The first of the RC tx's just turned the 27Mhtz carrier wave on and off, there was no modulation as that required a stable carrier frequency. My Fleet 4 Ch pre-proportional set had a blue crystal soldered in place to stabilise the oscillations. That was the first time I ever saw a crystal in use.
That would be around 50 years ago now.

In those days a servo was an electric motor powered escapement. I had a rudder servo that drove a screwed rod with a travelling 'nut' which was for the rudder movement. This needed 2 switch controls one left and one right, the rudder would move end points and then the end microswitch would cut the current and when you released the Tx switch it would centralise the rudder again. Very sophisticated!

Back then for speed which was from dry batteries I had a sequenced pair of relays that would run the batteries in either parallel or series with stop in between. Still got them!
I never did use i/c always electric.

Roy

Hi Ron I have the rubber powered escapements which had 4 positions and were used just fo the rudder. The Radio type I do not know as several early ones were suspect and never heard of again. Then American RC was the one to have but too much beyond my pay grade!

My first RC was a ED Mk4 with a ground level TX and a control box plugged into it. That was in 1958 (cost £7.7s.0d) never worked as I did not realise that it could not deal with electric motors. I was learning electronics at the time while training on Aircraft radar equipment.

I built some DIY which did not work often enough to take to the lake. The first successful equipment was from Fleet with electronic tones instead of tuned reeds.
That cost a week's wages, prices are ridiculously low now compared to then.

£50 in 1960 is equivalent to £1000+ now! £50 now is just a bit more than pocket money. So my £10 then would be £200 now. Both figures shop for groceries for a week for 2 people. (that is my main job now!).

Roy

Roy

Roy

What manufacturer of old had the rubber motor for power and a single button escapement?

I fella used this to fly his jr. falcon with an .049 engine screaming away.

Hi Garth Fleet in the UK followed the same order and with their own connectors. I still have the Fleet rx.s and servos and apart from one model with all Fleet connectors I have cut the Fleet connectors off and soldered on the standard ones in the correct order.
Now I think about it Sanwa were much the same wiring order.

Fleet was agressively British and the founder uncompromising, I met him several times. I complained about his special short aerials with all of 6 yards range and the early sail winch he sold which twitched the whole time. He would accept no criticism of performance and no possible responsibility.

The tx.s were very good and much like the Futaba M3 in polished aluminium and lovely to hold. I had a very early non proportional set which was excellent, so not all bad. I still use the sets on 40Mhtz never having ventured to 2.4Ghtz.

His 40 Mhtz sets all had labels underneath proclaiming them as 35 Mhtz and this works for all the ones I tried just insert a 40Mhtz crystal into a 35 Mhtz set and they work fine.

Now of course it is almost fit and forget for nearly all manufacturers.
Regards
Roy

Just a little bit of trivia, I want to explain why speed controllers had plug wiring different in 1990. Here is an AI explanation( 🔌 Why the Traxxas XL‑1 Had “Odd” Wiring
The XL‑1 came out before the industry settled on the modern black–red–white order.
Traxxas used:

Red = +5V

Black = Ground

White = Signal

…but the pin order in the plug didn’t always match Futaba/JR receivers of the time.
So even though the colours were correct, the positions weren’t.

That’s exactly how people fried receivers or ESC BEC circuits — the polarity was reversed when plugged into a different brand’s RX.The photo shows red - black plug has been changed to the universal plug wiring.The one in the photo is my backup for the Sequin.