1994: Panasonic RQ-2102 Cassette Recorder

These days, its easy to find entertainment on the Internet. You have probably seen or at least heard of GIFs, funny little picture animations that are usually hilarious. All over the internet there are memes, popular pictures captioned in different ways to be funny. Want to have some fun? Just surf YouTube for a little while. But back in the 80s, all you needed was a cassette recorder! Record fart sounds, make funny noises, you can have a blast with a tape recorder. Oh, and like YouTube it can even play music!

Origin & How it Works:

Most folks know what cassette tapes are, it was a music format that dominated the 80s, and died in the 90s with the advent of CDs. This comes from a friend of my mom's who owned it for many years. It was common in the 80s and 90s for a house to have one of these to play cassettes, they all looked about the same, like a shoebox. This model is fairly new to be called retro, but it is identical to the models from the 80s.

Like an odometer for a cassette.

Nearly all of these shoebox cassette recorders have the standard play, fast forward, rewind, etc. buttons up front, and were powered by either AC power line or a bunch of C or D batteries, or both, like this one. They have a counter that moves as the tape moves, but has to be manually reset with a small button. This one even has a convenient carrying handle.

Handy for recording farts anywhere!

On the side is a socket for a power cord, a plug for an external microphone (even though this one has a microphone built in), a plug for external speaker or headphones, and a volume wheel. The entire silver area above the cassette door is the speaker.

More connectivity than an iPod

How well does it work?

I listened to some 5150 earlier, and it reminded me how old and decrepit this thing is. The audio is dull and washed out, even plugged into my stereo speakers. It goes fast and slow, pitches up and down, and generally sounds awful. But it is tolerable, and as it plays longer, i guess warms up, and sounds a little better. I haven't recorded anything in a long time but when I did it sounded just fine.

Van Halen is best on a crappy cassette

Conclusion & Future:

I have quite a few cassettes, even some blanks if I ever wanted to record anything for some reason. Every so often I'll play a cassette...I see it as another conversation piece of my collection. Next blog we might stay in the 90s with some retro computers!

1967: GAF Anscomatic S/80 Super 8 Camera

GAF Anscomatic S/80

It's football season again! Even with an antenna, on Saturdays and Sundays all day there is at least 1 channel with a football game on. For others, they have DVRs to record their games if they want to watch them later. The DVR is a big part of the home theater these days, some can record 5 different shows at once, and can store days worth of TV programming. Not to mention the thousands of options on online streaming and DVDs and Blu Rays. You can watch just about anything you want at any time, often without commercials.

But as I usually do in my blogs, I ask you to think back to 1967, long before the first VCR became cheap enough to purchase ($400 in the early 80s). Back then, there was just about no way to record anything on TV. Not even many re-runs. Once it happened, at the time, you thought you would never see it again except for pictures and descriptions in the next day's newspaper. My dad said he actually tried to record Rocky when it first came out with a Super-8 camera and an audio tape recorder. He said the quality was awful but he was able to line up the sound with the video, and to be able to play a movie, or any recorded show, whenever you want, was a surreal experience. I have a Super-8 camera myself: a GAF Anscomatic S/80

Origin & How it Works:

First, a quick overview on what Super-8 is. Super-8 is a silent video recording medium, that works similarly to commercial motion picture film. It is like the 2.0 version of 8mm video film that has existed since the early 1930s, but they are so similar many projectors can play both with the flip of a switch. Basically the film is a long string of pictures that are played at a certain speed (18 frames per second) in a projector to show a moving picture. Depending on how well the recorded video was focused, conditions, and how the projector was focused and it's quality, picture quality varied widely from really crappy to pretty decent. The best example of 8mm video film is all the Kennedy home movies that are widely publicized, and the infamous JFK assassination footage. This film was professionally converted to digital video using a machine that literally takes a picture of every single frame, then strings them together for a flicker-free perfect picture. Oddly enough, when you convert this footage it can actually turn out to be HD quality, that can look much better than newer VHS or even DVD format. Video film formats died in the late 70s to early 80s when VHS camcorders became widely available.

This is a little camera I stumbled upon in an antique store in Celina, TX. I thought it was pretty cool and would be a good match for my Super 8 projector. Before that, it's hard to say where it has been, but it definitely looks like it has been used a good bit. It's made of mostly metal, with plastic covers for the lens and other small pieces. It runs on 4 AA batteries, but unfortunately since I don't have any Super-8 cartridge to load into the camera, I can't really test to see if it works. The handle is detachable plastic. It's kind of an odd reverse-pistol grip, you hold it the opposite way you would think to hold it.

