Back to watching black and white TV

[goeduck]

^ Whipper snapper

 

[ericm979]

When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s we had a B&W Zenith which had a remote! One button would turn the TV off and the other would change the channel.

In high school electronics class I found a stash of the remotes in the junk closet and took one apart. It worked by sound- there was a metal bar in it that the buttons would hit, causing it to vibrate at a tuned frequency, which the TV would receive via a mic.

The same system was used for remotes for slide projectors, so I annoyed one of my science teachers by tapping the metal bar on my desk which made the projector change slides. I liked the teacher though so I only did it a few times.

 

[goeduck]

When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s we had a B&W Zenith which had a remote! One button would turn the TV off and the other would change the channel.

The same system was used for remotes for slide projectors, so I annoyed one of my science teachers by tapping the metal bar on my desk which made the projector change slides. I liked the teacher though so I only did it a few times.

you coulda have had a whole lot of fun!

 

[WinterDeere]

When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s we had a B&W Zenith which had a remote! One button would turn the TV off and the other would change the channel.

We had a neighbor, who always had better and newer gadgets than my parents, and their family room TV had a remote. But it was corded! It must've had a 25 foot long cord tying it to the TV, and if I recall, you could only access on/off and go up or down one channel at a time. No punching in direct channel numbers on that one, that I can recall.

Being in the Philly 'burbs, the channels I remember at the time were 3, 6, 10, and 12 on VHF, and then 17 and 29 on the UHF tuner, which were still separate knobs through at least the 1980's. So channel surfing on that remote, with a manual tuner knob clicking thru all of those channels one at a time, could take more time than just getting off the couch and spinning the knob.

Then we all got these. Never learned if this particular box model was a local thing (they were made here near Philly), or if the rest of the country had the same thing sitting on their TV's:

Every 13 year old boy knew that if you'd go to the far right button, throw the row selector to the bottom row, and wind the fine-tune all the way in one direction, you could pull in Playboy channel pretty well.

 

[bdhsfz6]

When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s we had a B&W Zenith which had a remote! One button would turn the TV off and the other would change the channel.

In high school electronics class I found a stash of the remotes in the junk closet and took one apart. It worked by sound- there was a metal bar in it that the buttons would hit, causing it to vibrate at a tuned frequency, which the TV would receive via a mic.

The same system was used for remotes for slide projectors, so I annoyed one of my science teachers by tapping the metal bar on my desk which made the projector change slides. I liked the teacher though so I only did it a few times.

My folks had one too. The remote was called a "clicker", so named for the clicking sound it made. It didn't take Petey, our parrot, long before he started mimicking the clicking noise! He would have a lot of fun turning the TV on and off! We had to move his cage into another room.

 

[Alan46]

My folks had one too. The remote was called a "clicker", so named for the clicking sound it made. It didn't take Petey, our parrot, long before he started mimicking the clicking noise! He would have a lot of fun turning the TV on and off! We had to move his cage into another room.

That’s what we call our gate remote ( a clicker )

 

[Jstpssng]

That’s what we call our gate remote ( a clicker )

Not to be confused with the “Clapper”, of course.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

My brother is blind but he enjoys "watching" TV, but most of the modern shows hold no interest for him. He liked Law & Order because it was dialogue based and not action based like most other shows. Neither of us can stand any of the modern sit-coms. Lately we have been watching thing like The Untouchables, Gunsmoke, The Outer Limits, The Wild, Wild West, on DVD sets. No commercials.
I used to have Netflix but their programming was starting to bore me and when they listed the "R" rated child **** on there, I dropped them completely. Amazon Prime was okay but when they took over production of shows like "Designated Survivor" and "Jack Ryan" the producers started dropping so many F-bombs that I stopped watching it too. Plus, Amazon started letting my orders sit in a warehouse for four days before shipping, that paying for Prime was a joke.

 

[Williy]

I never had any time to watch TV always working. But now
have been watching Columbo on Tubitv my wife always wanted
to watch Columbo with Peter Faulk

willy

 

[/pine]

My brother is blind but he enjoys "watching" TV, but most of the modern shows hold no interest for him. He liked Law & Order because it was dialogue based and not action based like most other shows. Neither of us can stand any of the modern sit-coms. Lately we have been watching thing like The Untouchables, Gunsmoke, The Outer Limits, The Wild, Wild West, on DVD sets. No commercials.
I used to have Netflix but their programming was starting to bore me and when they listed the "R" rated child **** on there, I dropped them completely. Amazon Prime was okay but when they took over production of shows like "Designated Survivor" and "Jack Ryan" the producers started dropping so many F-bombs that I stopped watching it too. Plus, Amazon started letting my orders sit in a warehouse for four days before shipping, that paying for Prime was a joke.

FWIW...A decent crime show (non fiction) that can be followed by just listening is 'Forensic Files'...