WEBVTT - TV Remotes 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.120 of iHeartRadio. Hello Owen, Welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:19.080 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh. This is another 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.239 one of those episodes that was intended to be an assortment, 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.319 a collection of things, and then it became about just 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.560 one of those things. Yeah. I was planning to write 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.360 about three or maybe four very mundane things that we 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.320 use every day in our lives and their origins. But 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.080 then when I got to the story of the TV 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:45.120 remote control, I discovered there was a drama. Uh. In 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:47.520 some ways, it's a one sided drama, but we'll talk 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.600 about it. This is one that's really relatable, I think 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.760 probably for anyone that has worked for a big company 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.160 and has felt like their contributions are lauded one moment 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.280 and forgotten the next. I think a lot of us 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.360 can relate to that. But it is also a story 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.480 about how two very different people perceive their work in 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.440 the same space, and how, in some cases that work 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.360 is perceived differently over time by those around them and 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:18.200 even their employer. The initial time period where a TV 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:22.319 remote control was being developed was actually pretty short. We 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.680 recently talked about spray paint and how that had multiple 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.679 options of people that get credited as the person that 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.600 are over literal decades. But this is like within eighteen months, 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.440 two people emerged, each of whom sometimes are called the 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:41.280 father of the remote control and one of those versions 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.760 that they created quickly supplanted the other. So we're going 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.319 to talk about those very early years and the way 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.680 that two inventors who were pivotal to the story have 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.600 been talked about in different ways by the company that 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.200 they both worked for. So we're starting a little earlier 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.640 than that, which is that in eighteen ninety eight, Nikola 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.880 Tesla received a patent for a remote control device. His 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:10.079 patent called this method of and apparatus for controlling mechanism 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.799 of moving vessels or vehicles. This invention was for quote, 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:18.880 controlling from a distance the operation of the propelling engines, 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:23.040 the steering apparatus and other mechanism carried by moving bodies 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.239 or floating vessels, of which the following is a specification 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.799 reference being had to the drawings accompanying and forming part 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:36.280 of the same That remote is not specifically germane to 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.600 the technology that we're talking about today, but it's illustrative 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.160 of the ways that people were thinking about using remote 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:48.959 controls well before televisions were even invented. We talked about 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.959 TV's invention in our twenty thirteen episode on Filot Farnsworth, 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:58.880 So jumping ahead from that moment more than one hundred years. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.400 A two thousand and six write up about Eugene Polly 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.520 in the Atlantic City newspaper The Press reads, quote, fifty 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.640 years ago, Polly invented the wireless remote. In return, he 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.320 got one thousand dollars and a lifetime of gnawing irritation 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.399 at being squeezed out of pop culture history. Now he's 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.040 trying to set the record straight. And in that article, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:24.880 Polly told the paper quote, not only did I not 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.640 get credit for doing anything, I got a kick in 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.200 the rear. So I stumbled upon this and said, what 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.400 is the backstory here? Suggest that there was drama? M 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.440 Eugene Theodore Polly was born on November twenty ninth, nineteen fifteen, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:46.160 in Chicago. His mother, Vera Wachowski, was from a wealthy family, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.440 but his father was a bootlegger. When Eugene was born, 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.320 Vera's family had cut off most contact with her because 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.760 of her connection to Eugene's father, but his father did 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.760 not stay around either. The two of them were separated 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:05.440 when Eugene was still really young. This is often described 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:11.240 as his father abandoning Vera and Eugene. His father's first 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.920 name is really never mentioned in any accounts of Eugene's life, 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.240 and later Eugene started using his confirmation name of Joseph 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.960 as his middle name. Yeah. I don't know if Theodore 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.440 was perhaps tied to his father in any way. That's 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.640 sheer speculation on my part, but there is definitely an 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.479 unwillingness to include any of that kind of discussion in 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.640 any stories of his life. Finances were very, very tight, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.279 but Vera and Eugene got by together. And Eugene was 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.680 very clearly a super smart kid. He just had a 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:48.240 mind for all things mechanical. And after high school he 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.520 attended City Colleges of Chicago and then he went on 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:56.039 to the Armor Institute to study engineering. The Armor Institute 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.880 is the Illinois Institute of Technology today. But Polly wasn't 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.600 able to finish his studies and he didn't get his 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.920 engineering degree. The depression was making life harder and harder, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:11.360 and his mother just needed help keeping their life together financially, 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:16.080 so Eugene joined the workforce. In nineteen thirty five, twenty 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:21.080 year old Eugene got hired by Zenith Radio Corporation and 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.239 he started there as a parts clerk. He didn't stay 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.919 in the stock room, though, he was eventually able to 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.080 move into the company's engineering department, and then he kept 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.880 moving up from there. He became a product engineer and 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:39.679 eventually moved into management and the mechanical engineering group. Zena's founder, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.120 another Eugene. That's Eugene McDonald, started pushing his engineers to 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.720 come up with something that would enable viewers to not 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:52.240 have to endure commercials. This was in nineteen fifty. Apparently McDonald, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.560 who had the nickname the Commander by his employees, uh, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.479 just hated commercials and he figured most other viewers did too. 