For sale, the entire group including: one PIC100 open box, one PIC200 sealed box. Manuals, charger, receipt. These are the first universal, programmable, infrared remotes, invented by Wozniak\'s company CL9 as described below.From Wikipedia:
CL 9was auniversal remotecompany started bySteve Wozniak, theinventorof theApple IandApple IIcomputers. The company was in business for three years, from 1985 to 1988, coming out with the6502-based CL 9 CORE remote control in 1987, the first universal programmable remote control.
Origin[edit]
Wozniak was working atApple Computeras an Apple IIengineer. While he enjoyed his work, he didn\'t feel he was making a valuable contribution since he was pulled out of the office so often to act as an Apple spokesperson. And Apple had become a big company, as Wozniak says:
“Apple was a large company, and it wasn\'t and still isn\'t the love in my life. The love in my life is starting small companies with small groups of friends. Bringing new ideas out and trying to build them.[1]”
At the same time, Wozniak had a myriad of electronic entertainment devices in hisSanta Cruz mountainhome, each controlled with a different remote control. Having to fiddle with so many remotes frustrated him, and he came up with the idea of inventing what is now known as auniversal remote. While such a device has become commonplace, it was unheard of in the mid-1980s. The idea stuck with him, and after getting some friends interested, he decided to start a new company to build the device.
Wozniak decided to leave Apple to pursue his new venture, but stated that he \"never felt like I was turning my back on my own company [Apple].\" He told his boss\' boss,Wayne Rosing, about his decision to leave, but not Apple co-founder and friend,Steve Jobs. In fact, the first Jobs heard about him leaving was from a piece inThe Wall Street Journal. When Wozniak spoke to the reporter for the piece, he was very direct in pointing out that he wasn\'t leaving because he was disgruntled with Apple, but that he just wanted to build this exciting remote control. But the reporter nevertheless included some of his criticisms of Apple, which created some bad feelings. Wozniak says \"it was an accident, but it\'s been picked up by every book and every bit of history [since].\"[1]Despite his leaving Apple, Wozniak remained a paid employee of Apple and remains one to this day, though he states he makes as little as a full-time employee can make at Apple; he continues to admire Apple products.
Development[edit]
Wozniak lived in the Summit Road area of the Santa Cruz mountains. At that time, there were two restaurants, the Summit Inn and Butt 9. He heard Butt 9 was going out of business, so he suggested that as a site for the new company. Two weeks later, they instead settled into an older area of nearbyLos Gatos. The name \"Butt 9\", caught the attention of co-founder Joe Ennis and he investigated the availability of the name. It was taken, so the name CL 9 was chosen.[1]
While Wozniak was talking to an early investor in Apple, he mentioned his new company and he asked to be allowed to invest. Wozniak resisted, saying they weren\'t looking for investors. But the investor begged, so Wozniak let him invest. As a result, several of the investor\'s friends invested also, bringing in two to three milliondollars. About this time, Wozniak asked an old friend fromCommodore, Sam Bernstein, to be president.[1]
The company went through a great deal of research and engineering to develop the remote. They were frustrated in some of their early efforts by interference from Apple co-founder, Jobs: the enclosure was originally byFROG Design, but they also worked for Apple and Jobs would not allow them to do work for CL 9.[1]They overcame these setbacks and came up with a successful design for the innovative device. When it was near completion, with just the programming by Wozniak left to do, he pulled back. He decided to hire another programmer to do the work so he could spend more time with his children.
Company sold[edit]
Sale of the business, technology andpatentswas negotiated in 1988. \"CL 9\'s product, called Core, can operate stereo, television and other video equipment from a single, hand-held unit, but sales have been slow because of lower-priced units from established consumer electronics companies.\" Wozniak planned to pursue a career teaching elementary school. Martin Spergel was CL 9\'s president and chief executive at the time of the sale.[2]
CORE remote control[edit]
The CORE generic universal remote control was able to learn (i.e. record)IRsignal patterns from other remote controls. It had anLCD, a 4-bit and an 8-bit6502-basedmicroprocessor, and 16 keys (plus a few more control buttons). Sixteen pages of codes were available, for a total of 256 keyable codes; each of these 256 keys could reference any other combination of keys, allowing full macros. The device also had its own time clock, allowing codes to be sent at any future time. Aserial interfacewas included for connecting to acomputer.
Because the device had a completely generic numeric keypad, it could readily handle any remote-control task, but was not very attractive to ordinary users, who were more comfortable with specialized TV and VCR keys.[3]
The CORE uses bothAAA batteriesand a special internal battery soldered to thecircuit board. If the internal battery runs down, thefirmwareis lost. After replacing the internal battery, the firmware has to be re-loaded using the serial interface.[4]
Trademark and marketing problem[edit]
The product\'s nameCorecaused confusion in the marketplace with electronic and software from another well-known company – \"Core\" is a domestic and international registered trademark[5]ofCore International, Inc(now owned bySony) forcomputers,computer peripheralsandcomputer programs. After a legal settlement, the product was to be renamed and already manufactured items were to carry a disclaimer notice informing users it was not from Core International, Inc.
Successor company[edit]
The CORE remote control was marketed by Robert Retzlaff and David Peters of Celadon. \"The Celadon company later took over the CORE in 1991 and renamed it the PIC-100 after CL 9 closed its doors in 1988. It marketed the PIC-100 until they updated it as the PIC-200—this used FLASH technology.\"[4]
Patent[edit]
The technology for CORE waspatentedby Wozniak and Charles H. Van Dusen, a CL 9 employee, for CL 9. The United States Patent number is 4918439. It was filed on October 5, 1988, thus, officially, the patent expired in 2005.
Woz describing the device:
My company was CL9 and we built the CORE universal remote control. This was before the simple idea of preprogramming all the codes used by the common companies was done. My device looked at the IR signal and analyzed it and recreated it. It also had to determine if certain codes needed to be emitted more than once to work. My device had 16 user buttons and a few more control buttons. They were all large and finger sized. You could put the CORE into one of 16 keyboards, so you really had 256 total keys to use. Any key could have a sequence of any of the other keys and any IR codes that you read in. So a single key could turn on the TV, then turn on the VCR, then select channel 4, etc. More than that, the \'sequence\' attached to a key could access all the control buttons. The lessor used control buttons were covered by a slider to keep things looking simpler. This remote control kept it\'s own time and could emit IR signals at certain times. You could hit \"AT-5-PM-6\" (4 buttons total) to execute button 6 at 5 PM. Even the buttons that programmed the main user buttons could be included in a program. Thus button 1 could reprogram button 2, etc. This allowed a simple level of programming without normal program loops. You could program the remote control to skip daylight savings time with a sequence like \"AT-2-AM-Set-Hour up\" (5 buttons). I was able to create a program that would keep daylight savings time going up and down on the right days forever, including leap years, but it was quite an effort and required a lot of keys to hold current states.
Also, you could connect a terminal to the remote control, with a serial link that we made, and could bring up a lot of debugging aids similar to those on the Apple ][. The 8 bit microprocessor was like an advanced 6502. So you could enter programs in machine code and even operate the LCD display and keyboard. I\'m sort of sorry that I didn\'t take this capable machine further.
It\'s now marketed by
Robert Retzlaff
Celadon
