2 sided cable systems

[nomadcowatbk]

Some cable systems had an A side and a B side to increase capability, this didn't work well for VCR recording, Telecable (later TCI, now Time Warner) in Johnson County KS had a system like this

 

[azumanga]

As did the Cablesystem in Toledo -- these systems actually had two coaxes coming into the home, one for each "side", with a cable box separating them.

 

[willdav713]

CableMaxx a competitor to Paragon Cable San Antonio had such system all TV's had to be hooked up to a Scientific Atlanta Cable box, you got 45 channels, my neighbor used to have it. Two cable lines had to come out of the wall instead of one.

I think Grande took it over, But I still couldn't understand how they did it, since the cable lines were over head, and I didn't see lineman install new pole wiring.

For VCR's not complicated at all, however watching one program while recording another, forget about it as it had to be on Channel 3 or 4. Of course, you could have two boxes which would be 4 incoming cable lines (haven't seen it, but possible)

In 2000 they switched to Direct Broadcast Satellite.

 

[FreddyE1977]

Warner QUBE here in Pittsburgh. Was the only way to get the channel count up in the 90's using circa 1980
analog technology. If you had the QUBE converter it switched to the higher tier automatically and you did not
notice. But if you were using a cable ready set or a VCR you had to go out and buy an A-B switch. TCI and
its successors continued to use Cable B until around the year 2000.

 

[Mr Tony]

Paragon Cable in Minneapolis did. My aunt had 2 cables into the cable box and there was a A/B button on the remote
They used the same boxes in the burbs which didnt have A/B so many times you hit the a/b button and got static.

Minneapolis had like 15-18 public access channels so thats why they used the A/B....I know the locals were on both sides

 

[willdav713]

Warner QUBE here in Pittsburgh. Was the only way to get the channel count up in the 90's using circa 1980
analog technology. If you had the QUBE converter it switched to the higher tier automatically and you did not
notice. But if you were using a cable ready set or a VCR you had to go out and buy an A-B switch. TCI and
its successors continued to use Cable B until around the year 2000.

If you had the TV my granddad had a Zenith 25" Console set made in 1987, you had a box on the back that let you hookup 4 coax inputs to it, and by pressing ANT on the set or the remote, you could get all the channels (non scrambled ones of course)