[Redbob]

The device pictured, while portable, is nothing whatsoever like a “window airconditioner” - it doesn’t sit in the window, for starters, but has a large apparatus “near” the window containing all the mechanicals.

If that’s what he patented, it’s understandable that the “large appliance manufacturer” didn’t feel any obligation to pay him royalties for a true window unit.

[NRA2BFree]

We don’t need it yet. We got 2 inches of snow yesterday. brrrrrr lol..

[johnny7]

LOL... remember when retail stores had signs outside bragging that they were air conditioned?

[Redbob]

Meanwhile, I’ve got to go mow some grass, and it’s 93 F outside...

[vietvet67]

Looks to me like the current portable air conditioners sold nowadays with the exhaust hose in a window bracket.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

And all this time, I thought the air conditioner was invented by two guys named Max and Norm.

[A.A. Cunningham]

I hear that the Commando 8 is a good one, as long as you install it correctly.

[SamAdams76]

I remember as a boy growing up having the dreaded chore of dragging those monstrosities up from the basement and mounting them in the windows - one per bedroom on the second floor and then one in the kitchen and living room on the first floor. Always on the first hot day of the year, usually in June, so I was sweating like a pig. But once they got turned on, it was quite a relief.

Then I had to do the reverse late in September when the nights got chilly again.

When I was able to afford my own house, I made sure it had central air.

[Thrownatbirth]

I remember the steady drip from a window unit would create a tiny Amazonian ecosystem of strange, slimy vegetation right beside the house.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Carrier had a window/portable unit in 1932 used on trains and planes.

Philco-York had a Freon window plug-in unit on the market in 1938.

[wildbill]

As someone old enough to remember summers in Texas without airconditioning, I’ve just said a prayer for the soul of Mr. Sherman.

Without a/c there would be no modern Texas.

[tlj18]

Air conditioning is very uncommon where I live (Germany). That’s why so many people died in France several years ago when the heat wave hit. It definitely saves money by not using it, but don’t complain when a hot summer comes...

[xarmydog]

I got one that came in an old 52 Chev.PU.It was nothing more than a fan that plugged in the lighter outlet,with a container on the bottom to hold water.It had a hanger built on it that was used to hold it into place when the window was rolled up.The same concept,more or less,as a swamp cooler effect.It is amazing how many people wanted it it and the price they were willing to pay.I still have it and it still works.

[pabianice]

In Vietnam, it was hot. Very, very hot. We lived in a plywood barracks on the Navy side of Cam Rahn Bay between flights. The second floor was so hot it was unlivable (140 degree range). So the Navy, which had no money, asked the Air Force, which had its own mint, to install A/C for the barracks. Boy, did they. Our barracks was a two-story plywood thing with 48 rooms. The USAF installed an A/C that was almost as big as the entire building and had no thermostat. It just ran full-bore 24 hours a day with a wind speed out the vents of about 25 knots. The entire barracks immediately plunged down to about 40 degrees F. We huddled, shivering, under our one lousy Navy gray horse hair blanket and tried to get crew rest. By the second week we were all hacking-up phlegm and wiping away the steady stream of snot that ran from our noses. You’d step out of a 40 degree room into the blazing 130 degree Sun and back again. We flew most of our missions as one big head cold. All you could hear on the ICS was hacking, spitting, and swearing. The flight surgeon threw up his hands.