The television test pattern is not an exam you take to see whether you know who won last year’s bachelor or who the top five idol finalists are. It is a test signal, typically broadcast at times when the transmitter is active but no program is being broadcast (often at dawn and dusk before television was on 24 hours a day). Many of us remember waking up, drool running down our face and the test pattern on the screen with a squeal in the background as the soundtrack to this graphic icon of tv. Turns out there is a reason for that. Used since the earliest TV broadcasts, test patterns (or cards) were used for calibration, alignment, and matching of cameras and camcorders. Now considered a pop culture reference to the past, artists such as Douglas Coupland have emblazoned it’s bold colours on such things like textiles and dresses.