I was watching an episode of “All In The Family” from 1971 this weekend when I saw the characters using a really primitive remote. (Skip to 4:03 of this clip.) I was really suprised to see that device in the early 70s, much less being used in a working class household. When did you first start using a remote? Was it as bulky as that clip showed?
I can’t see that clip from here, but 1971 isn’t that ridiculous. We didn’t get one until maybe 1977 or 1978, but my dad had an uncle, living in Michigan, who had one back in the early 70s.
It was integrated into his Zenith TV and worked on ultrasonic frequency, which “told” a servo motor in the TV which channel to literally turn over to.
You would press a button on the remote, which would cause a tiny hammer in the remote to strike a tuning fork, sending the sound to the decoding filter in the TV.
I was amazed by it at the time. If you jingled your keys in front of the TV it would go haywire!
ETA: And here it is!
Jack Lemmon in The Apartment.
I don’t remember when we had our first remote but I do remember that the channel selector still physically moved, not electronic.
We never had anything like that. We got cable in 1977, and the “clicker” was an enormous box that was plugged into the cable box (or maybe TV) itself.
The next remote I used was for a VCR, sometime around 1987.
We had a remote in the 60’s for our tv. It changed volume, turned it on and off, and changed channels. It did it by striking different metal bars inside of it to send different tones.
Sometimes it got out of tune, and didn’t work real well.
We got a color tv with a remote in the late 60s - it made the dial on the TV actually rotate. But we never used it (kept it in the original box (packed in the original styrofoam)) unless my brother or I was home sick (and thus confined to the couch). Other than that, you walked over to the TV to change the channel (with only 7 valid choices, it wasn’t that much of a hassle).
1981 the remote used ultrasound instead of the infrared they do now. Which was interesting as you could change channels by jingling keys, using a slinky or pedaling a stationary bike
The TV of my childhood was a Zenith with UHF and VHF knobs. The first remote control in the house came with the VCR my parents bought in 1983 or 84. It was smallish, angular and silver on top, with a black underside and metallic rectangular buttons. While the VCR could be programmed with up to 10 stations, our market was served by a mere 5 at the time, and my parents had no intention of getting cable.
We had one of these, too. It was a Zenith TV. I always got the impression that my parents had to squeeze to make ends meet, but I think my father bought one of the first of these that came out. The sort of luxury that he could afford.
Roddy
When we got cable in '83. My uncle had one for something earlier…that had a cord!
I don’t remember ever not having a remote, at least on the main TV in the house. I was born in 1970. Like others have mentioned, it was a huge brick of a thing, and it cause the dial on the TV to physically move.
I remember one in the early 80s for our VCR that had a real long cord. I guess it couldn’t be called a “remote” in the true sense of the word, but I thought it was cool (and had no idea “real” remotes were out there at this time - this thread has proved me wrong.)
I was the remote in our house until about 1989.
I was born in 1980, and when I was a kid we had an enormous console TV that did have a remote, but the remote barely worked. It was heavy as a brick and had IIRC two buttons. I assume it worked on the clicky system, but it really didn’t do a good job. I associate it with a heavy metallic taste.
Of course, we lived out in the country and had four entire channels, so it’s not like we had to change them all that often.
I always suspected I was on everyone’s ignore list…
I was born in '83, so we always had remotes, but the most primitive remote we had was the QUBE remote. It was what Time Warner used in Cincinnati. It was a push-button box that was tethered to the TV and basically doubled as the cable box. This kid’s story has a drawing of it. They finally upgraded to digital cable around 1995 or so.
I remember using a (semi) remote control when we moved to town with cable TV (and HBO) in 1975. It was actually my best friends house, as there was no way Mom was going to pay for HBO.
Why do I say “Semi” Remote control? Because the Remote was not wireless. It was a box wired to the TV.
The first time I had a wireless remote control TV was 1983, when I graduated from college.
As **Leaffan **and others have said, Zenith had an acoustic remote pretty early. I recall one of our neighbors had a TV with one. They moved into the neighborhood in late 1967 and their TV was 2-4 years old then. The remote had two rocker switches: up/down volume and up/down channel.
The first remote we owned was new in about 1970. It was IR rather than acoustic.