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empty baggie posted:I wish this technology had been better. As a child of the 80's and 90's, I had stacks and stacks of cassettes and hauled around a box of them with me all the time. Having to just carry the little reels would have been much easier, plus they look so loving rad. Loading a reel-to-reel deck is a pain in the rear end compared to slamming a cassette in the drive, I'd take the stacks of cassettes.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:13
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Pham Nuwen posted:Loading a reel-to-reel deck is a pain in the rear end compared to slamming a cassette in the drive, I'd take the stacks of cassettes. Right, but what if it loads into the player inside a cassette and then a wonderfully complicated set of arms and levers pull the reels out of the cassette and automatically mount and feed the tape to begin playing  Kinda like those tape archive vault robotic arms as seen in The Eraser.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:30
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Yeah, that's why I wish the technology had been better, because if the reels had actually been easy and reliable to use, it would have been great.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:50
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Zopotantor posted:Patents. I think everyone is missing the real reason for a mechanism that automatically flips the tape - what's going to look cooler when showing off your multi-thousand dollar HiFi stereo system; a 4 track head with auto-reverse or a tape deck that turns the tape around? Just like those 50 disc carousel CD players from the mid to late 90s, sure, its a solution in search of a problem or something that could be done much more easily but someone who is going to dump that kind of money into a sound system wants something to show for it.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:53
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Arrath posted:Right, but what if it loads into the player inside a cassette and then a wonderfully complicated set of arms and levers pull the reels out of the cassette and automatically mount and feed the tape to begin playing That reminds me of this: VHS-C to VHS adapter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB8XkKQSp6Y All of my childhood movies are filmed on those VHS-C tapes, and putting the little tape into the big one and hearing the mechanical whir is a staple of my childhood.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:07
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Aardvark Barber posted:That reminds me of this: drat, we had one of those too. I remember seeing stuff like my baptism and the like. I don't think we threw it away, even, I'll see if I can dig it up in the morning.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:09
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Aardvark Barber posted:That reminds me of this: Oh gently caress, we had one just like that, with that little red thing on the side too. I always thought it was really cool the way it loaded the little tape.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:10
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p-hop posted:Unless it was top-of-the-line audiophile poo poo, most of the vintage radios/amps/speakers got junked. I took home a few of them and have a radioshack model with an 8-track slot for my kitchen stereo. Hooked up to some late 50s speakers. The sound isn't amazing but they just look so nice! I love the aesthetic on electronics from back then. I've got a 1950's Admiral console stereo which powered on, but I couldn't get the radio or phonograph working. So I snipped the speaker wires, ran them to a digital receiver and plugged that into a Bluetooth transmitter. I'm not an audiophile so I can't speak for the quality of the sound, but holy hell it can get loud.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:15
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Aardvark Barber posted:All of my childhood movies are filmed on those VHS-C tapes, and putting the little tape into the big one and hearing the mechanical whir is a staple of my childhood. 
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Dec 17, 2014 02:47
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Geoj posted:I think everyone is missing the real reason for a mechanism that automatically flips the tape - what's going to look cooler when showing off your multi-thousand dollar HiFi stereo system; a 4 track head with auto-reverse or a tape deck that turns the tape around? Just like those 50 disc carousel CD players from the mid to late 90s, sure, its a solution in search of a problem or something that could be done much more easily but someone who is going to dump that kind of money into a sound system wants something to show for it. I loved my high capacity CD carousel. I had a lot of CDs and being lazy and not having to swap CDs was fantastic. Oh god I wasted so much money
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Dec 17, 2014 04:04
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Ultimate Mango posted:I loved my high capacity CD carousel. I had a lot of CDs and being lazy and not having to swap CDs was fantastic. The problem is that for whatever n-disc changer you have, as soon as you have n+1 CDs you're back to swapping. I had one of the Pioneer units with the 6-disc cartridge and a single-disc platter and unless I wanted to put on hours of music I just went for the platter.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:36
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Phanatic posted:The problem is that for whatever n-disc changer you have, as soon as you have n+1 CDs you're back to swapping. I had one of the Pioneer units with the 6-disc cartridge and a single-disc platter and unless I wanted to put on hours of music I just went for the platter. At least some Sony (200-300 disc) changers stacked.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:15
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Jerry Cotton posted:At least some Sony (200-300 disc) changers stacked. And you could use a keyboard hooked up to it for text entry. The early models where you had to use the remote or jog dial to enter text sucked big time. The Apple iPod totally changed things for me, and now I am tied to that ecosystem, which will one day end up in this thread.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:40
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Pretty sure standalone mp3 players already belong in this thread, when even cheap feature phones have gigs of storage (or can use an SD card) and have a built in media player.
