# This early TV remote worked without a battery **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 5, 2023, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102 "2023-08-05T12:38:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/1 "2023-08-05T12:38:57Z")
Did anyone have this remote? The buttons struck an aluminium rod in the device which produced an ultrasonic sound that communicated with the television. No batteries required - ingenious! > **[The buttons on Zenith’s original “clicker” remote were a mechanical marvel](https://www.theverge.com/23810061/zenith-space-command-remote-control-button-of-the-month)** > > The Space Command fixed problems we still live with today. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/2 "2023-08-05T13:00:26Z")
Yeah, I remember those remotes. I had a TV that used one into the 1990s. Those buttons were satisfying to press. I took the remote apart to see how it worked. I thought it was pretty clever. What I don’t know is how the TV recieved the signal. There were four rods in the remote, one for each button. Each rod was a different length which made them produce a different tone when struck. It would have been funny to make a wind chime out of those rods and watch the TV look like it was possessed. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/3 "2023-08-05T13:09:03Z")
According to Cecil, you could sometimes get the same results dropping a handful of pennies on the floor or jingling your car keys. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/4 "2023-08-05T13:09:50Z")
I didn’t naive one, but my mom bought a tv for my Grandmother and it had one of those remotes. Brian ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/5 "2023-08-05T13:10:56Z")
I think you can see one (or its ancestor) in use in the movie _The Apartment_, from 1960. Jack Lemmon is watching TV and using a remote, long before I thought they existed. It’s in a scene near the beginning of the movie. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/6 "2023-08-05T13:18:45Z")
Neighbor had one. I was the remote at our place. IIRC, the channels changed in only one direction, so you had to go around to get from 4 to 2. But there were only 13 channels anyway. Taking a closer look at the photo, it looks as though it did go both directions. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/7 "2023-08-05T13:27:45Z")
My grandparents had one. They also rigged up a “mute” switch. It was an on/off switch connected to the speaker wires. It ran across the room so you could turn off the speakers whenever you wanted. A few years later, I saw a MAD magazine article that showed how to do it. ---
**Author:** ![peedin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peedin/32/14095_2.png) [@peedin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peedin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/8 "2023-08-05T13:40:28Z")
Had one. I still call the remote the clicker. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/9 "2023-08-05T13:41:17Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > They also rigged up a “mute” switch. It was an on/off switch connected to the speaker wires. It ran across the room so you could turn off the speakers whenever you wanted. A few years later, I saw a MAD magazine article that showed how to do it. Our household TV had that. And I grew up not hearing advertisements anywhere near as often as other kids. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/10 "2023-08-05T14:55:27Z")
My dad got a VCR pretty early, about 1981-2. It came with a wired remote, no batteries in that one, either. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/11 "2023-08-05T15:02:05Z")
Yeah, the complaint was the channel selector was also triggered by car keys jingling. Another variant, was the Zenith “Space Command”, nothing more really than a glorified flashlight. It sometimes required placing the television in a less than ideal spot because the optical sensor was sensitive to sunlight. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/12 "2023-08-05T15:03:48Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > My dad got a VCR pretty early, about 1981-2. We had a Betamax with a wired remote. I think “Pause” was the only button. That was handy if you were recording something you were watching so you could manually zap the commercials. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/13 "2023-08-05T15:23:53Z")
We had one, I think it was pretty early on in the 60s. My father thought that the definition of luxury was not being required to get up out of his chair to do anything trivial like changing channels. As it happened, before we got the remote, we kids were his remote. The four buttons were for channel up, channel down, sound up and sound down. He would crank the sound down for commercials, before we had one with a mute button. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/14 "2023-08-05T15:38:38Z")
My aunt had one of those. Her parrot figured out how to imitate it, and could cause havoc with the TV occasionally. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/15 "2023-08-05T15:50:42Z")
My friend’s family had one in the early 80s, maybe late 70s. Like others have mentioned, you could drop the metal dog leash on the glass coffee table to get the tv to change. The design is true genius. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/16 "2023-08-05T15:55:35Z")
As a kid I had a very basic remote control car that used a wireless “clicker”. The “click” would toggle between driving straight or turning right. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/17 "2023-08-05T16:03:00Z")
In addition to the tuning fork type, there were also remotes with ultrasonic whistles. > [@Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/without-saying-your-age-whats-something-from-your-childhood-that-a-younger-person-wouldnt-understand/953138/1429): > > Hah! Although I thought it was a Zenith, I was wrong. I found the exact model remote she had. It was an Admiral. When I learned that Zenith used tuning forks, not whistles, I began to doubt myself. I’m pleased to see I’m not going crazy. (Or, at least, that this is not evidence of it.) ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/18 "2023-08-05T16:10:54Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > According to Cecil, you could sometimes get the same results dropping a handful of pennies on the floor or jingling your car keys. The latter _definitely_ worked on our TV. ---
**Author:** ![FinsToTheLeft](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finstotheleft/32/2930_2.png) [@FinsToTheLeft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinsToTheLeft)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/19 "2023-08-05T22:15:42Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > That was handy if you were recording something you were watching so you could manually zap the commercials. As a pre-teen in the early 80s I can tell you that was not the only purpose of the pause button. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2023, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102/20 "2023-08-05T23:24:30Z")
Did the TV ever accidentally change its own channel, by playing a broadcast sound that mimicked the clicker? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-early-tv-remote-worked-without-a-battery/988102.md?page=2)