Forgotten Electronics of the 70s and 80s

Ant writes "This is where you can find photos of those unusual items which somehow missed our keen attention in the 70s and 80s. Be it a specialty product, electronic novelty or an utter boondoggle from a major electronics outfit of the day, we'll dig 'em up and talk about 'em."

The bone phone lives!

[General Newcomb]

here: http://www.dottocomu.com/b/archives/000585.html

Re:/.'d already

[mobby_6kl]

It still works for me, but just in case, some text and the list:

What's a Magical Gadget? Your co-host of Pocket Calculator, Paul, gets full credit for the name of this feature. This is where you can find photos of those unusual items which somehow missed our keen attention in the 70s and 80s. Be it a specialty product, electronic novelty or an utter boondoggle from a major electronics outfit of the day, we'll dig 'em up and talk about 'em. We know there's lots of them out there, so if you've got one, contact us so we can get it on the show!

Also featured here are cool electronics that have been spotted out "in the wild." Did you uncover a cool gadget in a thrift shop, tage sale or flea market and got it for a song? That, friends, constitutes a "brag" and is worthy of attention, so let us know and we'll post it here!
We'll keep adding rare and cool gadgets, so check back often, and tune in to Pocket Calculator, Saturday nights on WBCQ!

Date Magical Gadget
12/01/01 1985 Casio Scientific Calculator Watch
12/01/01 1982 Olympus Walkman-style Stereo Micro-Cassette w/FM
12/01/01 1980s Headphone Stereo/Calculator/Clock
12/01/01 1974 Midland Handheld CB
12/08/01 1980 Casio QL-10 Calculator / Lighter
12/08/01 1980s Mr. FM by Hatori Seiko
12/08/01 1979 General Electric Superadio
12/08/01 1983 Seiko Voice Recorder Watch
12/15/01 1981 Osborne 1 Computer
01/05/02 1985 Magnavox Speakerphone
01/05/02 1981 XXX-Rated Digital Watch (Caution: Explicit!)
01/20/02 A Whole bunch on our NYC Trip!
01/26/02 1979 Bone Fone
01/27/02 1982 Kaypro II transportable computer
02/02/02 1982 Entex Adventure Vision Game System
02/09/02 198? Casio TA-1000 Talking Calculator & Clock
02/23/02 1987 Casio IF-8000 Digital Diary
03/22/02 1972 Gruen Teletime LCD Watch
03/30/02 1976 Sanyo Combination AM/FM Radio - Digital Clock - LCD Calculator
05/11/02 1985 Sharp Top-Loading Boombox
05/18/02 1979 Sharp Computer-Controlled Cassette Deck
06/01/02 1983 Dynalogic Hyperion Computer
06/01/02 1987 Fisher-Price PXL 2000 Video Camera
06/08/02 1981 Handheld Football Game by Bambino
06/08/02 1970s Panasonic RF-2200 Portable Multi-Band Radio
06/15/02 198? Technicolor Compact Video Cassette Recorder
07/6/02 1970s Bellsound CB-8 CB Receiver to 8-Track Adapter
07/20/02 1987 Sony D-88 Discman (World's Smallest CD Player!)
08/10/02 1983 Horse Race Pocket Computer
08/17/02 1976 PocketCom XB-100 Pocket CB Tranceiver
08/24/02 1970s Super Buster Vintage Radar Detector
08/31/02 1983 Sony SRF-A1 AM Stereo Walkman
09/07/02 197? Lloyd's Accumatic E613 LCD Calculator w/ Alarm Clock
09/14/02 1981 Buscom AutoDialer
09/28/02 198? Sony M-50 Micro Walkman
10/19/02 MTV Stereo Broadcasts
10/26/02 1981 Sony KV-4000 micro Trinitron TV

my favorite 80s Gadget: Seiko TV Wrist Watch

[i4u]

The 80s Cult High Tech Wrist Watch [i4u.com]

mirror (if needed)

[polished look 2]

mirror of links off of main page [soggytrousers.net]

Old car radios? Where can I find one?

[whoever57]

Now if someone would tell me where I can find a working positive ground radio for my car (yes, really), I would appreciate it.

should of googled first:

[ejaw5]

Here's a picture of the recorder: http://www.videointerchange.com/wire_recorder1.htm

Re:ID this Electronic device for me

[Saige]

Yes, very bad form following up your own posts, but I actually managed to do some hunting, and have found exactly what I was looking for!

It was the Mathemagician, made by APF. Wow, it brings back memories. Doubt it would hold a kid's attention nowadays, but I think it definitely helped me get really good at basic math from a really young age.

Re:My dad?

[IntlHarvester]

There were Quadrophonic 8-Tracks. Basically the same thing.

Re:80's gaming

[mekkab]

yep. It got IR (or whatever) info form the screen, and would move these spinny discs onto the blue and red spots. THe blue and red spots had the "player 2" controller underneath it, and would press the A and B buttons respectively.

Gyromite was a LOT more fun to play without that damn robot.

Mirror

[markclong]

http://slushdot.org/mirror/forgotten_elec/ [slushdot.org]

Got it before they took it down.

