Anthony DeanTVs used to be bulky boxes with DVD-level picture quality (at best). Older models had numbered physical dials on them you had to walk over to the TV and manually twist to get the channel you wanted (thus expressions like "turn the channel" or "flip the channel"). Some of these TVs even only were available in black-and-white, not color.
Anvil of Truth@dtgeek They had 13 channels (in LA we had about 8 channels until mid 1960’s.unless you count the UHF early on there wasn’t anything on the UHF for years. Our first remote had a tuning fork inside and a little hammer would it and the channel would change. And if you shook your key ring it would change channels.
Vegetvs@dtgeek DVD-level?! Talk about an overstatement. DVD-level picture quality is what you get today, with most YouTube videos. The TVs you're talking about would often have very bad reception, meaning the image would often lose color, shape or even sync. Most had a "vertical" dial, so that you could try and tune them so that the picture would not keep scrolling vertically. Fun times.