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Pro tip: the TV aisle at the Portland Value Village is a goldmine for old cable boxes
Stopped by the Value Village out on 82nd in Portland last Saturday to drop off some old paint cans and wandered into the electronics aisle. Sitting right there on the shelf was a working General Instrument cable box from around 1997 with the remote taped to it for $12. I brought it home, plugged it in, and it still boots up and shows the old channel guide screens before it loses signal, which was a real trip down memory lane. The remote even has that satisfying clicky feel I totally forgot about. Has anyone else found old cable gear at thrift stores, and did yours actually power on?
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leow901mo ago
That old Guide Plus setup was wild, it would scroll through listings on its own at like 2am and you could set it to auto tune to a show. Half the fun of these boxes now is just watching them do their thing, like the clock flipping over or the info banner popping up when you mash the guide button. I grabbed a Scientific Atlanta box a while back that had the previous owner's pay-per-view order history still saved in the menu, which was way more entertaining than whatever was actually on. Even without a signal those menus and boot screens are a little time capsule of how clunky everything used to be. $12 is a steal for that, the clicky remotes alone go for more than that online.
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