Forward into the past

I went to the Charter cable office in Worcester this morning to return a digital receiver that we were no longer using. The office had lots of brochures and displays that touted Charter's state-of-the-art technology. There were three high-def plasma TVs on the wall, showing the Judge Maria Lopez show. A few points of note:

• One of the clerks asked aloud, "How come the picture is so snowy?" The clerks mumbled among themselves, but had no answers.
  
• The clerk who waited on me printed the receipt on an 1980s-vintage dot matrix printer.
  
• I asked for a print-out of our current services. "I can give you a copy of your bill," she said. "But, I can't give you a list of services. We can't print what's on the screen."