I guess it's my American ignorance that led me to believe you and Sam had known each other (all Brits living in their house in the middle of their street of course). More seriously, your two channels cover similar ground with different sensibilities and it was nice to see the collaboration. What's next? Maybe you have a mini-Disc player you'd let Sam turn into some kind of circuit-bent effects pedal?
Can you record the thing running for 4 or so hours? Watching the tape at the top going round and round is strangely cathartic. I'll strait up donate for it or something. I neeeeeeed it
I don't "get" why people would be upset that devices like this would contain "ordinary" recordings. It might NOT be a lost Beatles track, But it IS history - That's what the point is.
I wonder if that is standard recording tape. It seems that somewhere eventually it would kink and fold upon itself thereby making an awful mess. Is the tape a bit thicker to prevent this or am I going in a completely wrong direction?
@@beach81959 it's standard r2r tape. Tape is very resilient and the cover presents any movement. Simple system using existing technology, its fascinating.
@@sunjamm222 doesn't Joe 90 use close ups of a tape echo machine? Admittedly it's years since I gave it a rewatch but that was always my assumption I think. They had a similar "tape bin" I could definitely be wrong it's been a while and it was never my favourite gerry Anderson marionette show so its not one I know a lot about. I'll have to dig it out, I could do with a rewatch anyway.
Seriously, in ONE room? The output wiring loom must have been an absolute nightmare to fault-find. There would probably have been a lot of interference on the recieving end too. ...maybe that explains the poor quality of theme park sounds back in the day.
@@penfold7800 Remembering pictures of the central control complex for the Tiki Room... yeah, this doesn't surprise me. Centralizing all the sound effect machines makes sense from an operational standpoint, and I can't imagine [heh] the Imagineers thought too hard about maintenance.
I’m still waiting for a museum collection of ancient hair styling tools. I want to know what the earliest barber shops were like. I want to see their scissors and combs. I’d like to know what cultures thought of the job or if people gossiped and talked like they do now. It’s completely useless and mundane but the development of hair care in human society has intrigued me.
@@ltchugacast131 Oh, it's not useless or mundane at all! From what I remember from my time doing extracurricular archaeology reading at uni, personal grooming is one of those things that's been around for much longer than - well, than cartoons and movies would have you believe, though in retrospect that sounds obvious. We've got carved figurines with styled hair and fancy shoes that pre-date pottery, I'm pretty sure (though this was ten years ago; things might have been reshuffled and reordered since then. Regardless, they're pretty old). As for when it developed as a distinct paid profession, rather than something done within families or individually? Hmm; my _guess_ would be 'many times, independently, across history', though that is probably not helpful. Certainly worth looking into, though; given that a professional haircut used to be a luxury for special occasions when and where I grew up, the origins of the trade in contemporary western society might even be recent enough to be attested in actual history books, rather than speculated about in archaeological journals. Which is to say - you could have your answer in mere years, not just within your own lifetime! And that is very exciting for anything to do with the study of history.
I find the counterintuitive reliability of the tape transport really pleasing, because it coincidentally ties into a little thought experiment I was taught many years ago. A physics professor I was chatting with after class once explained the tendency of wires, tape, etc. to get tangled as a problem of probabilities--that there's a very limited number of configurations you want them to be in, versus a _vast_ number of configurations they can take up in three dimensions, so if they can move freely, the odds are much better that they'll get into an unwanted condition than a wanted one. At first glance, the loose tape in this looks like it would be prone to the same effect, but it isn't, all because of the cover. Because that's there, the tape's movement is constrained to its own width on the vertical axis, and without the freedom to move vertically, it can never cross over itself. With that dimension taken care of, it doesn't matter _what_ possible-but-random shapes it assumes in the other two. In a topological sense, the cover of this device and the reels on a reel-to-reel deck are performing exactly the same function--confining the tape's movement to two dimensions. I love that kind of thing.
@@billr3053 even if such a bend were possible (it is not because after some point the sharper you bend it the more resistance it has against further bending, and the only pressure applied to it is from the very same tape which would therefore prefer to bend in a diffrent place), it can only ever be in such a way that the pulling mechanism would un-bend it
Dot matrix printer ribbons were also stored on similar way, one set of feed rollers pushing the ribbon into cartridge. I did never see or heard any of them jam and those were used quite a lot.
@@billr3053 I think there is not enough friction (neither tape-tape nor tape-case) for one part of the tape to pull another part of the tape into such a corner
Especially since digital emulation pales in comparison to analog and the raw materials therein. It really is quite fascinating how technology has 'improved' whilst going backwards at the same time.
