This may surprise younger readers, but there was once a time when the reality programming on The Weather Channel was simply, you know, weather. It used to be no more than a ten-minute wait to “Local on the Eights”, with simple text crawls of local conditions and forecasts that looked like they were taken straight from the National Weather Service feed. Those were the days, and sadly they seem to be gone forever.
Or perhaps not, if this retro weather channel feed has anything to say about it. It’s the product of [probnot] and consists of a simple Python program that runs on a Raspberry Pi. Being from Winnipeg, [probnot] is tapping into Environment Canada for local weather data, but it should be easy enough to modify to use your local weather provider’s API. The screen is full of retro goodness, from the simple color scheme to the blocky white text; the digital clock and local news crawl at the bottom complete the old school experience. It doesn’t appear that the code supports the period-correct smooth jazz saxophone, but that too should be a simple modification.
All jibing aside, this would be a welcome addition to the morning routine. And for the full retro ride, why not consider putting it in an old TV case?
The Weather Channel? This look is pure local cable-company. All it’s missing is some classified ads.
“This creates the old-school looking weather channel that was common on Winnipeg cable TV into the 1990s.”
The distinction between a weather channel and The Weather Channel seems to have gotten lost. We had these on cable as well – now if it would just cycle through to the radar feed (which was unavailable on dial-up at the time)…
I’d love to see a feed that does today’s weather with the 90’s style of THE Weather Channel. Especially one that includes the music.
One of those android (or equivalent) TV boxes could be programmed.
the background music of the “Local on the 8’s” segments from that time is something I, weirdly, miss.
“And now your local forecast, accurate and dependable, from The Weather Channel.” *soft jazz*
“Take Five” by Dave Brubeck on endless loop
I remember “Rhapsody in Blue” for Local on the Eights, tied in with commercials for United Airlines. Nothing ever made me want to fly so badly as that.
When they stopped showing weather in that manner, I stopped using the Weather Channel completely. It became the “Jim Cantory Channel” at that point which was worthless.
In modern times this would be an app on our “smart” TVs.
Actually this seems a lot better than the current “Weather Channel” solution. Simple text, the info you need, and not a lot of extra. Add commute info and it would be close to perfect. Of late I have been feeling nostalgic about things like local TV and radio stations that where part of the community vs here is another infomercial.
The “Glory” of cable tv?
-Crap -Timeshifted Crap -HD Crap -HD Timeshifted Crap -Sports Crap – blacked out -Timeshifted Sports Crap – blacked out -HD Sports Crap – blacked out -Timeshifted HD Sports Crap – blacked out -The one channel you want to watch, but not timeshifted, and not in HD -Shopping Crap -HD Shopping Crap -Infomercials -Weather -Religious Crap -Foreign Language Crap
Sorry the one channel you wanted to watch has been moved to the Expanded Horizons family package which is another 23.99 a month.
Television is like a pass to an all-you-can-eat buffet, but 99% of the buffet is trash, and the one item suitable for eating, is refilled once every month or so.
Final straw for me a few years back was when they decided that I should pay for 10 channels of 24/7 football coverage in order to see the motor racing.
Well yah, the basic level cable packages these days are about what you get with a good antenna most places… and by good, only like an 8 bay that costs 1 months worth.
Here in Australia Foxtel (controlled by Mr Murdoch unfortunately) is the monopoly cable/pay TV provider. And for what the cheapest Foxtel package costs per month, I could get all 4 of the biggest streaming providers in Australia (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus AND Stan) and have a lot more good content to watch than what you would get in that basic Foxtel package.
There’s also a fancy WS4000 simulator: http://www.taiganet.com/
This just decided my next Raspberry Pi project. A dedicated display for weather information and smooth jazz. Better yet, I’ll get an RF modulator and tap into my apartment’s vestigial coax cables to broadcast Retro Weather Channel to every room!
I didn’t know I needed this, but I needed this. Thanks!
Before that, local cable companies had a set of analog thermometer, barometer, clock, etc., (typically 4 or 5 dials) and had a black and white camera with a slow motorized pan sweep on it that would slowly scan the dials.
The modern weather display prominently displays the high tides, so you know when the streets will be flooded.
https://www.servizitelevideo.rai.it/televideo/pub/pagina.jsp?p=700&s=0&r=Nazionale&idmenumain=11
In Italy there’s still teletext, and also in Germany.
teletext is still on the dutch public tv channels.
Yes! And you can even access it via internet! Check it out: https://nos.nl/teletekst
The cable company in Ocean Shores has advertisements that appear a screen at a time, with the time complete with seconds, and if I remember right, I think it had the temperature. The top was in blue with white text that said COAST COMMUNICATIONS in blocky ASCII netters, then most of the screen would be red or green depending on what was being advertised. Then at the bottom you had the time and date, and I think the temperature but not sure.
The only decent feature of coast communications… Expensive slow limited internet / cable. Also, holy shit somebody from ocean shores!?
I miss the old National Weather Service emergency alerts where everything was in all caps and some computer voice guy from THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OXNARD would yell at you about how it might rain (here in california if it rains more than 0.25″ in a 24hr period it is a major emergency and most drivers crash their car)
I still get this. My local cable company, Kraus Cable, Manhattan, IL, generates the “Community Channel” off of an Atari 400 using the composite video output over driving the video with its characteristic buzz. It’s the 80’s every day!
I somehow knew that someone was going to bring up an Atari 400 in this thread…
Used to get this on Telecable in Bloomington, Il. … until Xfinity bought the system. Miss those days but don’t miss Illinois (The Land A Sinkin’ ) since I moved to southwestern Missouri.
You may not know it,but Telecable started The Weather Channel. Was there for the launch. Only Telecable owned systems got the first night.We had a launch party in Bloomington. Unfortunately there were many owners between Telecable and Xfinity!!
It appears on some satellite listing sites that “The Weather Channel” is an unencrypted FTA feed on one or several satellites. So can you just grab any old receiver and dish and pull that in or what? Anyone doing it?
Why not just have the Raspi use a voice synthesizer and read the weather data to you, like a weather radio?
Is there a US feed ? Would love to do this at home.
Maybe this? https://forecast.weather.gov/product_sites.php?site=NWS&product=AFD or dig around the site.
Just setup a microbit based weather station and online in underground. Not sound my next project but weather is so far fun. All those F, feet, … sigh. Thought we are in the metric world.
I am so glad TELETEXT is no longer with us … pleease …
This looks very similar to the local info and classified ad channel that some of us have watched in the 80’s and 90’s. From what I’ve found, it was a Commodore Amiga running the whole shebang. Has anyone seen a way to run an Amiga on a pi or Arduino?
I like this concept. I took the code and modifying it to run on the 7″ display for the RPI and use XML from NOAA for the weather data. Beautiful Soup scraper to get community news. As BeagleBoy said, maybe some Craig’s List classifieds? Who knows.
I have some other ideas to really enhance the “Channel 3 Cable TV” experience.
Totally relaxing till the tornado or storm warning comes up. BWAAAA! BWAAAA! BWAAAA! Or “This is a test of the emergency broadcast system” Of course you weren’t in the room when they said that part.
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