Master and commander.(memory lane)

CED, July, 2004 by Schley, Stewart

In the late 1950s, when the U.S. was transfixed by the Space Age, a common way to make a new product appealing was to give it a name that had to do with space exploration. Thus, a washing machine was christened "Starmatic," even though it was surely to remain rooted on earth for the duration of its serviceable life, and cars were shipped from factories with the nameplate of "Mercury" despite the fact they were bound to travel highways only on the most familiar of planets.

It was not a surprise, then, that Zenith Electronics Corp. chose the same brand motif when, in 1957, it began advertising a new sort of gadget. "Space Command" was the chosen name for a four-button device about the size of a portable transistor radio of the era. Its purpose was conveyed in a...

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