@@MyRackley the re-20 basically co-invented dub reggae and staple of countless other genres. Pretty much revered as one of the pinnacles of echo effects....well, apart from its expense and reliability compared to solid state devices. The WEMs are much cheaper, ive used before. Of course much less options. You select from various play heads to control speed in some sense, or even create rhythm (often its rather washy to make out rhythm). But the RE-20 had the speed dial contributing to its oscillating 'dub' effect, often used when feedback produces oscillation. It also had a spring reverb tank too.
Lots of great tape delays used in guitar, the Korg one? The Echoplex ep3 ep2 etc. And they make modern ones today, fulltone makes a solid state preamp driven one AND a TUBE driven one! Also there is an Australian who makes his own brand, extremely high end new tape delays!
When I worked in a telephone exchange as an apprentice, I recorded a loop myself, although I can't remember seeing the machine. It was something like "All Castleton numbers have been changed, please add 291 in front of the number". It was a novelty getting everyone I knew to dial the number and hear my voice.
I'm reminded of listening to a similar prerecorded tape loop in the 80's, announcing what films were playing at the cinema. It was often more reliable than the newspaper which may not account for last minute changes to the schedule.
When I worked in a movie theater from 2007 to 2011, we would record the showtimes each morning for people to call and listen to. We would get so annoyed because people would look up the showtimes on yahoo or google instead of calling the showtimes line and they were never accurate. Of course, even though we had no control over what the search engines listed, the customers would get angry at us.
This recording could date from 1995 when the last of the "local exchange codes" were taken out of use. By then there wern't that many exchanges which needed tape machines for such announcements still in operation anyway.
I worked for Ma Bell (ATT) here in the colonies. In my long distance office we had a rack of announcement machines that had a magnetic drum, about 10 inches in diameter, mounted vertically. There were several spring mounted heads around the circumference, each aligned with a different track. I think there were 6 or 8. They could be erased, recorded and played back on a desktop Call Director phone - the one with 20 or so buttons. Hit a track button, push the 'RED' record button and lay down a new message on that track. Maintenance called for an alcohol wipedown of the drum and heads. Called that failed, no trunks to some unreachable countries, or other messages were switched to the appropriate recording machine track. I think the Western Electric nomenclature was a 4A announcement machine. Not to be confused with a 4A crossbar central office switch. Thanks
@@pgramsey1 Hmm, interesting idea! I'm not sure it would be quite as random as that, though; since there are some identifiable patterns (like the tape tending to bunch up in the same spots). Also, lava lamps provide gradients of light and contrast. Perhaps if the tape had varying stripes of color that would break up it's patterns... 🤔
Quite historic actually! The message sounds like it was used at the time when many exchanges were moving away from simple 5 digit local calling and required the full10 digits.
There were loads of dialling code changes introduced during the 1980's as the network was modernised with digital switching equipment. Subscribers would sometimes also have changes made to the numbering ranges of their lines due to incompatibilities. Telephone numbers had to be in a format that was compatible to both the old analogue and new digital equipment, since both were in use for over a decade as the modernisation progressed. It was all published in every weekly edition of the Telecom Gazette, distributed to BT staff at work. Interesting times and the modernisation programme was a mammoth task and had many facets to it the public were largely unaware of.
@@johnrgm3047 The same process happened in most European countries in a very similar time frame, only the former Eastern Bloc countries were late to the party. In Austria, the last analogue exchange was replaced in late 1999. At that time it was quite an anachronism, as those exchanges had never been upgraded to things like DTMF dialling. Initially our equivalent of the GPO, by then privatised, had intended to keep the old exchanges in use until 2004 but EU regulations demanded network access for private telephone providers and that wasn't possible without replacing all the old exchanges. Some countries on the fringes of Europe still use Strowger exchanges - a few weeks ago I watched a documentary on telecommunications in Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine and I think in Moldova they actually had a complete Strowger exchange in normal operation. The film was shot in 2019/20.
@@Aadiboyrocks "Bitte warten" by Pavel Cuzuioc. Only the title is German, everything else is the various languages with English subtitles, and some French and English thrown in. The focus of the film is a lot more on the actual communication than on technology but it's still absolutely fascinating.
This is exactly the reason why i live this channel: rare things getting shown and talked about by someone who loves these rarities and knows al lot about them. Well done Matt!
If you want to watch an hour of tape looping - here's the video th-cam.com/video/fYVZ7GQhW3Y/w-d-xo.html Also as usual there's more information in the video description.
When I was very young (around 1985) there was a premium rate number we used to call and listen to children's stories. It may well have been one of these machines with something like a 5 minute story running on a loop. Later on we called and it had changed to a message saying "This service has now closed" over and over.
Oh my. Wow. Calling something like a 1888 or 0845 number for a short audiobook sounds like a fever dream, but reminds me of the first time I heard an audiobook, which was on a Qantas domestic flight from Perth to Brisbane as part of a Gold Coast holiday my family had back in 2010, and they tended to use older aircraft, so the one I was on at the time was from the 1980s or 1990s and the in-flight entertainment on it was comprised of just the audio feed from the RGB projector up front and several audio channels, one of which was playing what I didn't know could've been an audiobook. I only really listened to my first real audiobook in 2020.
