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Documentation Index

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Television Simulator ‘99 is a browser-based simulator of a 1990s hotel television. It renders a CRT-style TV frame complete with scanline effects, vintage Prevue Channel fonts, and a scrolling program guide driven entirely by an XML data file. Video is powered by the YouTube IFrame API, and the channel system is designed to be extended — build your own channels by subclassing the base Channel class.

Introduction

Learn what Television Simulator ‘99 is and how it works at a high level.

Quickstart

Get the simulator running locally in minutes with a live demo setup.

Adding Channels

Build your own custom channel by extending the base Channel class.

XML Schema

Full reference for the guide.xml format that drives channel listings.

How It Works

Television Simulator ‘99 is a self-contained client-side web app. When the page loads, the TV class bootstraps the application, fetches data/guide.xml via AJAX, and switches to the default channel. Each channel is an independent JavaScript class that manages its own layout, video playback, and program listings.
1

Serve the project

Serve the repository root from any static HTTP server — no build step required.
2

Edit guide.xml

Populate data/guide.xml with your channels, program listings, and ads.
3

Add a custom channel

Create channels/NNN/layout.html and channels/NNN/script.js, then register the class in TV.
4

Style it

Customize the SCSS variables in scss/site.scss to change colors, fonts, and layout dimensions.

Key Features

Prevue Channel Guide

A scrolling, marquee-driven program grid that reads live from your XML data file.

YouTube Integration

Each channel embeds a YouTube player managed through the official IFrame API.

Extensible Channels

The Channel base class provides lifecycle hooks for building arbitrarily complex channels.

CRT Styling

Scanlines, retro fonts (PrevueGrid, VCR OSD), and pixel-perfect TV frame scaling.

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