Cable TV question

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by etype2

ATSC was made backward compatible by use of the digital converter box. In fact, every family in the U.S. was allowed to get two coupons for two free converters boxes until the 1.34 billion funding ran out.

If you have to add external equipment to, or modify existing equipment in order to intelligibly receive a new version of a signal (or format), then that signal (or format) is NOT BACKWARDS COMPATIBLE!...It is backwards CONVERTIBLE.

As an example of true backwards compatibility; when they added stereo sound to FM radio in the early 60's all the old mono FM radios could still tune and play the FM stereo stations stations in mono without any modifications or added external equipment.

As an example of backwards convertibility; when Cassettes started to outsell 8-track tapes you could buy an 8-track cartridge that had no tape in it, but rather a small cassette tape mechanism that stole mechanical energy from the 8-track decks' capstan and electrical energy from the tape foil sensor in the 8-track deck (to read the cassette head, amplify it, and feed that to another head that contacted the 8-track player's head and induced the signal into it).....That cartridge (an example of one is the Kraco KCA-8) effectively converted an 8-track player to a cassette player, but without it you could not just jam a Cassette tape into an 8-track player and expect it to play.

I know full well that I can, and some times do, use a DTV converter box to adapt ATSC to play on an NTSC set, but unless the laws of physics change to allow ATSC to be intelligibly tuned on an NTSC set made in lets say 1975 A.D. without a converter box through nothing but the internal antenna then ATSC it not truely backward COMPATIBLE with NTSC.