Watching that tape transport is really relaxing! I was astounded when you showed the cassette album duplicator. I've not seen that video yet. I'd always assumed they were duplicated from a good quality reel-to-reel machine. Quite surprising.
To me that was a very interesting recording. Its the mundane things like this that are most intriguing. You get to sort of experience history from a place I never was. In a way its like time travel.
Wow, that's the kind of technology I remember working on in my youth. Discrete components: capacitors, resistors and transistors - in very big boxes... excellent.
yes, I was disappointed there wasn't a comment about how easy the thing was to open and inspect, and something about the nice clean, unambiguous layout of components. But as they say: "show, don't tell"
@@Techmoan as far as i recall, the mind the gap recording is on solid state media, which is why the original message is so brief - solid state media was extremely expensive even at low capacity in the late 60s. would definitely love to see the inside of one of them
@@ExperimentIV Check this out - very interesting: th-cam.com/video/6c6uAUjady8/w-d-xo.html One of many Videos by Jago Hazzard about railways history in the capital - this one about the "mind the Gap" recording.
That thing looks like an old tape delay like we used to use in the 70's and 80's. All it needs is another tape head in there. Watching these types of machines like this announcement machine, or a tape delay, is oddly satisfying. The tape loop going around is almost hypnotic.
Being just 19 years of age, I probably have never “used” (as in, having a recording played to me) a machine like this. Just like many other of the items shown on this channel, I have no real nostalgic connection to these, yet your videos are really quite fascinating! I enjoy taking the time to watch your video every saturday morning as they come out, sitting down with a cup of tea to learn about some new old technology! Looking inside the devices, finding out how they work and what their purpose was holds a certain charm, especially in our digital age - seeing the curious ways automation problems were solved before everything had silicon in it. As a DevOps Engineer, I’m somewhat guilty of solving all problems using computers myself, though once you take a look at what is needed, especially when it comes to hardware, networking, reliability and security, the modern ways of solving problems are just as fascinating to me as old technology is.
@@EnigmaticLucas In some cases "old tech" can be used for a supricingly long time, things are often left be if it works and if the alternative costs more.
@@markevans2294 I have my doubts - I remember sometimes hearing phone announcements start midway through until 2004-2006 or so in the UK. In which case it was probably one of these (or other tape device) not digital. Edit; yeah in 96 it would have only been 12 years old. No way BT just threw it out then when it was still working. But a ~05 phase out would mean it was amortised over at least 20 years. Much more likely. Or even a 25 or 30 year lifetime - if it had been decommissioned after 30 years then it only had a handful of years between decommissioning and finding its way into the hands of the donator.
I’m 26 and generally associate digital transition things with my late childhood and early adolescence. I guess that’s one of the big generational divides between millennials and gen Z? You suspect you might never have used one of these, whereas I suspect I did until I was 8-11 years old or so (by which point you’d only be three years old at most).
It's pretty amazing what those old analog devices were capable of. Everything about that old machine, not a single digital thing anywhere to be found, and mostly, discrete electronics too. Nice historic find.
Dude, that's SUPER interesting! Like, voices from the past, obscure recordings? I love it. It's part of history, and deserves to be remembered. Love seeing old tech come back to life!
trying to understand the brainworms of anyone who would get mad that you listened to a recording of a boring announcement and heard a boring announcement
Yes, as of my writing this, there are 42 downvotes on the video. I simply cannot fathom why someone would even bother watching the video just to downvote it. Boggles the mind.
Another excellent video, thanks! I can't believe people complained that the railway tape machine contained a boring message, some people!! Coincidentally, that was the first Techmoan video I saw, and have watched every one ever since!
One of the few people I've seen on TH-cam that can take a device or topic I have never known about or thought I would be interested in, and make it engaging and worth watching again. Great work.
Ive been obsessed with these things forever, and seeing a techmoan video about it just made my week Edit: I thought this was a tape echo. Techmoan, you never cease to amaze me
Heck, you could make the taut tape pathway accessible and put a write head on a stick; when you want a delay, push the head into the tape. I imagine you could make some downright weird timings, scrubs, garbled alignments... (You'd probably also want an erase head, come to think of it.)
I found the spoolless design reminded me of a system I ran across when I visited my fathers workplace when I was a child. (in particular the vertical duplicator). He worked in photo finishing (film development) as a consumer service, but on an industrial scale. This meant splicing together hundreds of rolls of film in order to run them through a once through development machine, which in some cases were over a hundred feet long. It was all an exercise in maintaining tension and velocity of the film emulsion thorough the machine with no reels involved. Parts of that were very much in the same vein as the vertical tape system.
