Technology - Circuits
February 11, 1999

A Gadget That Taught a Nation to Surf: The TV Remote Control

Back when the culture of instant digital gratification was just a gleam in a futurist's eye, a revolutionary device was invented that was one of the first steps toward technological power for consumers: the remote control.

Remote Controls From Yesterday...
A brief history of early television remote controls.

It changed everything. "The twitch of our fingers on TV remotes was the first sign of slumbering interactive desires," said Paul Saffo, a director at the Institute for the Future, in Menlo Park, Calif. "The remote control wasn't just a new way to change channels. It changed TV as a medium. Suddenly you didn't have to watch shows."

Viewers could channel surf instead. They could watch several programs at once, have their senses assaulted by sounds and images and, best of all, they could skip the commercials.

The impetus for the remote control was as much to silence advertisements as to let viewers remain on the couch. The founder of the Zenith Electronics Corporation, Eugene F. McDonald Jr., said he thought advertisements would be the death of the nascent television medium.

"He wanted to prove his point by making commercials unprofitable," said Dr. Robert Adler, the Zenith engineer who created the first practical wireless remote control, which used ultrasonic signals and went on the market in 1956.

More than nine million televisions with ultrasonic remote controls were sold in 25 years, according to Zenith.

But the remote control had a different effect. It forced advertisers to create spots that were more clever so they could capture the attention of viewers as they clicked through the channels.

Space Command
Click to listen (aiff)

Space Commander 200
Click to listen (aiff)

Space Commander 400
Click to listen (aiff)

"Before the remote, the advertisers had you as their hostage," Mr. Saffo said. "They knew you weren't going to get up."

Dr. Adler's creation, called the Space Command, was mechanical. It literally clicked, or pinged, when a button was pushed. It used an ultrasonic beam, outside the range of human hearing, to turn a set on or off or change the channel.

The price for a set and a remote control ranged from $259.95 for a tabletop model to $550 for a high-end console - hefty price tags back then. Advertisements for the Space Command proclaimed that there was "nothing between you and the set but space!" Some ads went on to say: "Is it magic? It's like nothing you have ever seen before - anywhere!"

It wasn't magic, but it was a big step beyond Zenith's earlier remote controls. The first such control, marketed in 1950, was the inelegant but aptly named Lazy Bones. It was tethered to the set by a long wire, which made it a living-room hazard. The next version, in 1955, was wireless. It was essentially a flashlight that changed the channels when it was focused on sensors built into the cabinet of a set. Thus its name: the Flashmatic.

Mika Grondahl
Inside a Space Command Remote Control

"On a sunny day you had to turn it off because the tuner would just go crazy," Dr. Adler recalled in a telephone interview. Disadvantages aside, more than 30,000 Flashmatics were sold.

The first remote controls seemed to be ahead of their time because there were few stations to flip through in the 50's. "It's surprising how early this technology was created," said Ronald C. Simon, a curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in Manhattan.

It took awhile for the remote control to catch on. Among the televisions sold in 1976, 9.5 percent had remote controls; by 1990, 90 percent of them did. But the advent of the remote control was a big step toward the couch potato culture to come. Viewers could stay put while they watched, orchestrating their viewing like maestros with batons, while what they watched came at them at a faster pace. Over time, there were more channels and shows than ever before, more than it seemed possible to navigate.

"There's a huge magnetic force in the culture and it goes toward speed, and the remote control was an essential element in that direction," said Todd Gitlin, a professor of media studies at New York University. " 'Move it along' - that's what matters. The speed of movement and the juxtaposition of different images is absolutely central to how people are living now."

How It Works is published on Thursdays in the Circuits section. Click here for a list of links to other columns in the series.

Lisa Napoli at napoli@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.



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