Re:Super 8mm Home Projector

[foog]

Fragile? Properly stored, Kodachrome Super-8 is an archival medium. Ektachrome can fade badly if not stored properly. And Super-8 film still has more "resolution" than current consumer video formats. It's worth preserving if it has important stuff on it.

Your projector might be at more fault than the film's mechanical fragility: if you're going to project your movies, get the projector cleaned and lubricated by a good camera technician every couple-three years or so. Consider finding a better projector than your dad probably bought back when.

Or spend the money to get the transfer done by a professional who knows what he or she is doing. Google on "super-8 telecine". And then store the originals carefully. A professional-grade telecine setup would probably run you a lot more than $1000.

Telecine

[rueger]

The problem is that your television and your Super-8 use different number of frames per second. (c. 30 vs 24)

Consequently getting a good copy to tape is not easy. Before video, TV stations used a telecine [afterdawn.com] machine, which coverted 16mm film to video.

Finding someone to do it with 8mm is even tougher since the number of people filming on the format has stabilized at oh a couple thousand.

One resource to start with though is here [filmshooting.com] or here [littlefilm.org] or here [pacbell.net].

Re:My dad?

[SiliconJesus101]

Yup, you are correct. The rear center is matrixed on Dolby digital ES/EX 6.1 and even the new 7.1 format is matrixed as well. If you have an EX compatible receiver you should leave it set to EX on. When the EX format was first introduced the DVD manufacturers had a flag on the DVD that would tell a 6.1 EX capable receiver to kick in the center rear channel matrixed; It was still the exact same 5.1 encoding though. Since that flag has been abandoned you now need to tell your receiver manually to always use the extra matrixed channel.

The only true discrete encoding that is more than 5.1 channels (for consumer use) is DTS 6.1 Discrete. To date I have had only one such encoded DVD; 'Gladiator'.

Re:Super 8mm Home Projector

[glk572]

The problum you are having is from the diffrent frame rates of your film to the video camera. The camera is rolling at 29.97 fps (ntsc). The film at somewhere around 24 fps.

You either could find a video camera which would allow you to change the frame rate, under cranking the video camera, or to over crank your projector, you'd get change in the speed of the video. A simpler option is to change your exposure time on any camera to be as slow as possable.

The ideal solution to your problum is to use a film scanner that provides automated roll film scanning. Nikon coolscans are the top of the line, I've used several and they seem like they could be modified to feed the 8mm film. The price tag could be prohibitive, espically just to tear the thing apart. I would recomend the umax powerlook 180. http://www.umax.com/scanners/index.jsp?cate=Scanne rs%3A+35mm+Film+models&skunum=SPKG-15111

Scan each individual frame, assemble at 24 fps in your favorite editing system, and output in the format you want. I've used a similar method in adobe premier to do stop motion animation, and time lapse photography.

Re:No mention of VideoDisc?!

[zakezuke]

I always wondered whatever happened to that format. Thanks for the link!

Umm, old style video disk had one problem... after a while the disks would skip. The stylus got clogged just like on a regular vinyl player and your quality would degrade. And it wasn't like it was an easy task to pop it open and clean the head, hell no!

"Dragon's Lair" was a coin up arcade game that used this video disk technology. It didn't use player missle graphics, but rather pre-recorded scenes and beeped when ever you needed to take an action. This was a beautiful if simple game, but fell to pot after it was in service for a few years and became unplayable. The video sequence would skip, quality would fall to pot, and generally would be totally useless.

It was GOOD for it's time period, but not built to last, not like Video Disk or DVD does.

Databank Watches...

[antdude]

Cool. My last databank watch (CASIO) lasted from high school years to college. Almost a decade! That's pretty good from my usage. I was surprised the watches haven't changed much over the past few years. I had to get a new one because the labels fell apart and battery was low. No points of using it again.

Who here still wears one? I don't see any of my geeky friends use these types of watches anymore. I prefer them over PDAs.

Re:No mention of VideoDisc?!

[chiph]

It's not.

The Pioneer laserdisc (as the name implies) used a laser to read the disc. The discs were either single or dual-sided, and came in 12" and 8" sizes. This contactless system means that the discs can last practically forever (not withstanding glue problems on the two halves of the disc).

The RCA system used an actual pickup that rode on the disc. Because the disc was sensitive to rough handling, it came in a large hard plastic sleeve. You would flip a lever on the front of the player, insert the sleeve, flip the lever back, and play that side. To watch the other side you would have to reverse the process and turn the sleeve over. The "needle" (I think it was a piezo crystal) would wear out eventually, as well as the discs themselves.

Chip H.

Re:Super 8mm Home Projector

[thparker]

Not exactly on topic, but any pointers to do it at home (I am willing to shell out upto $1000, if I need to buy a kit or something) will be *most* welcome.

Pointer #1: Don't do it at home.

It's already been pointed out that your film has excellent resolution and is worth keeping. But I'd disagree that it isn't "fragile", as someone else said. If something has to be stored very carefully in controlled temperature and humidity, that is fragile.

