took 9v batteries, plus they were not very good in terms of reception. What also was annoying was, they were designed for older style TV's with rotary dials, meaning the box would turn the TV on, but with newer style sets, you had to turn the TV on separately, ugh... .

My parents figured out at one point, we didn't need a box anymore as newer TV's had there own tuner that could get all the cable channels, unless of course you had one of the premium ones that needed to be descrambled. We did have The Movie Channel but they were willing to give it up, so we didn't have to deal with those dumb boxes anymore.

I was always told that, if you got a pay channel, in order for the box to descramble channel they put some kind of a chip inside. Not sure if that's true or if they entered some kind of code to program the box.

Just weird looking back at how primitive this stuff used to be.



paul8539
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Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by paul8539 » Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:12 am

I saw one in a thrift store not long ago. I do not think that they knew what it was. They were selling it for $1. Not sure if it worked; probably not.



km1125
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Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by km1125 » Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:44 am

Riff Raff wrote:
Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:23 pm
Just for fun I was looking at old cable boxes on eBay. In Bedford Twp Michigan, we had Jerrold 400 and 450s. Then later Scientific Atlanta. The Jerrold remotes were like a brick and took 9v batteries, plus they were not very good in terms of reception. What also was annoying was, they were designed for older style TV's with rotary dials, meaning the box would turn the TV on, but with newer style sets, you had to turn the TV on separately, ugh... .

My parents figured out at one point, we didn't need a box anymore as newer TV's had there own tuner that could get all the cable channels, unless of course you had one of the premium ones that needed to be descrambled. We did have The Movie Channel but they were willing to give it up, so we didn't have to deal with those dumb boxes anymore.

I was always told that, if you got a pay channel, in order for the box to descramble channel they put some kind of a chip inside. Not sure if that's true or if they entered some kind of code to program the box.

Just weird looking back at how primitive this stuff used to be.
There was quite an evolution of the boxes over 20 years or so. The early boxes -especially those with a remote - included a switched outlet on the back. For those older TVs, you could leave the TV power switch on and just plug the TV into the box then use the remote on the cable box to turn on and off the TV. Later TVs could not be powered up that way, as you'd still have to hit the 'power' button on the TV once the power to the plug was restored. At that point, the cable box remotes migrated to programmable remotes were you could program the TV into the remote so you you use the power and volume buttons to control the TV but all the rest of the buttons would control the cable box. Some of those remotes could do macros too, so you could setup a pretty complex media system and have the remote control it all.

Pay services likewise had an evolution. Originally when the pay services were introduced they used "negative traps" which eliminated that particular channel from coming into the house unless you paid for it and the negative trap was removed which allowed the channel to pass into the house. On some very low penetration "premium" channels, they used either a single dedicated descrambler box or they used a "positive trap". For a "positive trap" system, there was an interfering signal sent in the middle of the channel, almost blocking the whole thing out. If a "Positive trap" was installed (for extra $$$), it knocked that interference out and allowed you to view the channel.

The early descrambler units had to be programmed for a particular channel or system, so they usually contained a dedicated chip for that particular system/channel. These were typically EPROMs or EEPROMs and needed to be inserted in each descrambler (or decoder). Later units the chip could be reprogrammed without removing or installing a chip.

Then, in the mid-80's system went to "addressable" boxes, which could be controlled by a signal sent along with the TV signals, so the boxes could be reprogrammed from the "central office". Each box had a unique address and could be customized for each customer. Some of these boxes include a very complex algorithm to secure the "pay" channels and it's pretty difficult (although not impossible) to overcome that.

Most "cable boxes" now are actually just cable modems and they just stream services based on what your account is authorized for.



Marcus
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Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by Marcus » Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:17 pm

We had one of the old Jerrold boxes for about five years at my house. In 1989 we got a VCR, so we didn't need it anymore. That particular Jerrold box was just a cable TV tuner with a switch outlet on the back. A separate box that went below it was required if you wanted to watch the scrambled channels. Those descramblers were the Zenith boxes with no buttons or switches on them. The particular cable system we were on did not use the Zenith all in one box which combined a channel selector and a descrambler in one unit.



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Plate Cap
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Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by Plate Cap » Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:25 pm

km1125 wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:44 am

<snip>
The early descrambler units had to be programmed for a particular channel or system, so they usually contained a dedicated chip for that particular system/channel. These were typically EPROMs or EEPROMs and needed to be inserted in each descrambler (or decoder). Later units the chip could be reprogrammed without removing or installing a chip.
<snip>
I recall a system with Jerrold / General Instrument 400 set top boxes.

They had the EPROM that you spoke of. If you lifted one end of the EPROM from it's socket, but still left the 2 or 4 pins connected on the other end, the premiums were all available. There were oblonged screws with no slots in them holding the cover on; they had to be undone with special nut driver (or needlenose) to access the EPROM.

Then came the addressable boxes, and show was over.

I recall noting that once someone had rigged his box, it sometimes wasn't very long until they were bored with 'free' channels as well.


The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.

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Plate Cap
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Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by Plate Cap » Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:35 pm

km1125 wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:44 am

<snip>
The early descrambler units had to be programmed for a particular channel or system, so they usually contained a dedicated chip for that particular system/channel. These were typically EPROMs or EEPROMs and needed to be inserted in each descrambler (or decoder). Later units the chip could be reprogrammed without removing or installing a chip.

<snip>
I recall a system with Jerrold / General Instrument 400 set top boxes.

They had the EPROM that you spoke of. If you lifted one end of the EPROM from it's socket, but still left the 2 or 4 pins connected on the other end, the premiums were all available. There were oblonged screws with no slots in them holding the cover on; they had to be undone with special nut driver (or needlenose) to access the EPROM.

Then came the addressable boxes, and show was over.

I recall noting that once someone had rigged his box, it sometimes wasn't very long until they were bored with 'free' channels as well.

I had some involvement in the early MDS delivery of HBO to homes; a company called Microband held MDS 2450 Mhz licenses in a lot of cities, and the only 'protection' from piracy was the trouble downconvert the transmission signal to a tunable channel. People were using coffee cans with tuned stubs, and some enterprising folks started making entire kits for dishes. In SE Michigan, Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Pontiac all had transmitters; the Detroit site started on the Book Tower and eventually moved to the Renaissance. An operation called More TV in Livonia marketed it, and had a crew running around doing nothing more than spotting bootlegged antennas. They were available EVERYWHERE; ham swaps especially.

That evolved into MMDS, a multichannel version, with a higher level of encryption and about 8 or 10 channels. But, time was short for them. Cable penetration caught up the carrier, and it was a no brainer for the customers to move to cable.

Damn. Double posted again. Sorry.


The box that many broadcasters won’t look outside of was made in 1969 and hasn’t changed significantly since.

Marcus
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Location: Sarnia, Ontario

Re: Old Cable Boxes

Post by Marcus » Thu Mar 23, 2023 11:22 pm

We were Zenith SSAVI from 1983 up until the premium pay channels were moved over to digital cable about 20 years later which of course required a different box. There were cheater boxes for the Zenith system, so there must have been ones for the Jerrold and the Tocom scrambling systems as well.



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