A reverse-pistol grip, the lens is on the left, you look in the viewfinder on the right.

At the front of the camera is the lens, no movable parts here except a knob you can use to select the exposure value, from 1.8 to 22. The smaller values were used for dark videos, while higher values were used for brighter environments. There is a guide on the side that actually tells you what value to use in certain conditions. On either side there are small windows that can tell you how many feet of film have been used to help keep track of how much you have used.

The middle values have warn away, but you get the idea.

 At the top on the front, there is a small window for the viewfinder. With analog video and picture cameras, there was no way to make the viewfinder through the actual lens, so it was usually set close to the lens on a corner to help you line up the picture. It wasn't very accurate though, often you would think you have everyone fit in the picture but you end up cutting everyone's heads off or you would be too far off to one side. This one really lets you tell just how small a Super-8 video picture is. I took a picture through the viewfinder standing about 10 feet away from this table. This is all you can see, and it really feels that small. You can see a small corner drawn at the top left to help you see what the camera will actually record:

That is a small picture...

At the top of the camera, near the front there is a screw-in plug for a detachable light. This would be necessary if you planned to take any video inside. Looking at old Super-8 video taken inside, nothing turns out, it's all far too dark to see anything. At the middle of the back was the button you would hold down to actually record video. There is also a sliding metal piece that locks the button to prevent accidental recordings.

Button on top and screw in light plug.

If you have ever used a 35mm photo camera that used film, you know that once you put in film, you can't take it out until you use all of the film, or else you ruin all the pictures. A lot of people forget that with digital cameras and camera phones taking nearly all pictures now. Super-8 cameras were similar, you loaded a cartridge with film, up to 50 feet in length. Believe it or not, one cartridge was good for only 3 minutes of film! There were cameras that could take longer film, the largest standard Super-8 reel was about 400 feet, good for 32 minutes of film. And you couldn't take the cartridge out until all the film was used. Once you finished the cartridge, you had to go get it developed at a photo lab. And finally you would get a reel of film you could play in a Super-8 projector.

Where to load the cartridge.

Conclusion & Future:

It would be really cool if one day I could get my hands on a Super-8 cartridge, record some video, then send it off to a photo lab that can still process Super-8 film. But nowadays, almost nobody can process Super-8 film, besides a few small companies that do professional Super-8 work. I've looked at how much it would cost, it would easily end up costing over $50. Maybe one day when I have disposable income. For now, its a cool little camera that I can put on display next to my Super-8 projector.

Thanks for reading, next week I'll bring us up to the 80s with my Cassette Recorder!

1976: Sony KV-5100 Econoquick Trinitron Color TV Reciever

I'm watching the Texans @ Cowboys game tonight while I'm typing this. I'm sure most people in Houston and Dallas are doing the same. They probably all have satellite or digital cable, maybe recording it on their DVR, maybe with surround sound, definitely in high definition, hell a few may even get it in 3D. Personally, I'm watching on my 46" LCD Television, in full 1080i HD and digital sound. But I've got it old school, through an antenna! I get all the local channels digital, crystal clear and in HD. But it wasn't always like that.

Cable television didn't exist until the 70s, and even then it was prohibitively expensive. Satellite didn't start appearing until the 90s. Before that, was just plain analog transmission through rabbit ears, with some areas lucky to get 3 or 4 stations. You had to mess around with your antenna to get it to pick up the stations you wanted, the weather had to be just right, probably the planets had to be aligned just to get a clear picture. And all of us would be watching it the same way, in ordinary, standard-definition, grainy and dull sound (and some of us might not even see it in color!). Odds are, if you were in an RV or a boat, you might have something like my Sony KV-5100 Econoquick Triniton Color TV Receiver.

Origin:

Trinitron color system: a big deal back then.

This TV has a pretty cool look to it. A small, 5" screen next to a set of knobs to set channels and picture controls. A dark switch has a selection for battery power.

Manufactured in November 1976, it was found at a garage sale by some family that thought I could do something with it. It started out as a 16th birthday present, sat in a closet for a few years, and that's as much as I know about it.

