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WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

weatherstar.netbymatt.com

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Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#91

Post by rubit_xxx17 »

theklub wrote: post #73
jazzyjackson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, of course. I guess I just put a lot of weight on the charm of keeping old things running, and think there's value to the public in allowing free use of music, particularly for non-commercial/educational purposes.

Not sure if you are aware but the weather Channel sold music CDs I have one.

Can also stream it at Internet archive:

https://archive.org/details/WeatherChannelMusic

https://archive.org/details/weatherscancompletecollection

https://archive.org/details/lfset1

https://archive.org/details/the-weather-channel-presents-the...

https://archive.org/details/the-weather-channel-presents-smo...

https://archive.org/details/weatherscanlocalmusic

YouTube has a few TWC playlists:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMUZjd023YBtp0iB962Uz...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYyTo0ex76Q&list=PL2UoJXK3rr...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmGd-cx-dXc

It’s on Twitch:

https://m.twitch.tv/retroweatherchannel?desktop-redirect=tru...

There’s a nice Spotify playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WEViIh23PGbLqGbjYNAZz

And the site dedicated to it mentioned earlier in the thread has some recordings:

https://twcclassics.com/

Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#92

Post by Maxious »

CursedSilicon wrote: post #79
ndiddy wrote: post #3

If you're interested in this, someone on YouTube got a WeatherStar 4000 (device that sat at cable headends and generated the local weather report graphics) and wrote all new firmware to make 90's style weather reports on the real hardware. This was necessary because the original firmware was downloaded over satellite so it's now lost. It looks basically identical to the real Weather Channel from the 90s, except it do…

If it's the same one that brings the equipment to Retro Computing events. He sadly has declined to publish any kind of archive of the software for other hobbyists :( I understand that he's under no obligation to do so. But a lot of us worry that if the hard disks die or if he loses interest in the hobby, that software will be irrevocably lost for all of us

The youtube stream has a link in the description for EEPROM dumps https://hackaday.io/project/178144-reverse-engineering-the-w...

Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#93

Post by ecocentrik »

gasgiant wrote: post #34

I listen to a lot of Pat Metheny Group, which my wife refers to as "Weather Channel Music". I used to argue that Pat was waaay better than the stuff on the Weather Channel, until one day we had it on in a hotel room and "Last Train Home" came on, and I had to shut the heck up.

"Last Train Home" was used in a popular supermarket chain (Publix) commercial in the 1990s. I'm pretty sure it was one of Pat's most commercially successful songs. The album, "Still Life", is great.

Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#95

Post by vanadium »

alexjplant wrote: post #81
ivraatiems wrote: post #43

I love this. Why is the music so good? How do I get more music like this?

There's an archival effort here [1]. It seems to have primarily been instrumental jazz fusion and adjacent artists like The Flecktones, The Rippingtons, Pat Metheny, Spyro Gyra, Phish, etc. I'm personally a bit more into the guitar shred-oriented type of fusion as practiced by Frank Gambale, Alan Holdsworth (RIP), Shawn Lane (RIP #2), Guthrie Govan, and Scott Henderson. The insane guitar acrobatics more than make up…

This is impressive.

Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#99

Post by CursedSilicon »

Maxious wrote: post #92
CursedSilicon wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's the same one that brings the equipment to Retro Computing events. He sadly has declined to publish any kind of archive of the software for other hobbyists :( I understand that he's under no obligation to do so. But a lot of us worry that if the hard disks die or if he loses interest in the hobby, that software will be irrevocably lost for all of us

The youtube stream has a link in the description for EEPROM dumps https://hackaday.io/project/178144-reverse-engineering-the-w...

There's some that runs specifically on SGI machines to do the TV graphics that has not been dumped afaik

Re: WeatherStar 4000+: Weather Channel Simulator

#100

Post by catgirlinspace »

Completely forgot about Local on the 8s! I remember when I was much younger (probably around 12 or 13) I was obsessed for a while with how it worked on DirecTV- there was a national feed that was being played as normal, but when that started there was also some signal sent that (if you were lucky enough for it to actually work) would cause the receiver to generate a few static images for the saved zip code that were styled to look like Local on the 8s, and those would just be shown on top of the national feed. Best video I could find of it was https://youtu.be/WX2KQHJ8vHA (usually it was not synced that well to start and finish with the actual national feed, from what I saw it was pretty often you'd see the first few seconds or last few seconds of the national feed).
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