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.960 That's usually how this is reported, and it sounds like 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.360 kind of a feel good story about a captain of 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:09.760 industry fighting for the interests of his consumers. But it's 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:13.280 a little more complicated than that. McDonald thought that ad 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.919 supported television was not going to last, and moreover, he 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.120 did not want it to last, and that was in 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.599 part because Zenith was developing an early pay per view 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.680 business model, which would have competed with ad supported programming 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.120 where viewers did not have to pay directly to watch things. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.839 Of course, his take on the potential of commercial driven 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:41.400 television proved wildly incorrect. There were radio remote controls of 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:44.560 various types going back to the nineteen twenties before the 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.760 rise of television, and they had evolved and improved significantly 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.520 over just a couple of decades, so it seemed like 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.080 there had to be a way to control a TV 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.680 with the remote too. There had already been an attempt 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.360 to control a TV remotely, but it was not really 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:04.320 all that helpful. That product was the Telezoom, which came 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.200 out in nineteen forty eight, and as that name suggests, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.920 it let viewers zoom in on the picture. That was 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:17.560 the only thing that it did. I often zoom in 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.720 on pictures on my phone. I can see times you 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.800 might want to do that on TV. Not that many times. 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.800 It did not really take off. Yeah, it's tricky. I 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.920 have seen some explanations that suggest that the idea for 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.200 it was that TV's were so small at the time 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.080 that people would want to zoom in. But I'm like, yeah, 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.679 but it's a moving picture, so like what you zoom 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.400 in on, yeah, may not be germane to the story. 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.800 It's a it's a moving picture. And the image quality 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:49.720 was also limited enough that it seems like zooming in 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:54.280 would quickly just be like blobs. Yeah, I could see why. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.400 It was not a rousing success. But the first invention 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.480 that came out of the Zenith Engineering group to solve 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.240 this problem of being able to silence commercials with something 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.880 called a lazy Bones, which I love. This was a 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.440 very simple remote. It was intended really just to silence 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:14.880 the TV during commercials, and Zenith advertised it that way, 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.120 hoping that it would help to hamper the use of 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.560 commercials and kind of kneecap commercial television. After all, if 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.200 consumers didn't hear the ad messaging, what was the point. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:31.720 The Lazybones advertising encouraged viewers quote television fans have fun. 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.120 Sit back in your chair, relax, keep Zeni's new Lazybone 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.920 remote control handy to change stations, Press lightly with your 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.960 thumb and presto, there's the program you want. But the 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.680 Lazy Bones was not a wireless device. It had a 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.680 cable that users had to connect to their television and 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.160 it could turn the set on or off, or change 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:56.920 the channels, and it also was really good at tripping people. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:02.200 Eugene McDonald really thought they could do better. Additionally, almost 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.960 as soon as the Lazy Bones hit the market, other 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.040 electronics companies started to make their own versions. So McDonald 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.480 really wanted something that could outperform all of those imitators. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.400 And this is where Eugene Polly's inventive mind came up 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.839 with a solution. We don't talk about that solution after 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:33.439 we pause for a sponsor break. In nineteen fifty five, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.360 Eugene Polly developed a product that became the flash Mattic. 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.480 The flash Matic used a beam of light to point 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.040 at sensors in the corners of the television to change 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.160 channels or activate the TV's power. It looked like a 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.640 ray gun or even the kind of gun you might 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.600 use to control a garden hose in terms of its form, 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.440 and that form factor was not an accident. Polly later 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.240 said in an interview that he chose that design quote 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.600 so people could shoot out the commercial. Polly's invention also 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.120 came equipped with what would become one of the most 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.840 important features of all remote control devices going forward, a 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.559 mute function. The flash Mattic was patented in Eugene Polly's 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.240 name under the title control system. The patent application notes 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.360 