Found that out when i opened one up as a kid.... "Oh that movement is cool, (spins advance knob over and over till ribbon bursts out all over the table)
you will all be pleased to know this wont be the last you see video wise of this machine, having spoke to mat i'll be taking it on and wiring it up to my telephone exchange in the museum. also hainbach has mentionned he is looking to making his way over in the coming months after travel restrictions are more relaxed (not for this machine specifically, more of just to do stuff at the museum but im sure this will peak his interest). so yes, to answer this, there will be more content! and probably a hainbach special haha.
Absolutely fascinating. Watching you open the thing up and getting it to work always feels like going along on an adventure. Thanks for teaching us about this stuff!
Yes, I would consider that absolutely awesome, but I am not sure whether anyone would understand what's going on. Except us, of course. I am also particularly fond of the vacuum column tape drives. A length of tape is stored in a vacuum column (two vacuum columns, one for the left, one for the right reel) and each tape reel only moves (starting and stopping rather abruptly) when its vacuum column fills up with or runs out of tape, totally independent on what the other reel does. This asynchronous jerky movement is very iconic, and back in the days(*), these tape units were often seen in movies. Nowadays, they are kind of hard to find, even on TH-cam. But here we go: th-cam.com/video/lEYyZSlQEdg/w-d-xo.html (*) Yes, the days when computers could only be operated by women.
This channel is awesome 👌😎 so many things you show I started out with when I was younger (and I'm only 30) im an RF engineer but also a Broadcast engineer that works with telecom, and High voltage so I've been around endless new and old TV and Radio equipment my whole life due to my grandfather (also in the profession) and it just naturally became my profession. I really love seeing old equipment like this out in the open for everyone to see and learn about. Not only do you show things I learned from but you also show various other things I'm passionate about. My hobbies are chemistry and just generally making things that serve a purpose for me but I love audio like a weirdo/audiophile and old equipment like tubes of every type. Your channel is extremely special to me and I could watch only this channel and never complain 🤣 Cheers from North Florida USA. Stay awesome 👍
I was five at that time which was when I'd just started school, making you one of those terrifyingly large "bigger boys" who seemed almost grownup to me back then.
I was born the very same month, when this machine was manufactured. I love to see what was around when I came into this world, the technology, movies, music, political and social events.
Pretty sure tape EQ works the other way around though. Tape is recorded with pre-emphasis and playback uses de-emphasis. The reason it was muffled was probably an impedance mismatch between the direct head output and his amplification input.
When I was a child, we had a telephone answering machine that had a cassette tape that was designed like that, with a continuous loop tape with the outgoing message. It had a separate tape for the incoming messages that was not a loop.
I used to think the tape on a rtr was pulled through by spindle 2 as well, but as soon as you said 'most people think' this, I realised why it wouldn't work (well it could work, but would require extra stuff to make it work, adding complexity, when the wee rollers did the job just fine). I was quite pleased with myself. :) Thanks for highlighting stuff, that is of interest, and makes us think.
I've seen telephone announcement machines of all different kinds. Optical, magnetic drum, etc. Can't say I've ever seen one with un-spooled free floating tape before.
They were called "Stringy Floppies" (look it up) and were used commercially on Sinclair computers. Search for the Sinclair QL. I had one for 3 months before returning it, but the "stringy" didn't give trouble during that time. The tape cartridge was tiny, so it's a wonder that it didn't get crammed in tight enough to crease it - but it seemed OK.
I was wracking my brain trying to think which 60's TV show's opening I had seen this on - think you nailed it with Joe 90. (I caught the re-runs as a kid).
I always found it very interesting to learn about something that you would normally never really think twice about, this is a prime example of that. No matter how simple or mundane something may seem there's always more to be learned from it than one might expect. This little nugget of information will now be added to to my mental library that, even though I may never need to use in the future, will be there if the right opportunity arises.
I suspect he would do that as well, but he said in the video, if this was a long lost interesting recording, then yes he would've used a reel to reel. But because it's just a telephone message, he didn't bother. (Although I wished this unit could record...)
The sound is muffled because of phono corrector. However, the frequency response could be easily corrected with EQ after recording the message onto PC and then put into audacity or cool edit pro ;-) Anyway, this was almost unnecessary. We all have heard the message and that's quite enough.
I thought it was a tape delay at first. Basically the same principle with the continuous tape except it records and plays back and the gap between the heads creates the echo.
I just fixed something very similar to this last week and it's still waiting to be picked up. It was a device that was called a Roland space echo. Back in the days before digital effects be were the norm Roland was making devices that used analog circuitry and analog circuitry and analog media for actual PA effects. In fact if you went to see a national touring band in the sixties many times there were no effects whatsoever on the PA as they were lucky to have APA that was even audible at that time the idea of adding effects to alive mix just wasn't something they considered back then until maybe the late sixties. The role in the space echo employs a tape loop just like this but instead of one playback head there were 3 and you could use them as a multi tap delay or the different lengths and delays created or speed up and slow down the tape which had a graduated and adjustable bias control as you sped it up and slowed it down Which was one of the amazing things this machine did and 1 of the things I had to fix. It was coupled with a Spring reverb inside which provided some reverb, and was an expensive device, even if quite low-fi and often breaking in the middle of a performance... it did sound pretty nice and interestingly analogue!