Repairs:

I didn't have to do any repairs, it was fully functioning when I got it! However, to actually power it and see any picture, I had to use a lot of adapters! As I said, TV has come a long way since the 70s, and since analog TV transmissions ended in 2009, I had to improvise just to see picture

I would like to see a cable technician try to hook up digital cable to this.

The back of the TV has a lot of knobs and plugs and screws, but no place for a regular coaxial TV cable. This TV has it's own antennas, a very long one for VHF (channels 2-14) transmission, and a round loop for UHF transmssion (channels 15-69). These are useless today, so I was able to buy an adapter to plug into the VHF hole so I could get a digital converter box and a DVD player to plug in. Also, that gray thing with the power plug prongs sticking out of it? I had to painstakingly sand down an adapter for old electrical outlets, to fit into the hole so I could get a standard extension cord to plug in the TV to the wall, since I didn't have the original power cord. After taking care of those things, I was able to see and use the TV. There are some fine-tuning knobs on the channel switches on front that don't seem to work right as well, so some channels are grainy.

How well does it work?

Pretty well. It has pretty great picture when adjusted properly. And it isn't as easy as it is now with on screen menus. There are a total of TEN knobs and controls, all of which adjust various aspects of the picture, from color to saturation to screen position to fine-tuning the channel. After some tweaking I got pretty good picture from my DVD player:

Airplane!

For a short time, I was able to plug it into some analog cable that I was able to get through my apartment last year. It got some of the cable channels, but on the wrong channel numbers. On that note, the knobs to change channels work. One interesting thing is that most TVs made in the last 20 or 30 years that are analog, antenna channels only go to 69. This TV goes all the way to 83

Maybe they thought one day there would be 83 broadcast channels..

The first knob sets channels 2-14, one channel is U, which lights up the lower knob and allows you to select channels 15-83. In the back, there are two connectors for the 2-14 antenna and the 15-83 antenna. Volume is controlled by the Power knob, you pull the knob out to turn it on, and rotate to set the volume. Now the sound is just awful...its just one speaker on the left side.

Conclusion & Future

So despite a few small problems and old-age broken items, this TV works remarkable well. Well...when you can actually plug something into it. Right now I keep it on display on my "retro shelf", and turn it on every so often. I don't see actively using it, maybe as a cool little thing in my office to show off every so often.

Thanks for reading, next week I'll bring us way back to see my Super 8 Video Camera!

1975: Magnavox R471 AM/FM Stereo 8-Track System

Say you are having a pool party, and you want to have something playing music for your guests. Pop in that iPhone and start streaming that Pandora station with just about any music your heart desires. Or, you could open up iTunes and set your library of 30,000 songs on shuffle and just let it play. If you want to hear a particular song, a quick search on YouTube will yield it with lyrics, live performances, cover bands, and crappy amateur renditions of that song. And you can hear every single instrument and voice in the music, in super high quality. Music is so easy to listen to today, no matter how specific and obscure your tastes are.

Let's go back to the mid-1970s, and experience what it was like before that. You had to tune into a radio station if you wanted a continuous mix of music. To hear your favorite song, you had to own the album, and if you happened to buy the 8-track, listen to 3 or 4 songs before it, with no way to rewind or flash forward. The closest to pirating music you could get was a tape recorder held up to the speaker while it's playing on the radio. And on top of everything, there was that tinny or garbled quality, with a few cracks and pops here and there, that gave it a certain special sound. And you would probably be using a stereo system close to my Magnavox R471 AM/FM Stereo 8-Track System.

Origin:

Here I have one of the signatures of my collection, my Magnavox stereo. Wood-grain and fake-metal colored plastic give it that authentic retro look. A backlight for the radio dial illuminates behind a plastic window, with red lights indicating 8 track channel, plus a light to tell you when you are getting a radio station in stereo sound. It also has a removable dust cover for the turntable.

 I inherited this from my mother, who acquired it in the mid-70s. She had it as her stereo for close to 30 years before buying a cheap CD player. It was then placed behind a shelf in my dad's room for a few years.

I remember asking about it, I think maybe it was going to be thrown away, and I asked if I could have it. It was caked with dust and every crevice was dirty...it didn't look to be in very good shape. She said I could have it though and I plugged it in to see how it worked.

Repairs:

The radio functioned fine, so I borrowed an 8 track from my dad and some records from my mom. The 8 track player wouldn't change channels, but I was able to fidget with the head to get it moving again, and then it worked just fine. The turntable was a big problem though

The turntable was completely seized up, I couldn't hand turn it with even considerable force, and the needle was gone, so I had to buy a new one, which was easier to find than I thought, bought one off a website for $6 or so. I know it had been turning as late as 1996, there is a home movie where it is playing a David Cassidy record...

