If you were lucky enough to have cable TV back in 1998, you may remember a fledgling channel called “TechTV.” The crown jewel of the network was a show called “The Screen Savers.” Well, recently the TWiT Network has relaunched the show (without the partnership or permission from the old producers) as “The New Screen Savers” – and it’s almost exactly as we remembered it. The show features tech news, tip and tricks – starring the lovable [Leo Laporte] as the main host.
We’ll assume that most Hackaday readers are at a level of knowledge above what’s generally presented in the show, but we have to admit that we almost always find some little tech tip or software review that we didn’t know about. And if you know someone who is starting to take an interest in all things tech, this might be a great way for them to start learning quickly – and to gain exposure to a wide variety of topics.
If you’re looking for a bit of nostalgia, many of the co-hosts of the old show return regularly. People like [Kevin Rose], [Patrick Norton] and [Sarah Lane]. You can watch the show on the TWiT site or on YouTube. We’ve included the first episode after the break.
ZOMG Why am I JUST hearing about this?!!?!?
“lovable [Leo Laporte]”
The guy that thinks it’s OK to crack gay jokes, expose himself and harass women on air?
https://totaldrama.net does a good job chronicle his adventures.
This brings me back to great times!
Knock knock, 8 months ago is calling. To bad Leo Laporte has become such a creepy d-bag. After he banned John C Dvorak from the twit network. I hope his network fails.
Knock knock, Dvorak? Is that you? “Dvorak said on show 600 of No Agenda that he occasionally posts online under the pseudonym Mark Pugner.[26]” Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Dvorak ;) What are the odds? Hi Mark, errrr…I mean John. If so, enjoyed your articles from back in the day!
I don’t know what’s more creepy… That an old fart tech tv show host is trolling the hackaday comments in response to a crappy shown coming back, or that you knew Johns bio so well that you managed to pick out that he posts under the name Mark Pugner. Nothing personal against you, I just looked it up and I was like what the hell? What are the odds? I’m torn.
3 second google search. No stalking.
My afternoon beverage just made an unscheduled emergency departure from my oral cavity via my nostrils and possibly my ears. Cleanup in cubicle C12. Also – BUSTED!!!
He didn’t ban him- his is still a regular guest on the TWIT show.
Um No.
Screen Savers was fine, but the best show that TechTV and later CNet TV had was Silicon Spin, hosted by, yes, Dvorak. Industry critics and journos talking about the days events….. A certain amount of intelligence around the table, with access to the real power in the industry.
Yeah, if George Graves thinks of Leo as “lovable” then he obviously hasn’t been around for very long, or at least hasn’t been paying attention to Leo’s behavior over the years
Ok, just refreshed and saw the comment from George Graves about who Mark Pugner might be. If so, that’s frickin hilarious.
Now all they need to do is hire Stewart Cheifet to get that Computer Chronicles relaunch off the ground!
Mr. Cheifet got me interested in pursuing a job in technology/programming. I remember vividly one of the last episodes about the new Paradox software and SDK. Rolled myself to the student bookstore and bought a copy and never looked back….
I’m the Batman !
Even back before the internet, the weekly computer TV show segment wasn’t keeping up and practically useless to cover enough topics. The magazines were a much better media for info and they have ads pages for computer related products too. Easily you get at least an order of magnitude more material in one go.
Maybe they could get Kim Commando in there too to round it out.
Hmm, strange. It’s not like the internet to overreact about something petty.
TechTV’s studios were in San Francisco and I went up there on a few occasions to watch tapings of both TSS and Martin Sergeant’s show “unscrewed.”
Fun times.
I miss Martin and Sara’s This Week in Fun.
I love the ham radio gear and old school broadcast mixing console & mics on set.
I loved The Screen Savers. Still chuckle when I recall the episode where they were detailing hard drive destruction for data security and unexpectedly discovered the drive used ceramic disk platters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIfb972epFU
…I wonder what Morgan Webb is up to these days.
Hell yes… Morgan Webb.. Yum..
Morgan works at Blizzard, I think she does videos to do with World of Warcraft.
One word why the original series died…
Utili-kilts
Didn’t realise Leo was such a douche until I saw this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uiGHeSfD04g&itct=CBgQpDAYASITCKXy2Y-z9MkCFQawHAodrUkAdzIHcmVsYXRlZEjVyPrs-_72w2A%3D&hl=en-GB&gl=IE&client=mv-google
Watched five minutes, intro made me cringe, the rest was like the over excitement bs reporting you see in E3 streams. (basically your run of the mill sponsored American tv?? forgive me if this is a wrong assumption) so i’ll pass.
I was extremely wary when G4 came on the scene and it became G4TechTV, then all of the good shows were killed off and it reverted to G4, just keeping the gaming shows. I still harbor resentment against G4 to this day for killing off TechTV. Then Revision3 was born and I was able to eventually watch a number of comparable programs. Though the death of shows when Discovery came on the scene was a twinge of déjà vu for me. Glad to see this coming back.