3:09 You said "a common problem on a brushed motor like THIS" But I cannot see any brushes on this motor. This looks more like an AC motor like the ones commonly used in turntables and tape machines. That also would make sense since their speed is linked to the mains frequency which as we all know is very precise. A brushed motor however would need a speed control.
Yes, its a simple induction motor, with the run capacitor next to it. Probably has some gummed grease in the bearings and needed help to start up therefore. Possibly also the run cap might be degraded, reducing starting torque.
I find thid actually quite interesting!! We've all gotten these messages many times in our lives, and always will, but noe we see how it worked in the old days (aka: my days). What amazes me is the tape is loose in thar cavity! I just never saw a tape handled loose and not reeled :) but hey it worked!! 👍
I LOVE Mechanical Automation ! I never got past the point when mechanical machines were replaced by computers etc. Once again a efficient detailed clear nice vide to watch !!
Was anyone else mesmerized watching the tape spool in and out of the top compartment? So many beautiful curves. I wonder if the pattern would ever repeat itself, or is it genuinely random?
@@QoraxAudio You won't see my comments on many channels as I don't watch that many TH-cam channels and don't comment much. This is really me though, unlike the imposter that that been lurking on Facebook and has scammed people.
@@QoraxAudio I'm not on Facebook either. I do have an account but it is not active. I don't post or update and i don't use messenger. This is how the scammer operated. I found out (thought an investigation) that the scammer convinced someone through messenger that they were talking to me and were given a "hot lead" on an investment which they invested a bunch of money and it was a scam and they list it. The IP was traced to Florida. That all i was able to find out. Don't know how many people were scammed but someone I know personally was taken to the cleaners and he isn't too happy. Was totally convinced that he was talking to me. Quizzed the person by asking him a question that he thought only i would know. Was a technical question that the answer was readily available on google.
@@12voltvids Damn... That shows you can't be too careful when money is involved! It wouldn't surprise me if the IP in Florida was just a proxy server IP, forwarding from an entire different part of the world.
The videos you present are absolutely brilliant! just remember, that some of us might be blind, like myself LOL! so, make sure to verbalize the obvious sided stuff. thank you for doing this incredible series of videos! My recording studio is 80% analog and I love checking all this good stuff out!
Yes, that was the most interesting thing about the recording for me. I'm also curious about the people who recorded the messages. In the US, I believe most phone messages were recorded by a single person: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Barbe
Thanks to this channel, I have long given up on the idea that I have seen it all. I am no longer surprised at the amount of audio formats that do and have existed, now I just watch to see what else has been invented! My first thought when I saw this machine is that it was an echo machine! They look very similar but clearly they are not.
It was me that did it and it wasnt easy. The easiest way was to feed it in as a straight length of tape with the motor then just before the end dissapeared you stopped the machine and spliced it in to a loop. Putting a ready made loop in was a nightmare and given to the apprentice (me😊)
Around 1973-1977 the Baptist church used a similar machine to provide a dial-a-prayer service in Wellington New Zealand. When the pastor was away it was my job to write, read and record a daily prayer to fit the 2 and a half minute loop tape. Quite a challenge!
Earlier than that. It would have been about the removal of short codes between local exchanges. For example you could dial from Manchester exchanges to Rochdale numbers by dialling a 35 for five digit number or 7 for a six digit number, rather than the STD code of 0706. Using the STD code might once have caused the call to be charged at long distance rather than local rates. Some small exchanges used 9 or 8 as a code for reaching the larger adjacent exchange. For example the speaking clock number on the large exchange would be 8081 but from the small one 98081 or 88081.
@@nowster Actually, it could have been from any time in the conversion from these odd local variations on prefix numbers to the national 11-digit standard we have today. Remember, the London STD code was initially 01. This got changed to 071 for inner London and 081 for Greater London, and then changed again to 0207 and 0208 respectively.
@@simonuden8450 The messages in the London switch and PhOneDay were digital as most exchanges had converted to System-X or AXE by that time. This one's a local Lancastrian voice so is likely to be from the withdrawal of short codes from one of the exchanges that "Neil" serviced.