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Dec 17, 2014 10:31
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^ I just bought my boyfriend a preowned 32GB iPod Touch for Christmas. He was so upset to find they don't make iPod Classics anymore. On VHS talk, my favourite thing about our old tapes was the set of rewritable labels we had. You sort of scratched the title into the panel with something pointed, and when the time came to change it, you could push a bubble of air across and it would erase the writing. I used to love drawing things on them and hearing the little *ssssshhhk* when they got erased. I also remember wrecking our tape player when I played our copy of The Sound of Music that had gone all dusty/mouldy inside (not sure what happened, the tape spools had weird white flecks all over). Good times.
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Dec 17, 2014 11:03
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We had a verb for making duplicate copies of VHS cassettes. "Hey, Aunt Kelly wants a copy of Tina's recital. Can you double-tape it later today?" RIP, double-taping. I'll miss you. I'll miss pressing play on one VCR, then stopping the tape when you realize it's not re-wound all the way, then playing it again, then hurrying to press record on the other, and waiting for the entire thing to play through in real time. And I'll miss hitting rewind on both VCR's at once and trying to guess which one would finish first.
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Dec 17, 2014 12:31
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Don't forget to hook up your video signal stabilizer. Wouldn't want an unstable signal, right? *wink* *wink*
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Dec 17, 2014 15:14
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Is that actually a cable de-scrambler for getting channels you didn't pay for, like HBO and Cinemax?
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Dec 17, 2014 15:17
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DrBouvenstein posted:Is that actually a cable de-scrambler for getting channels you didn't pay for, like HBO and Cinemax? It's a macrovision remover. There's a signal present in the overscan area of commercial VHS tapes that tells the recording VCR that the incoming signal is copy protected. Edit: see below. driguy has a new favorite as of 15:49 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 15:43
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It generates a clean sync signal, allowing you to duplicate copy protected tapes. Everyone I knew who was into movies had a pair of VCRs with one of those little black boxes hooked up between them. The ritual of pressing record on one VCR, play on another, stopping and rewinding both when you realize one of the two tapes wasn't rewound, etc. mentioned above defines the 90s movie watching experience for me. Yup, there was a time where you had to had actually go outside and rent physical copies of the movies you wanted to pirate instead of having them magically beamed into your computer. A FUCKIN CANARY!! has a new favorite as of 15:49 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 15:45
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Truly a dark time.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:47
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driguy posted:It's a macrovision remover. There's a signal present in the overscan area of commercial VHS tapes that tells the recording VCR that the incoming signal is copy protected. Ahhhh, cool. We never had two working VCRs when I was growing up, so I never experienced this. Plenty of movies that were recorded off of broadcast TV, though! You either had the commercials present and had to try and fast forward through them, going too far, rewinding, etc... (I mean...DVRs are like this now, but they are at least a little faster) or you were watching the movie live as you were recording and had to try to hit pause during the commercials, and then un-pause at the right time. Then later you'd be watching a movie someone else recorded and they forgot to hit un-pause way late and you miss a cool scene. 
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Dec 17, 2014 15:52
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This VCR chat reminded me of something you don't tend to see so much on modern electronics - excessive, permanent feature labelling. It was endemic on audio visual equipment in the 90s. Look at this disaster: HQ LONG PLAY VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDER LCD PROGRAMMABLE REMOTE CONTROL SYSTEM COMPUTER CONTROL SYSTEM CLOCK COUNTER DIGITIAL DISPLAY REMOTE SENSOR Got some blank space here, better put some pointless text on it...  WORLDWIDE VIDEO COMMUNICATION SUPER 3-HEAD DIGITAL TRACKING HQ VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDER ALL DIFFERENT FONT SIZES EJECT BUTTON IN MIDDLE OF DISPLAY
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Dec 17, 2014 17:19
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Yeah, never really thought about that until now... EDIT: Image issues
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Dec 17, 2014 17:58
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DrBouvenstein posted:Is that actually a cable de-scrambler for getting channels you didn't pay for, like HBO and Cinemax? Those were definitely a thing, and got more and more complicated over time until you were king poo poo for a while if you had a magstripe (or chipcard/smartcard) device and could clone cards for all your friends once cable and satellite companies started wising up. Once upon a time, I bought a used enterprise PC that had a smartcard slot employees had to put their ID's in to log onto the company network. The root directory on the HDD contained a simple command-line program that let you copy any smartcard you wanted to, in case you had to make duplicate cards for a department. Or, you know, in case your buddies didn't want to pay for HBO and Cinemax 
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Dec 17, 2014 17:59
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Horace posted:This VCR chat reminded me of something you don't tend to see so much on modern electronics - excessive, permanent feature labelling. Holy poo poo. This just reminded me of being a kid in those days, and equating performance with those labels. "This new stereo has more labels! Superior!". Dang. Being permanently reminded something has a remote control .... I would have absolutely loved those tape decks that flipped the tape over, too. GRINDCORE MEGGIDO has a new favorite as of 19:26 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 19:23
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GOTTA STAY FAI posted:Those were definitely a thing, and got more and more complicated over time until you were king poo poo for a while if you had a magstripe (or chipcard/smartcard) device and could clone cards for all your friends once cable and satellite companies started wising up. Speaking of cards: http://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the-black-sunday-hack/ is a nice read.
