After 23 Years, Weather Channel's Iconic Computerized Channel Is Shutting Down (arstechnica.com) 10
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the early 2000s, Americans who wanted to catch the local weather forecast at any time might turn on their TV and switch over to Weatherscan, a 24-hour computer-controlled weather forecast channel with a relaxing smooth jazz soundtrack. After 23 years, The Weather Channel announced that Weatherscan will be shutting down permanently on or before December 9. But a group of die-hard fans will not let it go quietly into the night.
Launched in 1999, Weatherscan currently appears in a dwindling number of local American cable TV and satellite markets. It shows automated local weather information on a loop, generated by an Intellistar computer system installed locally for each market. Declining viewership and the ubiquity of smartphone weather apps are the primary reasons it's going offline. There are also technical issues with maintaining the hardware behind the service. "Weatherscan has been dying a slow death over the course of the last 10 years because the hardware is aging," says Mike Bates, a tech hobbyist who collects and restores Weather Channel computer hardware as part of a group of die-hard fans who follow insider news from the company. "It's 20 years old now, and more and more cable companies have been pulling the service." [...]
Hobbyists like Bates (who goes by "techknight" on Twitter) have collected the hardware necessary to run their own Weatherscan stations out of their homes. Some have also created software that simulates the service in a browser. [...] However, getting Weatherscan to run locally was a team effort, primarily by friends named Ethan, Brian, and Jesse. One of the Intellistar computer models behind the service runs FreeBSD on a Pentium 4-based PC in a blue rack-mount enclosure. It includes an ATI card for generating the graphics and a proprietary PowerPC-based card that pulls it all together to make it broadcast-ready. To get Weatherscan working at home, the group of friends found decommissioned Intellistar units on eBay and used forensic tools to reconstruct data from the hard drives, piecing together a working version of the Weatherscan software from multiple sources. Since then, they have exhibited their work at shows like the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest last month.
Launched in 1999, Weatherscan currently appears in a dwindling number of local American cable TV and satellite markets. It shows automated local weather information on a loop, generated by an Intellistar computer system installed locally for each market. Declining viewership and the ubiquity of smartphone weather apps are the primary reasons it's going offline. There are also technical issues with maintaining the hardware behind the service. "Weatherscan has been dying a slow death over the course of the last 10 years because the hardware is aging," says Mike Bates, a tech hobbyist who collects and restores Weather Channel computer hardware as part of a group of die-hard fans who follow insider news from the company. "It's 20 years old now, and more and more cable companies have been pulling the service." [...]
Hobbyists like Bates (who goes by "techknight" on Twitter) have collected the hardware necessary to run their own Weatherscan stations out of their homes. Some have also created software that simulates the service in a browser. [...] However, getting Weatherscan to run locally was a team effort, primarily by friends named Ethan, Brian, and Jesse. One of the Intellistar computer models behind the service runs FreeBSD on a Pentium 4-based PC in a blue rack-mount enclosure. It includes an ATI card for generating the graphics and a proprietary PowerPC-based card that pulls it all together to make it broadcast-ready. To get Weatherscan working at home, the group of friends found decommissioned Intellistar units on eBay and used forensic tools to reconstruct data from the hard drives, piecing together a working version of the Weatherscan software from multiple sources. Since then, they have exhibited their work at shows like the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest last month.
Shades of Prevue Guide (Score:2)
How reminiscent of the Prevue Guide [prevueguide.com].
It seems like this must all be easier today with the digital video, you don't need to play tricks to overlay. If there's a delay due to processing, no big deal, factor it in.
Re: (Score:3)
they send the data over the analog base band (Score:3)
they send the data over the analog base band for the older Weather Channel stars and it was one of the last Videocipher II Channels.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you for identifying the root cause here.
did they ever fix the Daylight Savings Time crash? (Score:2)
did they ever fix the Daylight Savings Time crash?
yes at Daylight Savings Time change the units will crash and reboot.
Re: (Score:2)
Given the units have been unmaintained for over a decade, and basically decommissioned as they fail, the bug is probably still there.
Knowing how most projects are, the source code has long been lost as well.
Vintage Computer Fest (Score:3)
I think those guys were at Vintage Computer Fest. Here's Lazy Games Review covering their table (@ 13:30 if the time indexed Youtube link doesn't work)
https://youtu.be/bICt3WRH4Bs?t... [youtu.be]
Stream it (Score:2)
Why not stream it live on youtube?
Re: (Score:3)
People totally do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]