Hooray – it’s Sci-Friday – enjoy this little trip down retrofuturist tech lane where we talk about the nascent, niche technology: TV modems! Back in the late 90s – pre-broadband – you were interested in ANY technology that allowed you to download faster than 56K. Why? It took forever! Throughput times in the days, months, years in some cases. En Technology thought of a neat way to get around the problem using technology everyone had in their home. Take a look and then let’s discuss:
You can see the appeal almost immediately. “En’s Cybercast System, originally unveiled under the code-name ‘Malachi,’ used the speed, bandwidth and universal availability of the analog television signal to distribute data. The end user component, En’s TVModem, worked with virtually 100 percent of all IBM-compatible personal computers in use in the 90’s. TVModems were designed to be affordable, with models retailing for $100 to $150.”
I wasn’t able to find a breakdown of how it all works, but I suspect they were using the analog TV signal – specifically the audio frequency above 150 kHz, out of human hearing – to broadcast data to any listening TV modem. The modem would receive the data – just like if it came across a phone line – and reassemble the demodulated sound into bytes. Neato!
What was it like to use a TV Modem? En Technology’s old website explains: “During a special two-minute segment of the show, dubbed CyberBlast!, viewers equipped with En’s TVModem will receive more than four megabytes of compressed computer content that complements the television program. Viewers without a TVModem can download the content through En’s Web site, although those equipped with a TVModem will receive the information 30 times faster than through a 14.4Kbps telephone modem.”
Other TV programs of the time had their own version of TV data transfer. For example, Bad Influence! was a program on CITV featured a ‘datablast.’ “Datablast – which viewers were encouraged to record on their video recorders – consisted of a number of pages of gaming articles and information that were flashed rapidly onto the screen during the credits. Viewers could then read the pages by replaying it in slow motion on their video player. The information consisted of a watered down version of most of that episodes features, as well as some exclusive content, such as Top Ten video games charts.”
Interesting use of tech. The TV modem never caught on and was quickly made redundant by broadband. Nevertheless, the TV modem remains a fascinating piece of retrofuturist tech for us to appreciate and reflect on.
Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great weekend! 🙂