that it's trying to solve the danger issue of a 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.960 tethered remote quote. In the past, many different remote control 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.359 arrangements have been proposed for both radio and television receivers, 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.560 some of which have been exploited commercially. Most of these 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:40.200 remote control systems require physical interconnection between a remote control 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.920 station and the receiver, usually by a conductive wire or 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.800 multiconductor cable. Although some of these systems have been relatively 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.440 convenient and effective in operation, they are always subject to 0:10:53.480 --> 0:10:57.440 the principal disadvantage that the wire or cable linking the 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.760 remote control station to the rec receiver is not particularly 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.000 attractive in appearance and may often cause accidents when laid 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.679 across a portion of the floor where people must walk, 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.960 which seems like would be most setups right most of 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.199 the time, the space between where you sit and your 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.640 television is where you walk to sit and watch television. Well. 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.280 Another technology that was also working this way around this 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:28.760 time was hearing aids that were connected physically to the 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.200 television that also or a tripping hazard. I did not 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.280 personally see these, but like one generation back from me 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:41.120 and my family were like my great grandparents with their 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.280 hearing aids that connected directly to the TV. Yeah, if 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.080 you had two of these things going on, I shudder 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.160 to think at the danger level you were dealing with. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.560 And I say that in case that sounded funny with 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.680 entire sincerity, because yeah, I would trip over everything. Early 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.280 ads for the flash mat touted its revolutionary nature. One 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.000 such full page newspaper ad had the headline, now, a 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.880 flash of light without wires controls your Zenith TV from 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:15.040 across the room shoots off long, annoying commercials while picture 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.120 remains on screen. The rest of the ads copy explained 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.400 the device in more detail for consumers because this was 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:27.160 entirely new technology. Quote, Flashmatic tuning is built into the set. 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.319 It's a Zenith development. No other set has anything like it. 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.720 There are no wires, chords or connections of any kind. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.160 You simply point the light from the flashmatic gun into 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.520 one of the four flashmatic windows. There's one window in 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.880 each corner of the picture frame. The flashmatic light turns 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.440 the set on or off, changes stations forward or backward, 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:53.800 shuts off annoying commercials. It's unbelievably simple to operate, harmless 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.160 to humans, and built to last a lifetime. Many of 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.959 the ads showed a beam of light that was going 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.480 from the remote all the way to the TV to 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.800 show consumers exactly what it was, and the accompanying copy 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.000 often called it quote a flash of magic light. The 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:14.800 price point noted in the ad we just read from 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.239 was somewhat staggering. For a twenty one inch Zenith Bismarck 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:23.440 model television that included this new technology, that was four 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.560 hundred and nine dollars and ninety five cents, which would 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:31.160 be roughly like five thousand dollars today, so clearly the 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:36.320 flash Mattic was considered a luxury item. Other similar ads 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:40.200 leaned into the convenience of this new invention, noting quote, 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.400 you can turn the set on and off from your chair. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.559 One explained quote flashmatic is not an accessory or attachment. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:54.360 Sensitive photo cells and Zenith's famous fully automatic Bullseye tuning 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:59.560 circuits combined to make this television work like magic. Despite 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.200 that high cost, which retailers addressed by letting people buy 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:08.440 new TVs on installment plans. Almost thirty thousand TVs equipped 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.520 with flash Mattos were sold. Eugene Polly got a one 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.480 thousand dollars bonus for the success of this new product. But, 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:19.440 as is often the case with a brand new technology, 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.000 the user experience in the real world revealed some problems 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.160 that just were not immediately apparent when this product was 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.320 tested in a lab. For one, there was just a 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:35.200 basic issue of user memory. You had to remember which 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.560 corner of the TV you had to shoot at for 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.320 any given function, and that was not particularly intuitive, so 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.960 people got kind of frustrated. But the bigger issue was 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.880 that having a technology that is triggered by light in 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.040 people's homes where there are a lot of potential light sources, 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.800 led to a lot of problems. If a household had 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.000 a particularly bright lamp in a room, turning it on 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.520 might change the or volume settings, or turn the set 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.240 on or off. Similarly, in cases where a home's windows 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.600 weren't covered by curtains or shutters, the intense light of 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:13.120 sunrise or sunset could also cause the TV to act 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.880 as though it had received a user input. So owners 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.160 of flashmatic sets had to carefully plan where their television 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.000 set would be placed in the home without any light 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.920 sources or mirrors that could reflect them in positions where 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.640 they might impact the television. Rooms also had to be 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.160 fairly dim for the flash Matic to work consistently, as 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:36.760 ambient light made it harder for the receptors in the 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.120 screen to detect the light beam from the remote pointed 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.320 at them. Seeing that this idea could be further refined, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.200 McDonald asked for another team to come up with something different. 