One of the Intellistar computer models behind the service runs FreeBSD on a Pentium 4-based PC in a blue rack-mount enclosure. However, getting Weatherscan to run locally was a team effort, primarily by friends named Ethan, Brian, and Jesse. Some have also created software that simulates the service in a browser. Hobbyists like Bates (who goes by " techknight" on Twitter) have collected the hardware necessary to run their own Weatherscan stations out of their homes. "It's 20 years old now, and more and more cable companies have been pulling the service." "Weatherscan has been dying a slow death over the course of the last 10 years because the hardware is aging," says Mike Bates, a tech hobbyist who collects and restores Weather Channel computer hardware as part of a group of die-hard fans who follow insider news from the company. There are also technical issues with maintaining the hardware behind the service. Declining viewership and the ubiquity of smartphone weather apps are the primary reasons it's going offline. It shows automated local weather information on a loop, generated by an Intellistar computer system installed locally for each market. Launched in 1999, Weatherscan currently appears in a dwindling number of local American cable TV and satellite markets. But a group of die-hard fans will not let it go quietly into the night. After 23 years, The Weather Channel announced that Weatherscan will be shutting down permanently on or before December 9. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In the early 2000s, Americans who wanted to catch the local weather forecast at any time might turn on their TV and switch over to Weatherscan, a 24-hour computer-controlled weather forecast channel with a relaxing smooth jazz soundtrack.
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