Clickers

Why do some people refer to a remote as a clicker? They don't make any sound at all!

The reason is that early remotes used ultrasonic sound. The sound was usually made by striking a chime bar with a spring loaded hammer. You couldn't hear the ultrasonic ringing, but you could hear a mechanical click, hence the term.

You could have fun with these things. Put your finger over the pickup mike on the TV, and the remote stops working. Since they respond to ultrasonic, you could sometimes make the set go screwy by jingling a set of keys in front of it. Today's remotes only respond to infrared, and the codes have to match.

This particular clicker came to me in pieces. Since then, I have found a home for it.

This clicker was in much better shape.

Before VHS, or Beta, or BetaCam, or U-Matic, or V-Cord (I have all these), there was Video Tape, which was an open reel of tape which was hand-threaded into a Video Tape Recorder. This unit was black-and-white, but you could put it in pause, and turn the reels by hand to make the picture go forwards or backwards at will.

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