FieldStation42: The golden age of 90s cable brought to you by a Raspberry Pi

Inspired by his collaborators, developer Shane Mason has released a 3D printable model of a retro cable box to complement his 90s cable simulation project, FieldStation42. The cable box has all the expected retro features, from a tactile number pad to select channels to a monochrome numerical display. While the outside may look retro, the cable box houses a Raspberry Pi running FieldStation42, which uses clever programming to recreate the magic of cable.

Watching TV may be easy, but as users will find out, programming TV is a little more nuanced. Fortunately, FieldStation42 includes several features to help users recreate their own nostalgic experience, including:

• Support for multiple simultaneous channels
• Generating weekly schedules for user-defined stations
• Per-channel random show selection to simulate actual broadcasting
• Automatic seasonal show selections, i.e., Christmas, Halloween, etc, through date configurations
• Flexible scheduling to support a broader range of media and channel types
• Preview/Guide channel

Additionally, the new scheduler for FieldStation42 combats the challenge of organizing content by utilizing time slots, tags, and break strategies to generate more realistic schedules as well as programmable scheduling hints. Users can also leverage the new text-based UI to create catalogs and schedules instead of using the command line. Ultimately, however, the simulation will only be as good as the content provided to FieldStation42, with an abundance of responsibly sourced channel bumpers, commercials, TV shows, and movies being the best resources to create the optimal channel flipping experience. Curious channel surfers can find information on building a FieldStation42 or see it in action in the links below.