Essay Waxes Poetic About Analog TV 'Snow'

06.19.2009

Paul Saffo, writing in the City Brights section on SFGate.com, doesn't want to throw away his analog TV set. It sounds as if he really isn't interested in a converter box for it either─he doesn't want to lose the “snow.”

“Digital TV is wonderful, but there is one feature from the age of Analog TV that I will miss – snow,” Saffo wrote. “Yes, that warm white hiss that appeared whenever reception was bad, or a station went off the air. Snow isn't noise; it is signal, and the first humans to realize it won the Nobel Prize.

Take a moment to read his entire article - Save that old TV - there's a message in the 'snow'. In case you are wondering, Paul Saffo is a Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, teaches at Stanford University and holds degrees from Harvard, Cambridge University and Stanford University.