Old Scientific Atlanta Cable Box circa 4/7/1982

[Karfinwen]

I have an ancient (circa April 1982) Scientific Atlanta cable box,
There is a laminated square on the back that says: Model no. 6703-0505 (Bar code) Serial no. A242540 (Bar code) Tier Alch (Bar code) ATL 07-APR-82

It has an aged white business card-quality sheet on the back with Scientific Atlanta in the heading, followed by a WARNING: and a CAUTION:, ELECTRICAL RATING: 115V 60 HZ 20 W.

Any information about the model number of this product, how many were produced, if it has value as an antique/vintage/whatever, and if so, a good place to go to sell it, would be GREATLY appreciated!

email me at jordanjn11 <at> hotmail <dot> com

 

[dlxmax]

Ha, I remember this box well. In our family we called this the "cheater box". We used it up until we moved in 1990, years past when the local cable company wanted to replace it with something new. Why? Because we could get all the premium channels for free.

We subscribed to one premium channel, I believe it was Showtime. Anyway, to access the other channels for free you first went to your premium channel, I assume to activate the descrambling. At this point you had to push down simultaneously on three or four (likely) keys on the right and bottom sides of the keypad. If I recall correctly, this would then turn off the LED channel display, but then you would key in the number of the premium channel that you wished to watch--but weren't a subscriber of. The LED display would then show the channel, and the channel would come up on the TV perfectly. I guess it was a backdoor.

My step-dad told me about this hack, so I could watch HBO and Cinemax, and the other premium channels. Of course, being a smart kid, I was watching the Playboy channel in no time at all when the folks weren't around. Anybody remember Electric Blue? lol.