I took it apart, removed all the crusty old grease, and used some motor oil to lube all the moving parts. I did the best I could and it started turning again, with a small slowdown every revolution that has improved to almost nothing over the past couple years of use.

How well does it work?

This was built with two stereo outputs for multiple speakers, regular RCA jacks you can find on television (though back then they hadn't discovered color-coding right and left channels yet...). It has one RCA auxiliary input that you could use for a cassette player back then, or you could use an iPod today. It also has a headphone jack...but the huge 1/4" kind you find on guitars and amps today. It also has an arrangement of screws to attach an FM antenna, but it has its own built in antenna if you don't have one. It also has a tape output...that I assume outputs only sound for the 8-track player. It has bass, treble, balance, tuning and volume control knobs.

Radio:

The sound quality from the radio is superb. I currently have it plugged into computer speakers and it just seems to sound better than even the computer playing music, with excellent highs, and deep lows, with minimum static. This stereo has something not seen on anything today: a meter that measures the strength of the FM radio signal, so you could fine tune your station for the highest signal.

The 70s station in Dallas comes in at over 4....units?

8 Track Player:

For those of you unfamiliar with 8-tracks: a quick description. It was developed in the mid-60s as a cartridge you could use in your car and that was more compact than vinyl records, the format died in the early 80s as cassettes became mainstream. An 8 track cartridge had 4 channels, each channel had 2 tracks (left and right for stereo sound), hence the name 8 track. Most players could only play, with no fast forward or rewind. You can manually select from the 4 channels, when the tape comes to the end of the channel, a special magnetic section of the tape tells the player to automatically switch to the next channel.

Nothing says the 70s like an ELO 8-track.

My 8-track player works very well, I own 3 8-tracks, two inherited from my dad and 1 I bought online. One reason I don't let people touch my 8-track player is that if you push the button to change 8-Track channels manually without an 8 track loaded, you will break the head and I have to fidget with it to fix it. The sound is pretty bad, you lose a lot of highs and lows and it sounds muted and dull, similar to cassettes. 8 tracks present some interesting problems though. My best-condition cartridge is my Fleetwood Mac Rumours, it plays with minimal track bleed and seems to have the best sound quality. One 8 track my dad found buried in his closet plays OK for a few minutes, then gradually jams up and slows down to make a creepy low, slow music, that even sounds hilarious sometimes. My ELO cartridge seems to be misaligned, and causes track bleeding. It's so bad that the song gets very muted and suddenly I'm listening to the song on the next track at the same time. It's caused by the movable head being aligned wrong, plus the poor quality of the cartridge copy made when it was manufactured. I found a solution though:

Seriously, what did they use before there were iPhone chargers??

Turns out an iPhone charger cord is the perfect size to jam in there, and it moves the cartridge enough to get it to play right. Man, how did they survive back before iPhones??

Turntable:

Most people have at least a little familiarity with records, so I won't go into detail with that. My turntable took a lot of work to get running again, and it sounds great.

Record player in action!

It plays 33 LPs and 45s. It's also unique in that it plays older 78s, a feature not found on record players made after the 60s and 70s. It has an automatic load, where you put the record on the top of the spindle, put the spring loaded arm on top of it, selected the record diameter and pulled the switch to auto.

Automatic load

It would drop the record down, automatically lift the arm and place it at the beginning of the record. When it finished, it automatically lifts the arm, puts it back into place, and shuts itself off. The sound is actually very good, nearly CD quality, minus some pops and noise from running along the record itself. All my records play great, I have 33s from my parents, a couple I bought, and a 45 I bought online.

Conclusion & Future

I use my stereo pretty regularly, right now it is plugged into some computer speakers I have with decent sound quality. I try to play an 8 track and a record every so often to keep the mechanical parts moving and from seizing up, but I try to take it easy since it is so old. It is the centerpiece of my retro-tech corner in my apartment, and I expect it will keep going for years to come. In a few years, it will be nearly 40 years old. Ultimately, I would like to have it wired into a surround-sound system I want for my TV, and be a part of my media center. One day, I'll probably be the last person that can play an ELO 8 track cartridge.

Thanks for reading, next week I'll do a piece on my 1976 Sony Trinitron Portable Television!