Console TV to Stereo Cabinet

Growing up we had the cool TV. A Zenith Space Command System 3 console TV with Space Phone. I have no idea how many times I pressed the channel changer on that remote. I watched a good many hours of Gilligan's Island and the Brady Bunch. This TV was very good to me.

One of the cool features of this TV was the Space Phone, a low-fi speaker phone that was built into the TV. While watching TV, the whole TV would ring and interrupt the audio of whatever you were watching. I'm pretty sure the speaker phone was single duplex, meaning only one end could be talking at a time; otherwise the other party would be cut off. When dialing the phone, the phone number would show up on the screen in a black box. All these features could be controlled by the "computer space command" remote. The microphone was on the TV, so you needed to make sure you talked loud. Friends were always impressed to sit around and talk to a TV, an experience that truly made you feel part of the future. (Note: if on the other end of the phone conversation your feelings were more of annoyance and frustration because the audio quality of the call was so poor.)

Well, this TV had a good run. It eventually ended up in my parent's basement in my Dad's exercise room, and after some time, the TV did go out. When this happened, my Dad impressed me and did a little console TV recycling.