I miss Qube, unfortunately interactive two-way cable TV didn't go anywhere.
When I lived in Columbus, Ohio back in the late 1970's, I first subscribed to cable television which was in its infancy. Fortunately the cable system in town was Warner Communications' experimental Qube.
My cable controller had response buttons which offered such luxury as quiz shows where all viewers were contestants. Once you missed a question your response buttons were locked out.
Election season was made more interesting. During interviews of local candidates viewers could register whether they believed the candidate was honest or not. These interviews were broken down into 5-minute segments which concluded by asking viewers whether they wanted to hear more from this guy or move on to the next one.
Throughout Ohio State basketball games they asked if viewers thought OSU would win and then at conclusion allow us to vote for player of the game.
One of the most interesting experiences was the night they allowed us viewers to call the plays during a Columbus semi-pro football game. I didn't even know until then that Columbus had a semi-pro football team. So as the game moved along we were given 5 seconds to select our option of play to run which was signaled into the quarterback (he had option to audible out of it).
The system was also being tested in one of the "B" cities in Montana. Forget whether it was Butte or Billings. After moving to Arizona a few years later a women from there was hired who shared with me her experience with it, saying her husband had won one of those quiz shows.
The only last legacy of the system is Nickelodeon which started as Qube's channel for children.
When I lived in Columbus, Ohio back in the late 1970's, I first subscribed to cable television which was in its infancy. Fortunately the cable system in town was Warner Communications' experimental Qube.
My cable controller had response buttons which offered such luxury as quiz shows where all viewers were contestants. Once you missed a question your response buttons were locked out.
Election season was made more interesting. During interviews of local candidates viewers could register whether they believed the candidate was honest or not. These interviews were broken down into 5-minute segments which concluded by asking viewers whether they wanted to hear more from this guy or move on to the next one.
Throughout Ohio State basketball games they asked if viewers thought OSU would win and then at conclusion allow us to vote for player of the game.
One of the most interesting experiences was the night they allowed us viewers to call the plays during a Columbus semi-pro football game. I didn't even know until then that Columbus had a semi-pro football team. So as the game moved along we were given 5 seconds to select our option of play to run which was signaled into the quarterback (he had option to audible out of it).
The system was also being tested in one of the "B" cities in Montana. Forget whether it was Butte or Billings. After moving to Arizona a few years later a women from there was hired who shared with me her experience with it, saying her husband had won one of those quiz shows.
The only last legacy of the system is Nickelodeon which started as Qube's channel for children.
