History
On May 30, 1985, Philips introduced the first universal remote (U.S. Pat. #4774511) under the Magnavox brand name.
In 1985, Robin Rumbolt, William "Russ" McIntyre, and Larry Goodson with North American Philips Consumer Electronics (Magnavox, Sylvania, and Philco) developed the first universal remote control. Shortly after development was completed and patent applications filed, Magnavox initiated the "Smart, Very Smart" campaign, coining the "smart" axiom. McIntyre has claimed that the primary design challenge was fitting the well-crafted, tight code into an extremely limited memory space. At least two subsequent patents followed: US Pat. 4703359, on November 20, 1988 and US Pat. 4951131, in 1989.
In 1987, the first programmable universal, remote control was released. It was created by CL 9, a startup founded by Steve Wozniak, the inventor of the Apple II.
In March 1987, Steve Ciarcia published an article in Byte Magazine entitled "Build a Trainable Infrared Master Controller", describing a universal remote with the ability to upload the settings to a computer. This device had macro capabilities.
Read more about this topic: Universal Remote
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“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Don’t give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can’t express them. Don’t analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)