@@nowster I'm sure you're right. I hadn't thought about the accent. My experience of them was from 1973-76, and I cannot remember what changes were going on then. Bristol was ND, and a lot of the local exchanges were transitioning from 5- to 6-digit numbers, so that may have been what they was used for. I certainly remember a huge wad of Advice Notes coming in to change the local branch of Norwich Union from a 5- to a 6-digit number
I use to work at Disney World and had access to their DACS room in the tunnels under Magic Kingdom. It was the heart of the audio for all the attractions above ( and probably other things). Special access was required. Anyways, this was how they played the audio on their rides. Now, this was back in 1995, so it may have changed a lot since. Even at the time, the DACS room didn't control the audio for all the rides, just the ones that existed since the park opened. As new attractions were developed over the years, digital started being used and the audio control was placed a lot closer to the actual attraction. But still cool nonetheless.
![MV วิถีชีวิตใต้ - ผา อัยย๊ะ [Official MV HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nODlkOUu9B0/mqdefault.jpg)
Here’s what happened to this machine next th-cam.com/video/qvzH7DSsD3g/w-d-xo.html
Really cool stuff. Great to see it found a caring new home.
I guess it's my American ignorance that led me to believe you and Sam had known each other (all Brits living in their house in the middle of their street of course).
More seriously, your two channels cover similar ground with different sensibilities and it was nice to see the collaboration. What's next? Maybe you have a mini-Disc player you'd let Sam turn into some kind of circuit-bent effects pedal?
Can you record the thing running for 4 or so hours? Watching the tape at the top going round and round is strangely cathartic. I'll strait up donate for it or something. I neeeeeeed it
Excellent follow up. The response I've had from my music vid has been good...folk REALLY like looking the the loop. THANK YOU.
And this is why we like you Matt, not afraid to spread the love ;)
I don't "get" why people would be upset that devices like this would contain "ordinary" recordings. It might NOT be a lost Beatles track, But it IS history - That's what the point is.
it's the every typical problem of "history". focusing on the outliers while ignoring the reality of everyday humdrum life of a particular era.
🤷♂️
Don't be ridiculous, we know it is the missing 18 minutes from the Nixon tapes!
I don't get why people use quotes to frame words we all understand
I totally agree. Just goes to show how small-minded and petty some people can be. I love videos like this.
The way the tape loops about in the top tray is absolutely mesmerizing. I bet it'd make a cool screensaver
I wonder if that is standard recording tape. It seems that somewhere eventually it would kink and fold upon itself thereby making an awful mess. Is the tape a bit thicker to prevent this or am I going in a completely wrong direction?
*There’s a bit more information about this video in the video description.* 🔝👍 Includes updates, links etc...
@@beach81959 it's standard r2r tape. Tape is very resilient and the cover presents any movement. Simple system using existing technology, its fascinating.
If you were a fan of Joe 90, one of these is used in the titles.
@@sunjamm222 doesn't Joe 90 use close ups of a tape echo machine? Admittedly it's years since I gave it a rewatch but that was always my assumption I think. They had a similar "tape bin"
I could definitely be wrong it's been a while and it was never my favourite gerry Anderson marionette show so its not one I know a lot about. I'll have to dig it out, I could do with a rewatch anyway.
There were hundreds of these in one room at Walt Disney World, ran every sound effect in the park, until they went digital.
Good God, that'd be a sight to see!
Seriously, in ONE room? The output wiring loom must have been an absolute nightmare to fault-find. There would probably have been a lot of interference on the recieving end too. ...maybe that explains the poor quality of theme park sounds back in the day.
Somewhere out in the desert is a lump of earth with hundreds of old Disney tape loopers buried under it.
@@penfold7800 Remembering pictures of the central control complex for the Tiki Room... yeah, this doesn't surprise me. Centralizing all the sound effect machines makes sense from an operational standpoint, and I can't imagine [heh] the Imagineers thought too hard about maintenance.
Absolutely not. Disney almost certainly cryogenically froze them and put them under the park.
Archaeology is about the mundane, Techmoan. We know the rare and revered, we lose the common, popular and everyday.
Good point, never thought of that.
I’m still waiting for a museum collection of ancient hair styling tools. I want to know what the earliest barber shops were like. I want to see their scissors and combs. I’d like to know what cultures thought of the job or if people gossiped and talked like they do now. It’s completely useless and mundane but the development of hair care in human society has intrigued me.
@@ltchugacast131 Practical Archaeology is the study of how people actually used things that have been found, as opposed to just finding them.
Exactly this! That will be someone's Mum, Gran or Sister we're hearing - that's important history for someone out there.
@@ltchugacast131 Oh, it's not useless or mundane at all! From what I remember from my time doing extracurricular archaeology reading at uni, personal grooming is one of those things that's been around for much longer than - well, than cartoons and movies would have you believe, though in retrospect that sounds obvious. We've got carved figurines with styled hair and fancy shoes that pre-date pottery, I'm pretty sure (though this was ten years ago; things might have been reshuffled and reordered since then. Regardless, they're pretty old).
