Inventor of the TV Remote Control Dies

An anonymous reader writes "Yes, kids, you used to have to walk across the room to change the TV channel. That changed with the introduction of the 'Flash-Matic,' a revolutionary device that was 'Absolutely harmless to humans!' and could 'even shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen.' Eugene Polley, inventor of the now ubiquitous TV remote-control died Sunday of natural causes at age 96. In 1996 Polley received an Emmy for his invention, but during his 47-year career, he was awarded numerous patents and worked on projects ranging from advances in radar to push-button car radios."

Comments

Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1996 Polley received an Emmy for his invention, but during his 47-year career, he was awarded numerous patents...

You hit one of Slashdot's trigger words. Expect a long and boring patent debate that accomplishes nothing to follow.

Re:Duplicate idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the '1996' in the article threw him off; actually this should be about the inventor of the wireless remote control, it's from 1955 (the one with the wire was from 1950 and was called the Zenith 'Lazy Bones')

If it was invented tomorrow...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I wonder what the MPAA / RIAA / The Bad Guys would say about muting their precious commercials?

I'm sure a "do not mute" flag would quickly appear in the DVB stream.

Parrot TV

[JoeMerchant]

In the 1970s some remote controls used ultrasonics - ultra to humans, not to parrots... not sure if the bird was changing the channels on purpose or not, but it would make a whistle and the channel would change.

Re:Parrot TV

[rekoil]

I remember these. They weren't even electronic - each button on the remote caused a tine to be pulled and released which was tuned to a specific ultrasonic frequency. This is why the early remotes were called "clickers" - releasing the tine made a metallic clicking sound. It also meant that random ambient sounds that matched the target frequency could cause your TV to turn on/off, change channels, etc on its own.

There were also remotes that weren't even wireless, with a 10' long tether wire to the unit. The advertised "advantage" of these was that they didn't need batteries.

I never saw one of those

[John Jorsett]

My folks were in the TV sales business and I never encountered a remote like the article describes. The first remotes I saw in the 50s were wired: a big box with the channel and volume controls was connected by a thick cable to the TV. The channel tuning was mechanical (a cylinder in the set had a separate tuned circuit for each channel and channel changing required rotating the cylinder to switch in the correct one), so when you changed the channel, the tuner in the set would go *clunk* clunk* *clunk* until it got to the right one. The next ones I remember were Zenith wireless. The remote consisted of several metal cylinders that emitted a tone when struck by a mechanical pushbutton on the remote. Trouble with those was other household sounds would trigger the TV, like the metal tags on a pet's collar.

And I'll bet almost no one here has ever encountered a vertical or horizontal "hold" control. In those days, we had to establish picture sync ourselves, AND WE LIKED IT!

Re:I never saw one of those

[R3d M3rcury]

Years ago, I read a great article by Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini about Transactional Analysis and how it relates to UIs and such. I don't remember if it's in any of his books or in the Apple Developer newsletters of yore. I'm having a hard time finding it, unfortunately. But in the article, he recounts a story about selling televisions with digital remotes--back when these were brand new.

The story goes that when TVs first got digital remote controls, the salesmen would show the customer the remote because, at the time, the ability to change the channel from across the room was new and novel and pretty cool! But the customer would always say the same thing: "I'm not so lazy that I can't get off the damn couch and change the channel!" And, let's be honest, how would you respond to that? "Actually, sir, you are that lazy. Or you will be once you have this." Keep in mind that the only time you saw a TV with a remote was in a hospital or if you had older parents/grandparents who couldn't get off the damn couch and change the channel. If you were young and spry, you had no business using a remote! Having a remote was a sign that you were old...

Once they said that, they weren't interested in TVs with remotes and no amount of salesmanship would change their mind.

So the solution that Tog brought up wasn't to sell the customer on having a remote control, but to sell them on digital tuning. "Digital tuning is great! No more having to fiddle with all the fine tuning knobs to get the best picture! Just choose the channel and it will immediately lock it in! No knobs to break or get serviced--after all, you should have your TV serviced every year so that you don't end up having to use a pair of pliers to change the channel. So you'll save money in the long run because there'll be less need for service! Digital tuning is a boon to mankind!"

Once you've convinced the TV buyer that they really want a TV with digital tuning, you throw in the remote: "And the fun part is that they can then make a cool remote control to change the channels!" The idea was that you're buying a better TV that happened to have a remote (which was a smart decision) rather than buying a remote controlled TV (which was a lazy decision). In fact, so the story goes, one day the salesman neglected to even mention the remote. The customer bought the TV and salesman brought out a bunch of boxes, one of which contained the remote. When the customer said, "What's that?" and the salesman said, "Oh, that's the remote," the customer immediately started off with, "I'm not so lazy that I..."

The whole thing is presented in the frame of Transactional Analysis and the Parent/Adult/Child context (ie, you want to have an appropriate balance of smart and cool in your products) and is a very interesting read.

Re:Duplicate idea

[ortholattice]

Actually, the first remote control was invented by Tesla in 1898 (U.S. Patent 613,809). He used it to remotely flash lights on a boat, amazing an audience. Eugene Polley specialized it to "for a TV". Sort of like many modern inventions consist of an earlier idea + "on the internet". (OK maybe not that simple but I thought I'd toss it in for a good troll...)

Ultrasonic remotes

[MrEricSir]

I believe I've mentioned this on here before, but my grandfather had one of the early TVs with an ultrasonic remote up until the 90's.

The problem is certain sounds would cause it to change the channel -- particularly jingling keys or coins, flushing the toilet, or using a vacuum cleaner.

I suspect he enjoyed demoing that for people more than he liked watching TV.

Re:Duplicate idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's always worth pointing out that Tesla was the greatest geek that ever lived.