- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
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God I love learning about analog tech! Very creative design!
You’d love Technology Connections on YouTube if you haven’t seen him already.
My grandpa had a tv store around the time, and he always told the story of him pulling someone’s leg by making them believe the tv was voice activated, with that thing in his pocket. So he covered the click sound by yelling at the tv.
I once told my friend that my car was self driving. Little did she know I was driving with my knee.
My grandmother had one of these.
I somehow discovered that if I took this magnetic screwdriver, and this bent piece of coat hanger and slapped them together, her tv would turn off.
I fucked with her so much she took her tv to a repair shop because she thought it was broken.
Good times.
We had one of those TVs when I was a kid… and our dog had one of those metal link collars, and when she would shake her head the TV would change channels, and the volume would change. :). I had forgotten all about that.
Yep, my neighborhood friend had one. I discovered that my keys, when shook, would hit the frequencies to do stuff too. His dad was annoyed by it and I don’t know if he figured out how his TV would spontaneously change to channels
Would it have been possible for the speakers of the time to emit those frequencies? Imagining the equivalent of a Twitch raid: “I’m done broadcasting so I’m going to send you to the next channel.”
Possibly. Still nott as bad as, “Alexa, order a 12pack of dildos”
It would have been possible, but it would have been expensive and required electricity to work. The fact that they accomplished their goal with what amounts to a set of tiny spring-powered mechanical bells is a marvel.
I meant it more in the sense of one channel, when shutting down for the night, emitting the “next channel” tone such that every viewer’s set would change to a channel that was still broadcasting.
We had a TV that used ultrasonic sound to control the TV, When I was young I could fairly hear the tone from a couple of the buttons, though super faintly, but the dog would cock its head when certain buttons were used.
Not really sure, doesn’t seem like they’d bother to deaign speakers that make sounds we can’t hear or broadcast them but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t possible
Modern design is boring and ugly as hell compared to what engineers and designers were able to come up with decades back.
Modern ‘design’ is all about pushing physicality and tactility out of the way, in an attempt to focus as much of your attention into your display as possible. As a result, everything aside from your screen has been ‘pushed aside’.
I get it, I really do…but it’s all so depressingly sterile.
There’s a great YouTube channel of this younger guy who teaches design and he makes very good videos that dissect a lot of the BS design trends. One of them is taking the old school “less is more” type of thinking into a stupid extreme. He explains that far too many designers are missing the deeper meaning in that design ethos which ends up making the user experience MORR complicated all so they could save adding an extra button to make navigating the device’s interface infinitely easier.
What’s the channel if you don’t mind sharing?
Design Theory
Thanks!
That sounds really interesting! I hope future product/UX designers see those kinds of videos and we can see a return of more ‘creative’ designs.
Things run in cycles, so I’d like to think we’ll get some sanity back in design, but designers work for companies, and companies like to make money, and no one makes more money than Apple. And Apple is downright obsessed with the bad version of “less is more”. And of course the worst thing of all is that it is far easier to copy than to innovate, so these shit designs are here for a while.
Thankfully, Apple seems to be going back on the ‘less is more’ thing that Jony Ive started; at least when it comes to stuff like their laptops.
“Again, it required no batteries — much desired by Zenith, as the company didn’t want customers to think a TV was broken when the battery died.”
Was this really that big of a concern? Did people really think that LMAO
Layer 8 issues occur all the time.
What’s layer 8
Even today, in tech support, the issue is very often the user
Yeah, makes sense now that I think about it. People are always dumber than you think
In a world where remotes are scarce, I could see how this would be a concern, yes.
Where remotes are scarce? What do you mean by that, are you talking about the time when they came in or now
When the remote controls were first invented.
Interesting purely mechanical design. Our first remote (that didn’t have a cable connection) used sound as well, but it was battery powered and as a kid, I could hear at least some of those sounds. It had way more than just 4 buttons though, maybe the mechanical design hits a limit there at some point (or electronics just got cheaper).
Damn that’s interesting, I had heard of the light control but never these
That’s surprisingly cool
That was incredibly interesting.
That looks like it was so satisfying to click.
Quite ingenious and simple design, even considering the limitations of the time.
My parents had an appliance/electronics shop when I was growing up and they took used items on trade occasionally. Someone turned in one of those zenith sets and I actually got to use that remote. Bear in mind we were well into the age of infrared remotes by this point (late 80s).
It was definitely interesting and I think I could just distinguish the difference between the sounds of the buttons.
I know this is about the tech, but OP’s name is just cracking me up. Thank you @FartsWithAnAccent
Happy to help.
Truly one of the farts of all time.
Way more than one, I assure you.
🕳️🕳️🕳️…
Rimjobsteve moment
