“Your local weather on the 8s” is something we’ve all gotten used to watching on The Weather Channel. But how, you may have wondered, does your local cable company manage to splice your local forcast into TWC’s national broadcasts? Whelp, TWC provides every subscribing cable company with something called “WeatherStar” and this dedicated piece of hardware automates the process of retrieving and displaying current weather forecasts at the appropriate time.

In the early 1990s, “WeatherStar 4000” was in use. It has since been officially retired in favor of newer technology, but is still in use by many cable companies around the country.

Behold, the WeatherStar 4000 Emulator. It takes about 20 minutes to get it configured properly, but boy howdy it’s a pixel-perfect emulator, right down to the announcer’s voice and smooth jazz background music.

I watched a lot of The Weather Channel when I was younger, and I’m not really sure why…Usually when there wasn’t anything on TV I’d just turn it on to have something playing in the background. This emulator brings back those golden days.