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  • #16
    My grandpa had a two-button remote that looked a bit like that. One button went up one channel at a time; the other raised the volume (one step at a time to maximum, wrapping around to minimum). The remote function was actually sound-activated; each button would hit a rod with a spring-loaded striker and it would make a noise that we mostly couldn't hear but the TV could.

    They also had a phone with a regular bell-style ringer. When the phone rang, the TV would change channels three or four times...
    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
    One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
    The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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    • #17
      Quoth Nunavut Pants View Post
      My grandpa had a two-button remote that looked a bit like that. One button went up one channel at a time; the other raised the volume (one step at a time to maximum, wrapping around to minimum). The remote function was actually sound-activated; each button would hit a rod with a spring-loaded striker and it would make a noise that we mostly couldn't hear but the TV could.

      They also had a phone with a regular bell-style ringer. When the phone rang, the TV would change channels three or four times...
      Yep, early remote controls were like that. Zenith invented ultrasonic remote control technology as "Space Command" in the late '50s; here's the TV (circa early 1970s) which the above-pictured remote controlled:


      It wasn't just phone ringers which would set them off; jingling keys, dog collar tags, pretty much anything involving pieces of metal banging together. Of course, it was still better than its predecessor, "Flash-Matic", which used a series of photo-sensors activated using a glorified flashlight like this one:

      While it technically worked, users tended to forget which sensor controlled which function, and if the set happened to be bathed in sunlight or other bright light, all four sensors would be operated at once multiple times over.........
      -Adam
      Arcane tech historian
      Goofy music!
      Old tech junk!

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      • #18
        Omg the nostalgia there. That was the tv my grandparents had and whenever we tried to pull the ‘one more minute’ thing as kids are wont to do he would make the channels go all flippy. I never did figure out as a kid how he could do that. I also remember having a case full of those old old games where you had to blow on the cartridge and put it in. Back when controllers only had the start/select buttons, the A and B buttons, and the plus pad.

        Believe it or not that was an upgrade from the tv they used to have. An old black and white monstrosity that was huge but the actual screen itself was small. A real POS and this was at a time where there were flatscreens available. But gramps was of the opinion that if it weren’t broke don’t fix it. Until his old black and white needed fixing and we got all excited he would move into the modern century... the. He brought that monstrosity up from the basement. Apparently he’d purchased a colour tv at some point and just never bothered to hook it up. It broke our little modern day hearts. I’m pretty sure it still played duck hunt though, and bubble trouble. That was my game back in the day. God I feel old.
        Last edited by AkaiKitsune; 05-26-2019, 05:46 AM.
        Don’t worry about what I’m up to. Worry about why you are worried about what I’m up to.

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        • #19
          Hah I grew up with a black and white tv my whole entire childhood. I didn't even know shows were in color at first! My mother didn't do color tv and she didn't do cable. She also didn't do microwaves ....she was screwed in the head.
          https://www.youtube.com/user/HedgeTV
          Great YouTube channel check it out!

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          • #20
            Quoth telecom_goddess View Post
            Hah I grew up with a black and white tv my whole entire childhood. I didn't even know shows were in color at first!
            Yup, I grew up watching Batman and Star Trek in black-and-white. Took me a while to "get" red-shirt jokes... Mom did have microwaves, though.

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            • #21
              Quoth Mental_Mouse View Post
              Yup, I grew up watching Batman and Star Trek in black-and-white. Took me a while to "get" red-shirt jokes...
              Back when my parents were together, we only had a black and white TV. My stepdad had a color TV, and when he and my mom got married, we started watching our shows on his TV. Up until then, my mom had no idea that the smurfs were blue.
              Sometimes life is altered.
              Break from the ropes your hands are tied.
              Uneasy with confrontation.
              Won't turn out right. Can't turn out right

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              • #22
                Quoth telecom_goddess View Post
                Hah I grew up with a black and white tv my whole entire childhood. I didn't even know shows were in color at first! My mother didn't do color tv and she didn't do cable. She also didn't do microwaves ....she was screwed in the head.
                Quoth Mental_Mouse View Post
                Yup, I grew up watching Batman and Star Trek in black-and-white. Took me a while to "get" red-shirt jokes... Mom did have microwaves, though.
                I grew up in the 1960s when yes there were color TVs BUT my parents were not going to spend the money for one. 20 inch B&W was our family TV. and yes I did watch Batman and Star Trek in B&W. we finally got a Color TV in the early 70's and my parents did not get a microwave until the mid 80's
                I'm lost without a paddle and headed up SH*T creek.
                -- Life Sucks Then You Die.


                "I'll believe corp. are people when Texas executes one."

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                • #23
                  My grandparents had a "radar range". (For those of you younger than dinosaurs, early on some microwave ovens were marketed as "radar ranges".) The front was fairly melty-looking, because they had used it on some of their good plates. You know, the ones with real gold edging? Evidently the light show was spectacular until the (very brief) fire started.
                  “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                  One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                  The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    I was in the Navy in the late 70s (Submarine Force), and our barracks finally got microwaves in our TV lounges.

                    Now, when using shoe wax to shine shoes, many people would use their lighters to melt the top layer of wax in the can, and then dip their cloth into it, before applying said cloth to the shoes.

                    During the first week after the microwaves were installed, someone had put their tin of shoe wax into the thing; it caught on fire, and ruined the oven.

                    The whole floor smelled like shoe polish for a week.
                    Who hears all your prayers? Why, the NSA, of course!