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Dec 17, 2014 19:37
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Horace posted:This VCR chat reminded me of something you don't tend to see so much on modern electronics - excessive, permanent feature labelling. It was endemic on audio visual equipment in the 90s. Look at this disaster: Japanese cars also did this to a massive degree, 4X4 4WS TURBO INTERCOOLER etc all over em
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Dec 17, 2014 19:45
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Horace posted:This VCR chat reminded me of something you don't tend to see so much on modern electronics - excessive, permanent feature labelling. It was endemic on audio visual equipment in the 90s. Look at this disaster: I'm reading this post on my latop, which has helpful stickers to tell me Graphics Chip Processor Windows version Optical disc type And I have seen much, much worse.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:00
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spog posted:I'm reading this post on my latop, which has helpful stickers to tell me I feel like those have been put there less as features to show off to one's easily impressed buddies than at the insistence of tech support people who have to deal with Mary in Decatur, IL, every time she calls up because she can't find the folder with her cat pictures.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:07
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The stickers and laptops and the tech slogans on VCRs/etc. serve the same purpose, to help sell the product to you when you're browsing display models. The difference is that laptops are still put on display in shops while DVD players and such are cheap and homogeneous enough now that you just grab the box for the cheapest one when you need a new one.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:07
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Laserjet 4P posted:Speaking of cards: http://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the-black-sunday-hack/ is a nice read. That is fascinating, I remember going over to my cousins and watching their free satellite, but over time the cards needed to be 'reprogrammed' by a friend more and more often until they just got rid of the system entirely.
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Dec 17, 2014 20:34
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Aardvark Barber posted:That reminds me of this: VHS-C was the bane of anyone who worked at retail in the late 90's and early 00's.  "I'm looking for an 8mm to VHS adaptor" "I am sorry, but there is no such adaptor. You probably are thinking of a VHS-C adaptor which is for..." "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT! I HAVE SEEN THEM BEFORE, MY COUSIN HAS ONE!!!!"This happened at least once a month at Best Buy.
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Dec 17, 2014 22:51
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The best thing about fancy VHS tapes: the 'counter' that let you watch movies that you weren't supposed to while nobody else was home and rewind to the exact spot where it was when you picked up the tape. I mean, I can't be the only one who did that, right?
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Dec 17, 2014 23:03
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Lowen SoDium posted:VHS-C was the bane of anyone who worked at retail in the late 90's and early 00's. You were a pretty lovely employee then. You don't correct them, you just pick up the VHS-C adapter and hand it to them.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:13
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Yeah you can be pedantic and get into arguments with people that don't know any better (but are steadfast in their insistence that they're right) or just hand them the loving thing and get them out of there.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:22
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Johnny Aztec posted:You were a pretty lovely employee then. He work[s/ed] in retail so that's a given.
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Dec 17, 2014 23:24
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So the customer would come back and yell more because 'it doesn't work'?
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Dec 17, 2014 23:29
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A FUCKIN CANARY!! posted:It generates a clean sync signal, allowing you to duplicate copy protected tapes. Everyone I knew who was into movies had a pair of VCRs with one of those little black boxes hooked up between them. The ritual of pressing record on one VCR, play on another, stopping and rewinding both when you realize one of the two tapes wasn't rewound, etc. mentioned above defines the 90s movie watching experience for me. I remember (in around 2000-2003) trying to transfer VHS to a standalone DVD recorder, and the Macrovision on the tapes didn't allow it. The solution? a "magic" scart cable (no really that's what it was called, it had a sticker on it saying it was magic : ) I bought from ebay at £40, it was a lot of money at the time but I made it all back and more selling DVDRs of a few rare movies I had on VHS... I still have it, in a crate of mixed AV cables somewhere. It looked much like any other scart cable, although at one end I remember it having a little hole/socket for a low-voltage mains adapter? It functioned without such power though...
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Dec 17, 2014 23:33
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Fair Hallion posted:It functioned without such power though... Yeah well it was magic wasn't it! (Someone probably made a mint soldering those SCART cables.)
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Dec 17, 2014 23:36
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