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Slightly tangential thing I learned: Have you ever wondered why VCR clocks always showed 12:00 and were never set[0]? It's because people simply didn't bother

Slightly tangential thing I learned: Have you ever wondered why VCR clocks always showed 12:00 and were never set[0]? It's because people simply didn't bother set the time on the VCR. I learned this from Mikko Hyppönen when he was telling us that people never change the default password on their IOT devices allowing hackers to access the devices and probably use the devices for cryptocurrency mining or launching a DDoS attack. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3a06hk/were_vcr_clocks_actually_very_difficult_to_set/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3a06hk/were_vcr_...

pkaye 5y ago
Also the VCR would often lose the clock settings if there was a power failure and to set it again you had to find the manual so ou just lived with it being unset.
- mcny 5y ago
  For others who are just hearing about this now https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinking_twelve_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinking_twelve_problem
  - ______- 5y ago
    Just posted this to HN. So interesting!
Zecc 5y ago
> Have you ever wondered why VCR clocks always showed 12:00 and were never set Not really. It's the same reason idle microwaves also "always" show 00:00.
jaclaz 5y ago
To be fair, the issue is not that people did not set the time, everyone with a brand new VCR took the normally needed one-two-three hours time to read the (bulky) instructions and learn about tens of functions they would never use at first installation, and did set the time. Only, next time there was a blackout (or even in some cases a low or high spike in voltage) of the mains (or you needed to switch it off to do some electrical repairs) the time would reset to 12:00 and usually there was no way to re-set it without the instruction manual and it was way too work to find the instructions. For the nostalgics, a nice .gif: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1200am_blink.gif https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1200am_blink.gif

pkaye 5y ago

Also the VCR would often lose the clock settings if there was a power failure and to set it again you had to find the manual so ou just lived with it being unset.

mcny 5y ago
For others who are just hearing about this now https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinking_twelve_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blinking_twelve_problem
- ______- 5y ago
  Just posted this to HN. So interesting!

Zecc 5y ago

> Have you ever wondered why VCR clocks always showed 12:00 and were never set Not really. It's the same reason idle microwaves also "always" show 00:00.

jaclaz 5y ago

To be fair, the issue is not that people did not set the time, everyone with a brand new VCR took the normally needed one-two-three hours time to read the (bulky) instructions and learn about tens of functions they would never use at first installation, and did set the time. Only, next time there was a blackout (or even in some cases a low or high spike in voltage) of the mains (or you needed to switch it off to do some electrical repairs) the time would reset to 12:00 and usually there was no way to re-set it without the instruction manual and it was way too work to find the instructions. For the nostalgics, a nice .gif: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1200am_blink.gif https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1200am_blink.gif