• Lenny@lemmy.zip
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    1 month ago

    I remember having to crack the PIN code to access the locked channels (which would just give me access to things like skinemax late at night). I faked sick one day to stay home and set to work. I think there was a short timeout after a few failed attempts, so you could only go so fast. It only took 852 tries but I got it! It was 0852, which was just a straight line up the keypad 😑

    • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Hearing this let’s me realize how lucky I was in this regard. I got a PSP when I was young and either my parents didn’t know it had an internet browser or they didn’t know it was a fully fleshed out browser.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I grew up on AOL, and the day I figured out internet explorer allowed me to access the Internet outside of their locked down kids mode was glorious.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    1 month ago

    My dad was a film historian, so we had HBO, Cinemax and Showtime in case anything came on that he needed to tape to show to a class.

    This was quite helpful to teenage me in the era before internet porn.

  • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    My dad got these black market cable boxes from one of his less than reputable friends way back when. We got literally everything, including full porn channels that weren’t scrambled. They were technically blocked by my parents, but the family pincode was well known.

    I used to watch the porn channels and never could figure out why they were so… Meh for me. Turns out, very gay. Lol

    Once my parents split up we didn’t have those boxes anymore, and I used to watch Cat House and went through the same “why is this so frustratingly close to being good” experience lol

    • Entropywins@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Quick question…was straight porn like ew gross or just not interesting? I find your porn story really funny and hope I don’t offend by saying so.

      • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        No, not gross. Before I knew I was gay it more frustrating than anything. Like, I knew this was sexual, I knew I wanted to enjoy it, and I knew it made me horny. But it wasn’t enough to cross than line into, like, getting me there and being enjoyable. It wasn’t until I found my brother’s porn magazines that I really enjoyed porn, and that was because of the guys in it, and a few erotic stories in them written from women’s POV. I still didn’t realize I was gay or that it was the guys getting me there until one day, when I was like 13/14 and I had a blackberry. I found a site that had nude pictures of celebrities (some blog, not like a dedicated site), and there were (I’m assuming fake) nudes or Kirk Cameron on a boat. OMG, I got off so hard, and then went into full panic when I realized what that meant. Spent the next few years trying to figure out how to undo it. Lol.

  • Grabthar@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Had C-band satellite as a teen. All the good channels locked. But if the satellite Spacenet 1 transponder 18 was locked, you could “fine tune” the reception from say, Galaxy 3 transponder 18 by holding the step up or down button, and manually swing the dish halfway across the sky to the same position where Spacenet 1 is. As the descrambler thinks you are watching a different satellite altogether, there is no more lock. And since you never actually visited a bad channel, no way to tell with history or last buttons.