h a l f b a k e r yPoof of concept
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Yeah, I didn't think of that. :( |
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I remember once Zenith ran a TV ad for television sets with a "Space Phone" button. Pushing the button would activate a phone though I don't know whether it was cordless or a speakerphone. In the TV ad, the phone was ringing and nobody wanted to answer it so people passed the remote around like a hot potato, suggesting the remote was a cordless phoneset. On the other hand, the ergonomics of that would be pretty crummy, and cordless phones then [1985 maybe?] were generally bulkier than the TV remote pictured. |
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Isn't this a perfect application for Bluetooth? |
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Hey, I was just searching the web for 'space phone button' and this was the only thing that came up. I was just given a working console TV with the space phone feature. It was manufactured in 1982. After plugging in the phone line from the back of the set and hitting the space phone button on the remote, I get a dial tone from the set. The set has a speakerphone and microphone in the set itself, not the remote. You can dial out from the remote and talk in the room to someone, but the quality to the other end sounds echo-ey, I think because of my distance from the television. It dials using pulse dialing, and I couldn't find any way to change this(unless it is internal to the phone). It also has two auto dial entries that you can program into the TV, as well as a digital auto-on, auto-off timer. When an incoming call comes in you just hit the space phone button to mute the TV and answer the call.
I wish I had the manual for this TV, although I think I've figured out all the features. |
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Still, its a pretty cool TV for free, although it takes up a lot of space! |
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I actually had that Zenith TV! We tried to use the phone as often as possible because it was so cool for it's time. You basically had a phone port in the back of the tv so it acted like a standard phone that was controlled by the remote. There was a microphone in the TV which let it act as a speakerphone. The echo was always pretty bad and you sounded like you were talking in a tunnel. It might have been better if we'd had a carpet instead of hard floors though. |
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I wish we still had that TV. |
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