| Jeffhs |
01-15-2012 09:45 PM |
The only Zenith Flash-Matic televisions I've ever seen were in ads, and all of those sets were TV only, no turntable or radio. I think the set in the photo is probably a cobbled-together three-way entertainment unit, as I don't think Zenith ever used the Flash-Matic chassis in any combo -- although I could be wrong. The F-M television was too problematic as it was, considering the false-triggering problems with the sensors at the corners of the CRT mask, the lack of a lockout scheme to prevent such false triggering, et al.
The Flash-Matic was such a major embarrassment for Zenith that the set was only made for the 1955-56 model year, then discontinued. I think Zenith must have lost money hand over fist with the FlashMatic since people usually did not buy another after the problems they experienced with the one they had; that or else or the F-M sets could have soured them forever on anything bearing the Zenith name and/or logo.
However, it may have been a learning experience for their R&D department when it came time to redesign the remote control system. The Flash-Matic, after all, was Zenith's very first attempt at wireless remote control of a television receiver, and the first attempt at anything often results in problems. The lessons learned from the problems experienced by set owners with the Flash-Matic taught Zenith's R&D department a lot about how not to design a wireless remote control; they applied this knowledge to the design of the Space Command ultrasonic remotes that followed. The result was far fewer complaints from set owners over malfunctions, although the SC ultrasonic remote had at least one quirk that annoyed the devil out of folks with dogs: when the family dog would walk in front of the set, and its tags bounced against the collar, creating a sound of just the right frequency to activate the remote receiver, the set could turn on, change channels, et al. in the middle of the night, unbeknownst to the set owner. Imagine watching Johnny Carson some night in the '60s or '70s on your Zenith SC-equipped b&w or color TV, then, when the program ended, you pressed the on/off button on the hand unit to turn off the set; then you went to bed, only to be awakened at half-past five the next morning by a 400-Hz test pattern tone coming from your living room. You get up and hear This is television station W---, returning to the air. W--- is owned and operated by . . ., only to find that the TV had turned itself on some time while you were asleep -- probably because your dog walked in front of the set some time earlier, near the remote transducer.
I'm sure this sort of thing happened more than once with Zenith TVs equipped with ultrasonic remotes, which was very likely why the company switched to IR (infrared) remote control systems by the '80s or '90s -- and why that method of TV remote control became the industry standard shortly thereafter. Infrared remotes, after all, cannot be triggered by anything other than IR signals from the TV's own (or a universal) remote hand unit.
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