Do you remember your family’s first remote controlled color TV/VCR as a child?

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Do you remember your family’s first remote controlled color TV/VCR as a child?

Posted: 2/10/2022 9:53:29 PM EDT

It was 1982 or 83 when dad brought home our first remote controlled TV. I was 8 or 9. I don’t remember the exact model but I know it was an RCA ColorTrak. I know this because I tracked down the remote which was very simple but distinctive. It’s the one on the right.

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The TV was something like this but several inches bigger. Maybe an RCA GJR660T. It was composite plastic with a faux wood grain top and sides. As far as quality, ColorTraks were considered midrange, but it always surprises me how expensive electronics were at that time. Dad probably paid around $498.00 plus tax in 1983 dollars, or about $1,394.01 today.

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Now the VCR, I definitely remember. Dad brought it home in 1984. It was a top-loading General Electric 1VCR5002X with a “remote” that was connected by a cable. To fast forward or reverse you had to hold down the buttons. Great VCR that I remember watching Predator and Police Academy on until I wore out the tapes.

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Posted: 2/10/2022 10:11:19 PM EDT

[#1]

Don’t remember what brand tv but it was 1966 because Batman had just come out and all the neighborhood kids were there.

Posted: 2/11/2022 12:28:31 AM EDT

[#2]

I remember remotes just like that and sitting next to TV to adjust knobs. We had a B&W TV somewhere in there color was a big upgrade

Posted: 2/13/2022 1:18:51 PM EDT

[#3]

I remember when they announced that the program being broadcast was in color.

1960s - NBC - Living Color Peacock (HQ)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc8tWbjBcAc

Posted: 2/13/2022 10:16:08 PM EDT

[#4]

Dad bought mom our first color TV in 68 so she could watch Peggy Fleming in color at the Olympics.

Us kids were the remote.

Posted: 2/14/2022 4:40:16 PM EDT

[#5]

My mom still have our first VCR, a top loader, with a wired remote. The remote is lost now, but the VCR still works.

Posted: 2/14/2022 5:04:24 PM EDT

[#6]

My Grandfather had one of the first color tv's. If I remember correctly, it had a two button remote for changing the channels up or down and the screen was pretty much various shades of green

Posted: 2/16/2022 3:05:18 PM EDT

[#7]

Quote History

Quoted:
My Grandfather had one of the first color tv's. If I remember correctly, it had a two button remote for changing the channels up or down and the screen was pretty much various shades of green

View Quote

I remember the thick glass on some of those old tubes being tinted green.

Posted: 9/17/2022 12:33:57 AM EDT

[#8]

Yes, I was the remote control on our tv...My mom would tap my head, and say hey go change the channel, and i would stand there and rotate the Selec TV box dial until she found what she wanted to watch...

Posted: 9/17/2022 1:20:48 AM EDT

[#9]

Don't recall the brand but the housing looked like it came off the Space 1999 set. It had a zoom button!

Posted: 9/17/2022 1:30:24 AM EDT

[#10]

As a child? My parents didn't get a remote control tv til I moved out & they moved to the big city. When I was little, they had a big console color tv, and they gave that away to nuns. In high school we had a little black & white tv, that was the monitor for the Timex Sinclair.

Posted: 9/17/2022 2:08:50 AM EDT

[#11]

I think we had remotes but my grandparents had a few manual dial tv's and I remember a vhs with a wired remote.

Posted: 9/21/2022 5:47:48 PM EDT

[#12]

First one I recall us having was in about 1979 or 80. It was a box with a bunch of buttons on it with a wire running to the TV.

Something like this.

Before that it was basically this

Posted: 9/21/2022 5:49:18 PM EDT

[#13]

VCRs used to be so expensive that people rented them. Beta and VHS were available.

Posted: 9/21/2022 6:08:25 PM EDT

[#14]

We had a Toshiba with a sweet remote that hid inside a little spring loaded trapdoor on the bottom right of the TV. Never lost the remote!

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Posted: 9/21/2022 6:28:11 PM EDT

[#15]

Not quite on point but my dad built our TV when I was a kid. It was a Heathkit color TV and he went for the motorized channel changer option; not a remote but instead of turning the dial to change the channel we pushed a button and the knob turned on its own.

ETA: My dad was in the visual communications business so he always had access to cutting edge stuff and he'd bring it home to play with it. I remember the first tape recording device he brought home. He set it on top of the TV; it was as big as a suitcase. I think he recorded Black Sheep Squadron.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:08:57 PM EDT

[#16]

I don't remember ours at home, but I do remember a few.

Good friends dad bought a new TV with an acoustic remote. It made a loud CLICK when you pressed the buttons. I got a Max Machine remote control toy that had a similar control.

Girlfriends dad bought a VCR with the long wired remote.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:15:34 PM EDT

[#17]

When I was a kid in the 70's, I was my Dad's remote control.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:17:37 PM EDT

[#18]

Magnavox 26" with a matching VCR. Of course I remember.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:32:28 PM EDT

[#19]

Heathkit IIRC...

