This appears to be a fairly low effort simulation of a WeatherStar 4000, but it's been done much better by someone else here: https://weatherstar.netbymatt.com/
Also for those of us like me who grew up with a cable provider that still ran the old WeatherStar III, there's this one: https://weatherstar3000.netbymatt.com/
This may be an age or geography thing, but Weather.com/Retro looks a lot more like the weather channels I remember than either of your two links.
I don't think they were trying to recreate the thing you were expecting, but it seems a little harsh to call it low effort. It's neat! A fun little nod to their history.
> This may be an age or geography thing, but Weather.com/Retro looks a lot more like the weather channels I remember than either of your two links.
That'll be a memory thing then, because unsurprisingly there are some serious Weather Channel nerds out there and the history of the local programming as well as the STARs that powered it is quite well documented.
The only thing that looked anything like this was the WS4000. WeatherStar III and Jr. didn't have graphics at all while WeatherStar XL had a much more modern graphic design.
As others have stated, no, this isn't a simulation of WeatherStar. It does, however, look exactly like the weather channel did when I was a kid. (New Jersey and Maryland, in the 80s and 90s)
Because, IIRC (it has been a while since I’ve looked at the code) it grabs weather from the US National Weather Service… which is also a primary source of data for the original WeatherStar.
It’s useful for this purpose because all of the data is in the same format as the original down to the different forecast types and phrasing used
This reminds me of a sports channel I recall from the late 80s on cable TV. Sportsnet? Sportswire? I can't find anything about it online but I remember the music well.
I don't think they were trying to recreate the thing you were expecting, but it seems a little harsh to call it low effort. It's neat! A fun little nod to their history.