I’m sure there were other consoles that did it, but the one I remember is the NES; it had a physical switch on it for channel 3 or 4, and you had to have your TV tuned to the respective channel to get the game to show up. As to why that was necessary on a technical level, I’m not sure. But it was a thing you had to do.
It’s because it used radio frequency. Yes through a cable. The cable was basically just an antenna. The RF box in the back of your console or whatever would send the RF signal at a specific frequency, usually channel 3 but some had switches that you could change to channel 2 or 4.
I’m sure there were other consoles that did it, but the one I remember is the NES; it had a physical switch on it for channel 3 or 4, and you had to have your TV tuned to the respective channel to get the game to show up. As to why that was necessary on a technical level, I’m not sure. But it was a thing you had to do.
It’s because it used radio frequency. Yes through a cable. The cable was basically just an antenna. The RF box in the back of your console or whatever would send the RF signal at a specific frequency, usually channel 3 but some had switches that you could change to channel 2 or 4.
It’s basically like tuning in to a radio station.