Technology Run A Muck (Part 2 of 3)

Furthering my trip down memory lane, it occurred to me that the technology revolution has made obsolete some of my fond memories…

• Old remote controls & TVs with mechanical channel tuners – Remember these? As a kid, I remember handling my first wireless remote like it was gold bullion. As I recall, it was a weighty beast about the size of a telephone receiver. It had chrome—yes, chrome—and just only three buttons. One for running through the channels sequentially, one for volume, and an on/off button. The action really started when you hit the channel button. The television would come “alive” as the mechanical dial would go through seemingly painful gyrations to get to the next channel. Most of these old sets are gone now, but I can remember the gears wearing out and having to change the channel with a pair of needle nose pliers! Yep, nothing like sticking metal into a device with tubes and 110 volts, but that’s the risk you took to watch seven channels back in the day!
  
• TVs as furniture – My brother-in-law and I were loading an old console set onto his truck a few weekends back when I mentioned that when such sets went bad back in the day, we’d turn the old case into a fish tank! He was stunned like a deer in headlights… he gathered himself to blurt out, “Say what???” Then it hit me. Young folks don’t remember when TVs used to be furniture. When a living room used to a “Living” room—now the family room is the center of attention and the living room is just a museum piece for folk to look at, but not to touch…but I digress. We had a Zenith television that had Mahogany wood all around it. It was twenty-five inches, and had a panel on front with tiny dials to tune the channels you viewed most, and knobs for color, tint, and brightness. I tried to remember the first time I saw a fish tank in a TV, and my only recollection is a Chinese restaurant somewhere in North Jersey, but it was some tank! All the controls had been left in place, but the picture tube had been replaced with, well…a glass tank. It’s the earliest version of HDTV I can remember, but it could only tune in to the Goldfish channel!
  
• Microwave Ovens with dials – While working in Philly back in the eighties, I bought my mother a microwave oven. Most people don’t remember life without these time savers, but there used to be time when warming up dinner meant firing up the oven or the stove! The microwave was a Sharp® Carousel as I recall and it had a dial—no LED—and a rotating tray. It was simple. Step 1: Open door. Step 2: Insert food. Step 3: Close door. Step 4: Turn knob. Simple. Warming up food in a microwave today brings to mind the skills necessary to program a VCR. Manufacturers, in their zeal to add features, have largely lost the simplicity that made microwaves such a hot commodity…err…no pun intended.
  
  

So there you have it. Out with the old, in with the new. Is there anything on your list of archaic items that you’d like to see back? Let me know. In the meantime, I’ve given some thought to those current things that I see going the way of the mercury thermometer…but that will have to wait until next time.
Peace,
+THINKER