In article <slrna58vha.2u.byron@b60z27hbb464i.ab.hsia.telus.net>,
Byron Q. Desnoyers Winmill <byron@b60z27hbb464i.ab.hsia.telus.net> wrote:
Even if the entertainment markets (music, television, etc.) are
driven by upgrades, you can still use twenty year old televisions
and radios to access modern entertainment.
But for how long? Digital television is approaching, and here in
Sweden the goal now is to close down the old analog television
network around 2007 - this will make all current TV sets obsolete
unless you buy a special "digital box" to them - and you need one
"box" for each TV set. Yes, we're early compared to most other
countries, and the actual "analog turnoff" date may come later - but
the transition will come, making a lot of TV sets unusable.
And the situation was similar during the switchover from AM to FM
radio braodcasting, although the time period of parallell broadcasts
were here much longer: our first FM radio stations were put in use
around 1957, and the AM radio stations didn't close down until the
1980's. Nowadays the AM band is dead - except at night, when foreign
AM transmissions can be heard. Likewise the only AM radio
transmissions here today are those aimed abroad.