As for when it developed as a distinct paid profession, rather than something done within families or individually? Hmm; my _guess_ would be 'many times, independently, across history', though that is probably not helpful. Certainly worth looking into, though; given that a professional haircut used to be a luxury for special occasions when and where I grew up, the origins of the trade in contemporary western society might even be recent enough to be attested in actual history books, rather than speculated about in archaeological journals. Which is to say - you could have your answer in mere years, not just within your own lifetime! And that is very exciting for anything to do with the study of history.
He’s just uncovered the legendary unreleased Beatle track “This Line Isn’t in Use Anymore”.
it's a banger too
after listening to “Revolution 9” I wouldn’t put it past them
I read that McCartney worked and re-worked the lyrics for over six weeks. Such a dedicated lad...
I never knew this was written by the Beatles, I'd heard the Souxsie and the Banshees version and thought they wrote it.
it was the lost verse from ticket to ride and day tripper
I find the counterintuitive reliability of the tape transport really pleasing, because it coincidentally ties into a little thought experiment I was taught many years ago. A physics professor I was chatting with after class once explained the tendency of wires, tape, etc. to get tangled as a problem of probabilities--that there's a very limited number of configurations you want them to be in, versus a _vast_ number of configurations they can take up in three dimensions, so if they can move freely, the odds are much better that they'll get into an unwanted condition than a wanted one.
At first glance, the loose tape in this looks like it would be prone to the same effect, but it isn't, all because of the cover. Because that's there, the tape's movement is constrained to its own width on the vertical axis, and without the freedom to move vertically, it can never cross over itself. With that dimension taken care of, it doesn't matter _what_ possible-but-random shapes it assumes in the other two. In a topological sense, the cover of this device and the reels on a reel-to-reel deck are performing exactly the same function--confining the tape's movement to two dimensions. I love that kind of thing.
I was transfixed by it, it’s fascinating !
Fascinating explanation. Wow!
@@billr3053 even if such a bend were possible (it is not because after some point the sharper you bend it the more resistance it has against further bending, and the only pressure applied to it is from the very same tape which would therefore prefer to bend in a diffrent place), it can only ever be in such a way that the pulling mechanism would un-bend it
Dot matrix printer ribbons were also stored on similar way, one set of feed rollers pushing the ribbon into cartridge. I did never see or heard any of them jam and those were used quite a lot.
@@billr3053 I think there is not enough friction (neither tape-tape nor tape-case) for one part of the tape to pull another part of the tape into such a corner
Vintage professional equipment is always a delight to see.
Especially since digital emulation pales in comparison to analog and the raw materials therein. It really is quite fascinating how technology has 'improved' whilst going backwards at the same time.
My wife says that about my equipment.
@@skylined5534 Is she a goer? Know what I mean?
@@kenkinnally6144
I can't remember, but I wish she'd go!
@@kenkinnally6144 begging your pardon, but could I venture to guess that you are asking him what it's like?
The movement of the tape looks almost organic, octopus-like, even.
I think that's it's real purpose - making random, animated, hypnotic images. ;D
It gives me anxiety.
I’d love to see a hyperlapse of that
I used to sit and watch my Roland Space echo for hours.
Brings back memories of watching episodes of Joe 90 as a child many (many!) years ago.
This was really interesting, I'd never seen a reel-less tape system before.
Jahman
@@MyRackley bravo I hope you've added some useful input to this video.
Great content.
How old is he if he was buy8ng a be in 1984??
@@MyRackley the re-20 basically co-invented dub reggae and staple of countless other genres. Pretty much revered as one of the pinnacles of echo effects....well, apart from its expense and reliability compared to solid state devices.
The WEMs are much cheaper, ive used before. Of course much less options. You select from various play heads to control speed in some sense, or even create rhythm (often its rather washy to make out rhythm).
But the RE-20 had the speed dial contributing to its oscillating 'dub' effect, often used when feedback produces oscillation. It also had a spring reverb tank too.
Lots of great tape delays used in guitar, the Korg one? The Echoplex ep3 ep2 etc. And they make modern ones today, fulltone makes a solid state preamp driven one AND a TUBE driven one! Also there is an Australian who makes his own brand, extremely high end new tape delays!
When I worked in a telephone exchange as an apprentice, I recorded a loop myself, although I can't remember seeing the machine. It was something like "All Castleton numbers have been changed, please add 291 in front of the number". It was a novelty getting everyone I knew to dial the number and hear my voice.
I'm reminded of listening to a similar prerecorded tape loop in the 80's, announcing what films were playing at the cinema. It was often more reliable than the newspaper which may not account for last minute changes to the schedule.
Indeed! That's what came to my mind as well. Those were the stone knives and bearskins days!
I already had forgotten about looking for movies in a newspaper....