There are many reasons to do a film to tape transfer. It's hard to find projectors in 8 mm format, difficult to get them serviced if they break (as mine did -- no one could find the parts necessary), and they require a lot of care to make sure they don't damage your film. Also, with today's computers, it's much easier to edit your footage into a nice, watchable set of family memories rather than 200 reels of disorganized family history.

Here's what I'd suggest:

1. Stop getting them out and watching them every year. Dust and dirt in the film gate can scratch your film. If your plan is to transfer them, stop running them through a motorized feed.

2. Get a hand cranked editing station off eBay. Use it to go through your film and organize it for transfer. The transfer house will likely splice together reels and you should try to group them to maintain some timeline.

3. As someone else said, locate a good super-8 telecine shop. I plan on trying these guys [aol.com] in the near future. Send them one reel and see how they do. There are plenty of other places you can try; I happened to have that one bookmarked.

If you'd like to edit this stuff down, consider standard or mini-DV which you can then load into a NLE program. Choose the best quality format you can use, and dub from that if you want other copies. Don't have it dumped to mpeg2 on DVD; get some kind of master tape made in DV, Digibeta, BetaSP, whatever you can run. This may require you to do some research into how video formats compare to one another. I'm sure google can help.

You didn't say how many feet of film you're dealing with. Assuming your 200 odd reels are the 50' cassettes many consumer 8/s8 cameras used, you've got about 10,000 ft, roughly 14 hours or so. That's going to be $1000-$2000 to transfer. Based on a quick google search, transfers look to be $90-$185 per hour -- that's 680' of 8mm and 856' of Super 8mm.

Bottom line -- this isn't worth doing yourself. The quality won't be as good and if your equipment isn't professionally maintained you're likely to damage the film. My old equipment has already eaten some of my film -- don't risk your footage. Start now and maybe you can edit it all down to a nice family DVD by your Dad's birthday.

tp

Re:older than 70s...

[sr180]

wire recorders were first invented in the late 1890's. They started to catch on in the first part of this century and became big around 1910-1920. In the 20's to 30's wire was used by radio broadcasters for recording broadcasts. It was overtaken by magnetic tape in the 50's. this device would predate transisters and led's by probably at least 30-40 years.

Re:No mention of VideoDisc?!

[drinkypoo]

Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, and the two other games which go into the same hardware (Cliff Hanger, and something else which I forget right now) use a Laserdisc player with serial control. I believe it is a Pioneer. They do not use the capacitive discs, it's just a plain vanilla laserdisc, and there's roms to go with it. Swapping them (and optionally the marquee) will turn one into another.

The reason the game went to hell is that even an industrial LD player is not designed for the beating that being in an arcade gives it. The disc will last just about forever (I personally have lost a laserdisc to laser rot, though, so just about forever is only about ten years) but the players tend to give up eventually. I could have picked up four or five of them if I wanted to refurb them, they're decent laserdisc players once you come up with some hardware to control them, but it's more trouble than it's worth IMO. I ended up picking up a nice Panasonic at the flea market in Santa Cruz, which was $1100 when it was new (optical digital audio out) for $35. The door doesn't always shut by itself, but it's otherwise in great shape, the jog wheel on the remote even works, and of course it has digital still picture (otherwise, it wouldn't have any still picture.)

Re:My dad?

[dasmegabyte]

Whoa there, kid. Aside from the DVD player, all of those devices are stereo devices. Meaning they have a 2 channel signal (though some of the VHS tapes might have 4 channel Dolby Surround encoded into them). Splitting a stereo signal into 5 channels, plus a further omnidirectional channel for bass, will never make it sound its best. It will only make it sound louder, or introduce positional elements which are not in the original recording. Combine this with the fact that most 5.1 receivers handle stereo by downmixing certain wavelengths of audio into a mono center channel, and handle the rear speakers by adding a bit of nonadjustable delay (or worse, some artificial "environmental" DSP which always sounds like acoustical tinfoil), and your father has one of the worst possible systems for listening to to his high-class analog audio.

5.1 is a gimmick designed to hide the fact that most people can't get a true positional stereo soundstage for the price they're willing to pay. Remember: at the end of the day, you only have 2 ears. All the positional audio you THINK you hear in a 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 system is a result of you turning your head too much. Exceptions made, of course, for really big rooms with multiple viewing locations, in which multiple channels help create the illusion of a soundstage (but really, they end up creating distractions, as you're always way closer to one of the channels and everything's balanced for the guy in the center, anyway).

Anyhow, his setup isn't even really that impressive. Talk back to us when he gets the reel to reel, Super 8, laserdisc (which is actually an analog RF signal) and DAT hooked up.

Re:WOW!

[Psychic Burrito]

It's not a plain old LP record, it's a different system with finer tracks and faster speed (I think about 20x finer tracks and 450 RPMs). The page [cedmagic.com] linked by the grandparent is cool (yet a bit difficult to navigate to the technical specs), but I found a very cool 20 minute video explaining both disc and player manufacturing made in 1981 here (beware, it's 101 MB)! [cedmagic.com]

Re:N-Gage

[gl4ss]

yeah, http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/

beware of gprs lag though, however it doesn't matter that much when you use the input system in the series60 version.

the bad thing about series60 is that learning symbian c++ style is a bitch.. oh well back to code..