Why did old TVs produce an awfully loud static noise and weird visual when they had no signal rather than showing nothing like newer TVs do?
In: Technology
Those old TVs used discrete analog components. There is no central processing unit to coordinate things. They simply react to the electrical signals that arrived on the antenna. So when there is no usable signal, the components don’t know that and still try to decode whatever tiny random signals show up on the antenna. The static sounds and “snow” visual is just what happens when those components try to decode random radio signals.
Think of something like a water pump. It’s designed to pump water and does it well but it doesn’t know when there isn’t water in the pump and will just try to pump air instead and make a terrible weird noise.
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