Ethan
Wow, thanks for the all the great info..... I hope to find one of the
beasties one day, I started doing a search on the web, but unlike vintage
computer, video game, tv and radio collectors, I don't seem to see anyone
insane enough to collect vintage cable boxes :-)
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <erd_6502_at_yahoo.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 4:37 AM
Subject: Re: Warner/Amex "QUBE" Set-top box?
>
> --- Curt Vendel <curt_at_atari-history.com> wrote:
> > Anyone have one of these or have some photo's of it. It was one of the
> > first attempts at Interactive TV. I need it for an article I'm
> > writing,
> > thanks. If anyone has one to sell, I'm also interested as well.
>
> Wish I did. We _had_ QUBE when it was new. Big Fun.
>
> For those that don't know, it was an unassuming cable box, black,
> maybe 30cm x 30cm x 5cm, but the interesting part was this pod on
> the end of a 10m cable - it had 10 buttons down the left side, three
> across the bottom, and 5 on the right. The three at the bottom were
> momentary - they selected a filter bank in the box to give you a
> range of 10 channels (of which only one at a time could be depressed;
> it would pop up the previous selection). The columns were marked P, C
> and T for "Premium", "Community" and "Television". Among other things,
> I recall that P7 or P8 was for R-rated entertainment, and P10 was for
> Adult.
>
> The five buttons on the right, and the "Response" light at the top
> were the interactive part - with interactive programming of local
> origin (they had a full-blown TV studio as well as a cable franchise),
> the host could initiate a poll - the Response light meant that the
> voting period was open - or simply tell you to press "1" to have
> information about the current show/guest mailed to you with your bill.
> There was even a kids game show with Flippo the Clown that you could
> play along with at home.
>
> It was plagued with technical problems galore - the first month, they
> gave away the movies (there were only two pay movies, "A Star is Born",
> and "Raggedy Ann and Andy") because their billing system was messed up.
> Another game was to figure out how to defeat the box and watch free
> movies - they went through 5 generations or so before it got too hard
> for ordinary consumers to bother. The first one was the easiest - press
> down three or more black response buttons and change the column from
> C or T to P. The light would indicate the old column, but the filter
> bank would change internally, displaying the P channels. You could
> swap from 1 to 10 at will. The system never noticed you were in the
> premium rank. It got harder after that.
>
> I kinda miss it. We used to have great fun with the kids show, and it
> was good for cooking shows, too. It expanded to several cities in Ohio
> and Texas before Warner folded it.
>
> This was all well over 10 years ago, so the technology is quite on topic.
>
> -ethan
>
>
>
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Received on Fri Jun 21 2002 - 12:30:46 BST