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:34:55 PM EDT

[#20]

Quote History

Quoted:
Not quite on point but my dad built our TV when I was a kid. It was a Heathkit color TV and he went for the motorized channel changer option; not a remote but instead of turning the dial to change the channel we pushed a button and the knob turned on its own.

ETA: My dad was in the visual communications business so he always had access to cutting edge stuff and he'd bring it home to play with it. I remember the first tape recording device he brought home. He set it on top of the TV; it was as big as a suitcase. I think he recorded Black Sheep Squadron.

View Quote

yes. this exactly. Blacksheep, all the war movies, StarTrek

few years later I experienced the wonders of the Video Cipher II and booby channels

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:45:51 PM EDT

[#21]

I was the remote.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:48:12 PM EDT

[#22]

I remember that our first remote control was me.

Posted: 9/21/2022 7:50:07 PM EDT

[#23]

Our first remote controlled color TV was bought 20 years before VCRs became affordable for the average middle class family.
It had AM/FM stereo and a phonograph in a cabinet grade wood console.

The clicker.

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Posted: 9/21/2022 7:50:26 PM EDT

[#24]

Our first remote controlled color TV was bought 20 years before VCRs became affordable for the average middle class family.
It had AM/FM stereo and a phonograph in a cabinet grade wood console.

The clicker.

Attached File

Posted: 9/21/2022 8:18:03 PM EDT

[#25]

Quote History

Quoted:
Our first remote controlled color TV was bought 20 years before VCRs became affordable for the average middle class family.
It had AM/FM stereo and a phonograph in a cabinet grade wood console.

The clicker.
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/74684/remote_jpg-2534547.JPG

View Quote

Our first color TV was a Heathkit console behemoth that my dad built shortly after moving into our first home.

We had just traveled back from overseas after he finished up some gvt contractor work. It was about 1971, after a year of settling into the new home.

The remote had like 4 buttons on it and turned the TV channel dial with an electronic servo.

The ultrasonic frequency always confused our first dog, and he'd tilt his head with a confused look on his pup face.

Back then, it was the "state of art," in tech.

Yep. There was red carpeting, black vinyl couches, white wallpaper, and a lava lamp on the TV console, while we watched the latest news on the war in Vietnam, followed by "Laugh-in".

That being said, the 60's and 70's were great times, and a part of Americana that were very special (IMHO).

Posted: 9/21/2022 8:40:03 PM EDT

[#26]

Quote History

Quoted:

Our first color TV was a Heathkit console behemoth that my dad built shortly after moving into our first home.

We had just traveled back from overseas after he finished up some gvt contractor work. It was about 1971, after a year of settling into the new home.

The remote had like 4 buttons on it and turned the TV channel dial with an electronic servo.

The ultrasonic frequency always confused our first dog, and he'd tilt his head with a confused look on his pup face.

Back then, it was the "state of art," in tech.

Yep. There was red carpeting, black vinyl couches, white wallpaper, and a lava lamp on the TV console, while we watched the latest news on the war in Vietnam, followed by "Laugh-in".

That being said, the 60's and 70's were great times, and a part of Americana that were very special (IMHO).

View Quote View All Quotes

View All Quotes

Quote History

Quoted:

Quoted:
Our first remote controlled color TV was bought 20 years before VCRs became affordable for the average middle class family.
It had AM/FM stereo and a phonograph in a cabinet grade wood console.

The clicker.
https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/74684/remote_jpg-2534547.JPG

Our first color TV was a Heathkit console behemoth that my dad built shortly after moving into our first home.

We had just traveled back from overseas after he finished up some gvt contractor work. It was about 1971, after a year of settling into the new home.

The remote had like 4 buttons on it and turned the TV channel dial with an electronic servo.

The ultrasonic frequency always confused our first dog, and he'd tilt his head with a confused look on his pup face.

Back then, it was the "state of art," in tech.

Yep. There was red carpeting, black vinyl couches, white wallpaper, and a lava lamp on the TV console, while we watched the latest news on the war in Vietnam, followed by "Laugh-in".

That being said, the 60's and 70's were great times, and a part of Americana that were very special (IMHO).

Yes. Great times indeed!
My dad was a huge DIY but not anything electronic.
My folks did a remodel and small addition to our home in 1966 and the new TV was part of that.
I heard a hundred times his complaint about the price of the carpeting my mom just had to have. Imported Italian wall to wall wool. lol
I'm ignorant of the clicker operation but our dogs never seemed to react to it.

ETA: Google says the Zenith Space Command clicker produced ultrasonic tones when aluminum rods were pinged; cats and dogs could react to the tone that humans did not hear.

Posted: 9/21/2022 9:29:09 PM EDT

[#27]

@grywlf52

Posted: 9/21/2022 9:47:54 PM EDT

[#28]

I remember the first color TV my parents got. Would have been very late 70's, maybe early 80's. It was used, came from a hotel, had a radio in it too. No remote.

Our first VCR was bought by my sister when she started working in HS, which would have been mid-80s. That was our first remote control.

My parents were not early adopters of technology. And they were extremely frugal.