The Recline of Western Civilization

1898
At a private showing for investors held at Madison Square Garden, modern history’s favorite maligned genius, Nikola Tesla, first presented his “Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vehicle or Vehicles.” Using a radio transmitter to steer, Tesla guided a small boat over a pond. After receiving the US patent for his device later that year, Telsa announced his “devil automata” in an interview with the New York newspaper The Sun. News of the invention quickly spread, and his friend Mark Twain wrote him a perspicacious letter soon afterwards from Vienna: “Have you Austrian and English patents on that destructive terror which you have been inventing? And if so, won’t you set a price upon them and concession me to sell them?” Twain predicted that the armies of the world would bow down before such profound technology, and the remote control would “make war thenceforth impossible.”^[1] After a prolonged scandal of intellectual property and propriety, popular credit for radio technology went to Guglielmo Marconi. Tesla retreated into doleful eccentricity, claimed to receive commands from outer space, and spent his latter days with a particularly beloved white pigeon.^[2]

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1903
Spanish mathematician Leonardo Torres Quevedo built what he called the “Telekino.” A remote control similar in mechanical function to Tesla’s, the Telekino employed its own telegraphic code to signal commands. The series of clicks were first demonstrated for use with a child’s tricycle, making it possible to animate the vehicle without the necessity of an energetic rider.^[3] Torres Quevedo then tested his Telekino with engine-driven boats in Madrid’s Real Casa de Campo pond and in the Bilbao Estuary where he “successfully took full control of a dinghy with a crew of eight at distances of over 1.25 miles.”^[4] He abandoned his intention to use the technology to pilot submarine torpedoes when he was denied funding for his project by the Spanish government.

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1938
The Philco Corporation released its “Mystery Control,” touted as “the Most Thrilling Invention since Radio Itself! ... It’s truely (sic) unbelievable! It’s mystifying! That’s why it’s called Mystery Control!” The remote, a handheld electromagnetic oscillator, sold well, but after a few years, it became apparent that people’s radio listening habits did not require such a device, and Philco stopped its production.^[5]

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1941
Germans developed the first remote-guided missiles, named V1 and V2, abbreviations for Vergeltungswaffen or “weapons of vengeance.” An early test model of the V2 recovered by the British was outfitted with a radio transmitter, leading the British to wrongly assume that the missile could be stopped by merely scrambling radio waves.

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1950
Eugene Macdonald, self-described “Commander” of the Zenith Electronics Corporation, developed the “Lazy Bones” remote control, equipped with a mute button to combat his personal pet peeve—commercials. Unfortunately, “Lazy Bones” connected to the TV via a cumbersome cable stretched across the living room floor. Deemed a hazard, the technology was shelved.^[6]

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1955
Searching for a wireless remote technology, Zenith engineer Eugene Polley experiments with light-sensitive controls, and in 1955 the company distributed the Flashmatic. Basically a high-powered flashlight, the Flashmatic signaled photo cells in each corner of the TV set. Consumers quickly discovered, however, that any light source—be it a lamp, passing headlights, or a fireplace—could affect the controls. A sunny afternoon caused the Flashmatic-equipped TV to go haywire.^[7]

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1956
Dr. Robert Adler redirected Zenith’s technological focus from light to sound, leading to the 1956 introduction of the first “practical” wireless remote—the Zenith Space Command. By clicking the switches on a small, battery-free console, colliding aluminum rods emitted ultrasonic vibrations to reliably signal the TV on and off, change channels, and, finally, mute commercials. Though the Space Command required an expensive, elaborate vacuum tube receiver, there was “Nothing between you and the set but space!”^[8] The “clicker’s” technology successfully facilitated immobility for the next quarter century.^[9]

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ca. 1978
Formerly the province of the military, infrared technology replaced ultrasonics as the industry and living room standard. Instead of sound at too high a frequency to hear, remotes now began to use light at too low a frequency to see.

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1999
Individual Americans watched an average of four-and-a-half hours of television per day.^[10] Sports Illustrated magazine named Eugene Polley and Robert Adler “Men of the Millenium.”^[11]

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2004
Mitch Altman, a San Francisco electronics prankster-cum-philosopher, invented and marketed the TV-B-Gone Universal Remote Control. In a ploy to “give people a choice” they may not have realized they were missing, the TV-B-Gone can turn off almost any television in restaurants and bars, waiting areas, and living rooms the world over. Altman continues to report excellent sales.^[12]