Neuromancer's opening line is probably one of the most remembered first sentences in american fiction. Every friend of mine who read the book, most of them in the 90's, seem to remember it verbatim.
Now that I think of it, do younger people know what he's talking about? I mean, at some point dead channels changed from the noisy grayscale beehive-like granulates to a still blue screen.
It's always been my understanding that a tv tuned to a dead channel was that solid grey color, like when the transmitter is powered on but there is no picture being sent. In other words, not the same thing as just setting the receiver to a frequency with no transmission (static)
All the people I know who've read the novel agree with me that it was supposed to mean static. I wonder if anyone asked Gibson about this, since the advent of the blue screens.