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.840 In addition to the need to create a device that 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.200 would eliminate the light sensitivity issues of the flash Maatic, 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:58.720 the company wanted whatever new device came about to not 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:04.040 require batter because apparently some users had panicked when the 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.680 batteries and their Flashmatic failed and they thought their entire 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:13.800 very expensive television set was broken, and that caused some 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.040 woes for the company. Yeah. I never found specifics, but 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.560 I envision like a company switchboard, just getting constant calls 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.280 of I spent so much money on this and now 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.240 it's broken, and them going, no, you need to replace 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:32.440 batteries sometimes because batteries being used and everything was also 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:36.720 not that common yet. So the year after Polly's invention 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.000 was finished, there was a second remote control developed at 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.000 Zenith This one, called a space Command, was the result 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:48.360 of a project led by researcher Robert Adler. Adler and 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.960 Polly are often characterized when this story is told because 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.200 of their differences so where Polly was from a poor 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.560 US family and had to leave college before he completed 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.200 his advanced degree to get a job. Adler, who was 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:06.640 born on December fourth, nineteen thirteen in Vienna, got his 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.879 PhD in physics from the University of Vienna in nineteen 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.600 thirty seven. After that he moved to the US and 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.120 then in nineteen forty one he was hired to work 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.720 at Zenith. In the years right after he joined the company, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.640 a lot of Adler's focus was in military applications. World 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.320 War Two led to a lot of innovations, and Adler 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.840 worked on projects like electro mechanical filters and high frequency 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.560 oscillators that were used for radios in US military aircraft. 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.720 Like a lot of engineers, he worked on loan from 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:45.200 Zenith to the US military. Meanwhile, Eugene Polly was also 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.840 working on the war effort. His concentration was in bomb 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:54.280 fuses and radar technologies, and once the war was over, Adler, 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.160 like Polly, continued on at Zenith working in television technology, 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.840 and for Adler, a lot of his work focused on 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.000 improving reception in picture and in a lot of cases 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:08.119 Adler implemented and drew from concepts that he had just 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.760 finished working on in his military radio work. There's one 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.800 newspaper reference that states that Adler was the person who 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.760 actually led the creation of the Lazybones tethered remote, but 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.720 it doesn't seem as though that's accurate. In the twenty 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.720 fifteen book Remote Control by Caitlin Benson Allett, the author 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.359 states that no one at Zenith seemed to know who 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:32.280 precisely came up with the Lazy Bones. According to some 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.800 write ups about early remote control history, Eugene McDonald went 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.119 directly to Adler to come up with something that solved 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.080 the problems of the flash mattic. That's another one that's unclear. 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.760 But Adler's team developed the Space Command and the design 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:51.000 of it was very different from Polly's remote. The Space 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:56.040 Command relied on high frequency chimes. The first model contained 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.320 two lightweight aluminum rods within the unit. A year user 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.840 pressed one of the buttons, the corresponding rod was struck 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.200 and the resulting ultrasonic noise would send a sound wave 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:10.320 that a microphone and receiver in the television picked up. 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.480 Depending on which wave that was, the channel was changed 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:18.919 or the sound was turned off. After the first model, 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.560 a four rod version was made, which could turn channels 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.679 up or down, turn sound on or off, or switch 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:29.560 the power on or off. If you're old enough to 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.640 have heard a remote control called a clicker that comes 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.160 from the clicking of the buttons on the space command, 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:40.000 although the sound that carried the signal was not generally 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:44.800 perceptible to human ears. Before the idea for aluminum rods, 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.679 one of the technologies that Adler had considered was the 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.600 use of radio waves, a natural thought given how much 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.480 of his prior work had been done in that field, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.160 But he had quickly realized that because radio waves could 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.359 travel through objects, there isn't a way to ensure that 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.800 your remote control was not going to change your neighbor's 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.560 TV channel or the volume of the sound. Yeah, the 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:13.760 sound waves got dampened by the walls of the house, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.879 but not so sort of like people's neighbors baby monitors 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:22.359 picking up on one another. Yeah, same problem. And unlike 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.439 the gun design of the flash Mattic, the Space Command 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.040 was a small rectangular box with switches that were labeled 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:33.040 for their function. Adler's team had solved all of the 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.760 problems of the earlier model and without the need for 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:42.640 batteries as requested, and this device worked consistently. There are 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.280 some stories of these sound based remotes being affected by 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.720 sounds in the home, like keys or pet tags jingling, 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:53.680 or even coins clicking together, but there are also accounts 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.080 that attribute those problems not to the Space Command but 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.959 to knockoffs of it that started appearing on the market. 