Toshiba CT-90043

[ChrisW6ATV]

I learned about the four color buttons on remote controls, ironically, on a trip to the UK in 2000. They are/were for the Teletext system in wide use at that time (is it entirely gone now?). A Teletext screen would often have uses for those buttons, such as red for sports, blue for weather maybe.

I was so fascinated by Teletext (which had only brief, minimal use in the USA in the mid-1980s, with few decoders available and none built into TVs) that I "watched" it a lot more than actual TV programs on that trip.

The set of four color buttons does live on, though, with other uses. My Samsung TVs and Blu-ray player have them, marked A-B-C-D, and on-screen menus include functions for them.