canyonwalker | (Reply)

From:

Remarkably similar to my own TV-watching experience. (We're a similar age--go fig!)

We also had a B&W TV while many people, including my grandparents, had color. We were starving students (undergrad, then grad students) so we couldn't afford a new TV.

We had five channels, but no CATV. One independent, one PBS (run by the local large university) and the affiliates for the Big Three networks, one of which was on UHF as the independent station was.

We were late-comers to cable. I remember the kids around my grandparents' house talking about "aych-BEE-yo" and me having zero clue about what it was. When we did get it several years later--in my teens--it was through a set-top box with a slider to select channels. And we didn't get any of the pay channels. We did have a color TV by then, though.