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.080 Adler's remote went to market so soon after the Flash 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.879 Mattic that one of the incentives that was offered to 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.200 consumers was the chance to trade in your flash Madic 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:14.800 enabled TV for a new Space Command model. Zenith also 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:18.280 offered the Space Command technology on a wider range of 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.920 TV sets, so consumers could still get a remote control 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:25.720 if their budget did not allow for a full sized picture. 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.399 ADS touted quote no electricity, no batteries or fuel of 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.479 any kind, no wires, no tubes, no transistors, no radio 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:38.240 waves that might interfere with the set next door. Some 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:43.240 even included the note no flashlights. Nineteen fifty seven. Ad 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.680 even featured George Burns and Gracie Allen as celebrity spokespeople 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.240 for the space Command. Yeah. Just to be clear too, 0:21:52.720 --> 0:21:55.880 that trade in was not like a freeb You would 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.360 just get a lot of credit torture new television if 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.399 you had just bought a flash matic Delewis. Zenith was 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.800 not giving away new TVs. But coming up, we're going 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.200 to talk about how Eugene Polly felt about things when 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.600 Adler's invention was produced. But first we will hear from 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.399 the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class going. 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.200 Zenith put all of its advertising power behind Adler's design, 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.120 and as a consequence, Adler got a lot of attention 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.679 as the father of the remote control and that was 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:38.880 something that bothered Eugene Polly from the beginning. He had 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:41.719 pioneered the remote control space in a lot of ways, 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.040 but he felt left out of the story as he 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.080 watched Adler give interviews and get awards. Adler was given 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.639 the Outstanding Technical Achievement Award of the Institute of Radio 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.680 Engineers in nineteen fifty eight because of it. Polly later 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.440 told a reporter quote, a father has to be present 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.280 at conception, and if you're not, you're not the father. 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:07.280 Even in the existing Zenith web page that still exists today, 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.560 in the list of the company's milestones, it lists the 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:15.280 two devices this way nineteen fifty five, first wireless TV 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:20.639 remote control, flash Matic nineteen fifty six, first practical wireless 0:23:20.680 --> 0:23:25.320 TV remote control, Space Command. In the twenty five years 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:30.080 that followed the Space Command's introduction, Zenith Solder reported nine 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:35.600 million of the ultrasonic remote controls. During that time, Zenith 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:39.000 had to fend off a lot of imitators. Just two 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:43.520 years after the Space Command's introduction, Zenith sued the Admiral 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:47.879 Corporation for patent infringement. Admiral was not new to the 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.480 remote control game, but after the Space Command was released, 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:55.879 the company altered its sn R remote and even hired 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.960 a former Zenith engineer to work on it. Admiral lost 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.280 that suit, but it was not the only company that 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:05.800 tried to copy the design. A lot of those copycats, though, 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:09.760 were not nearly as effective, and Zenith continued to dominate 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:13.480 the market. Within six years of the introduction of the 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:17.159 Space Command, Robert Adler had become the vice president and 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.359 director of Research at Zenith, and he stayed in that 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.640 role for more than fifteen years before retiring in nineteen 0:24:23.680 --> 0:24:28.320 seventy nine. But even after retirement, he remained involved with Zenith, 0:24:28.359 --> 0:24:30.640 and he served as a consultant for the company until 0:24:30.680 --> 0:24:35.240 the late nineteen nineties. Polly retired from Zenith in nineteen 0:24:35.280 --> 0:24:39.640 eighty two, after almost fifty years with the company. Some 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:42.199 accounts listed nineteen eighty two as the year both he 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:45.919 and Adler retired. By the time he ended his career, 0:24:46.000 --> 0:24:49.200 Eugene Polly was a widower, having lost his wife Blanche 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:52.400 in nineteen seventy six. He lived with his daughter Joan 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:55.840 in Lombard, Illinois, until Jones's death in two thousand and eight. 0:24:56.760 --> 0:25:00.560 Ultrasonic technology was what everyone was doing for for twenty 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:05.040 five years, but it didn't remain the standard for remote controls. 0:25:05.800 --> 0:25:08.800 In the nineteen eighties, around the same time that Polly 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:12.800 and Adler were retiring, a Canadian company called view Star 0:25:13.000 --> 0:25:17.960 developed the infrared remote control. Zenith partnered with Ustar to 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:21.160 produce and market the device, and this was in part 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.760 a reaction to other technological developments. When there was only 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:28.520 a small range of channels a person could watch, a 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:31.719 simple up and down channel changer was great, but as 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:36.040 cable and satellite television services expanded the channel lineup from 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:41.000 like thirteen into dozens and even hundreds of possible options. 0:25:41.560 --> 0:25:46.080 A new remote technology was clearly needed, and this was 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:50.200 a significant jump in requirements. They needed more detailed input, 0:25:50.359 --> 0:25:53.480