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                    • #25
                      Quoth AkaiKitsune View Post
                      Omg the nostalgia there. That was the tv my grandparents had and whenever we tried to pull the ‘one more minute’ thing as kids are wont to do he would make the channels go all flippy. I never did figure out as a kid how he could do that. I also remember having a case full of those old old games where you had to blow on the cartridge and put it in. Back when controllers only had the start/select buttons, the A and B buttons, and the plus pad.

                      Believe it or not that was an upgrade from the tv they used to have. An old black and white monstrosity that was huge but the actual screen itself was small. A real POS and this was at a time where there were flatscreens available. But gramps was of the opinion that if it weren’t broke don’t fix it. Until his old black and white needed fixing and we got all excited he would move into the modern century... the. He brought that monstrosity up from the basement. Apparently he’d purchased a colour tv at some point and just never bothered to hook it up. It broke our little modern day hearts. I’m pretty sure it still played duck hunt though, and bubble trouble. That was my game back in the day. God I feel old.
                      You're only as old as you feel.

                      My grandparents had fully upgraded to color TV by the time I was growing up, though they still had several of their older sets in various rooms around the house. The "Space Command" console I pictured earlier sat unused in their living room unused throughout my entire childhood, though I plugged it in a few times to fiddle with the funny remote, and found it had color issues. It'd been replaced by a Sony Trinitron console, which eventually joined it in the living room as furniture when the picture tube went weak. After my grandparents passed away, I advertised the Zenith on a TV-related forum called VideoKarma, and someone from New Jersey drove up to MA, gave me $20, and I helped load it in the back of his van. He was able to fix its color issues, which is nice. I'm just glad that it managed to avoid the dumpster.

                      As for video games, I've owned numerous classic systems over the years. We had the original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis as our first systems One of my first experiences with pre-NES systems was when I found a Mattel Intellivision in their basement. I could only find one game, a Space Invaders clone imaginatively titled "Space Armada", which was fun. I later found a bunch more Intellivision games, and started to build a pseudo-museum around the setup, which continues to this day.

                      Quoth MadMike View Post
                      Back when my parents were together, we only had a black and white TV. My stepdad had a color TV, and when he and my mom got married, we started watching our shows on his TV. Up until then, my mom had no idea that the smurfs were blue.
                      It was before my time (mostly), but my great-grandparents actually had both in their living room, apparently. After my great-grandfather bought a new color TV sometime in the '60s (I think), they decided to keep their older black & white set in the living room as well so they could watch different shows at the same time. How they kept track of the audio for each show, I have no idea.

                      Personally, we had color TVs by the time I was growing up in the '80s, though the first TV I could call my own was a 12" GE black & white set I'd bought at a neighbor's yard sale for $2. It was later replaced by another similar B&W set, which I used to play Nintendo games once I found a NES of my own. It was later replaced by a color RCA set which, like the other two, was a yard sale find. They were eventually thrown out when CRTs were classified as hazardous waste, but I've hung onto one B&W set:


                      Quoth Nunavut Pants View Post
                      My grandparents had a "radar range". (For those of you younger than dinosaurs, early on some microwave ovens were marketed as "radar ranges".) The front was fairly melty-looking, because they had used it on some of their good plates. You know, the ones with real gold edging? Evidently the light show was spectacular until the (very brief) fire started.
                      You know how that name came about, right? The microwave oven was based on the cavity magnetron tube used in radar apparatus. A Raytheon radar engineer named Percy Spencer had a chocolate bar melt in his pocket while working on some radar equipment, and after some experimenting, turned it into a commercial product the size of a conventional home oven, which they named "Radarange" in homage to its origins. After buying appliance maker Amana, Raytheon was able to develop a countertop version of the microwave oven, which they continued to call "Radarange" at least into the 1980s.
                      -Adam
                      Last edited by AdamAnt316; 06-08-2019, 07:20 PM.
                      Goofy music!
                      Old tech junk!

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        When my dad and I were in Oregon visiting my grandmother and cousin, we were all over at g-ma's house for awhile. The TV was on, and my dad and uncle were getting annoyed at the closed captions and decided to disable them.

                        It quickly became a "how many engineers does it take to work a TV?" joke--between the two of them there are probably 8 engineering-related degrees and many decades of experience, and they couldn't figure it out after 4 hours. There had to be some setting on the set itself that they weren't seeing...and nobody knew where the TV remote even was. It's actually a good thing they couldn't do it, as Grandma would probably never be able to figure out how to turn them on again.

                        Our remote has issues....I suspect that it's a combination of old equipment, shitty wiring in our building, and the fact that our remote and box are not (and never have been) paired properly.
                        "I am quite confident that I do exist."
                        "Excuse me, I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up." The Doctor

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                        • #27
                          My grandmother’s favorite TV show was Lawrence Welk. When the network started announcing that the next season would be broadcast in color, she was in heaven. She couldn’t wait for the opening show.

                          And it was in black and white.

                          Grandma was furious. They lied to her! It took a while to explain to her the concept that there were two parts to this. Not only did the show have to be broadcast in color, but the TV had to be capable of displaying color. She hadn’t noticed that she had never seen another show in color.

                          Her son bought her a new TV and Mr. Welk’s reputation remained intact.

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                          • #28
                            You should have called thee staff around to have them witness the adult who doesn't know how to use a remote control, just to see for themselves. I think he would have learned REAL quick.

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                            • #29
                              So far no one has mentioned the very original sound operated TV remote that my parents used. My dad would tell me to go change the channel for him.
                              "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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                              • #30
                                That's what I had growing up
                                My son thinks I'm Lucifer Morningstar. I'm not sure he's wrong.

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