When I worked in a movie theater from 2007 to 2011, we would record the showtimes each morning for people to call and listen to. We would get so annoyed because people would look up the showtimes on yahoo or google instead of calling the showtimes line and they were never accurate. Of course, even though we had no control over what the search engines listed, the customers would get angry at us.
It's a rare recording of CHarlie Brown's mum.
Or teacher.
Womp-womp, Wah-womp-womp
😂
From Yorkshire... 😉
Bwahahaha🤣
Ah yes, that period of the Beatles, were they recorded tracks onto GPO automated announcement machines 😂
Please mr Postman ! :)
Hey, tape machines were expensive! When inspiration hit, they rang up their pal at the phone company.
Nah, the Beatles did the British Rail automated announcements....something about a girl having the right tariff for her journey.
@@fraggit I gather she wasn't at all bothered about it, too.
It wouldn't surprise me if they'd tried during their more experimental periods though!
This recording could date from 1995 when the last of the "local exchange codes" were taken out of use.
By then there wern't that many exchanges which needed tape machines for such announcements still in operation anyway.
Was that the same thing as PhONEday as I knew it, when we essentially added a 01 to pretty much all area codes?
@@almostanengineer yes.
I worked for Ma Bell (ATT) here in the colonies. In my long distance office we had a rack of announcement machines that had a magnetic drum, about 10 inches in diameter, mounted vertically. There were several spring mounted heads around the circumference, each aligned with a different track. I think there were 6 or 8. They could be erased, recorded and played back on a desktop Call Director phone - the one with 20 or so buttons. Hit a track button, push the 'RED' record button and lay down a new message on that track. Maintenance called for an alcohol wipedown of the drum and heads.
Called that failed, no trunks to some unreachable countries, or other messages were switched to the appropriate recording machine track. I think the Western Electric nomenclature was a 4A announcement machine. Not to be confused with a 4A crossbar central office switch.
Thanks
Down next to 1 Police Plaza, NYC, The Colonies?
Watching that tape loop go around is like watching a lava lamp
Thanks for the idea mate. . .
It could be a great randomness seed, like cloudflare's LavaRand, but faster.
@@pgramsey1 Hmm, interesting idea! I'm not sure it would be quite as random as that, though; since there are some identifiable patterns (like the tape tending to bunch up in the same spots). Also, lava lamps provide gradients of light and contrast.
Perhaps if the tape had varying stripes of color that would break up it's patterns... 🤔
@@otakuribo Transparent patterned tape, which luminosity colour changes with light, heat or pressure from between pinch rollers.
How about making a hour long recording of just the top?
The tape moving around at the top is mesmerising
Techmoan: It wasn't working when I got it.
Internet: That's why we're here.
Watching him repair vintage equipment is a joy.
Internet: "Now, let's tell him what he's doing wrong!"
And I was thinking, surely it just needed a new belt.
Quite historic actually! The message sounds like it was used at the time when many exchanges were moving away from simple 5 digit local calling and required the full10 digits.
There were loads of dialling code changes introduced during the 1980's as the network was modernised with digital switching equipment. Subscribers would sometimes also have changes made to the numbering ranges of their lines due to incompatibilities. Telephone numbers had to be in a format that was compatible to both the old analogue and new digital equipment, since both were in use for over a decade as the modernisation progressed. It was all published in every weekly edition of the Telecom Gazette, distributed to BT staff at work. Interesting times and the modernisation programme was a mammoth task and had many facets to it the public were largely unaware of.
@@johnrgm3047 The same process happened in most European countries in a very similar time frame, only the former Eastern Bloc countries were late to the party. In Austria, the last analogue exchange was replaced in late 1999. At that time it was quite an anachronism, as those exchanges had never been upgraded to things like DTMF dialling. Initially our equivalent of the GPO, by then privatised, had intended to keep the old exchanges in use until 2004 but EU regulations demanded network access for private telephone providers and that wasn't possible without replacing all the old exchanges.
Some countries on the fringes of Europe still use Strowger exchanges - a few weeks ago I watched a documentary on telecommunications in Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine and I think in Moldova they actually had a complete Strowger exchange in normal operation. The film was shot in 2019/20.
@@Ragnar8504 what's the documentary called?
@@Aadiboyrocks "Bitte warten" by Pavel Cuzuioc. Only the title is German, everything else is the various languages with English subtitles, and some French and English thrown in. The focus of the film is a lot more on the actual communication than on technology but it's still absolutely fascinating.
My guess is that it was used when a local route to an adjacent charge group was closed down.
This is exactly the reason why i live this channel: rare things getting shown and talked about by someone who loves these rarities and knows al lot about them. Well done Matt!
I think that is why everyone who likes this channel likes it, as that is basically what it is about.
Yet apparently still people got mad that there wasn't a special message on the previous tape🙄
If you want to watch an hour of tape looping - here's the video th-cam.com/video/fYVZ7GQhW3Y/w-d-xo.html
Also as usual there's more information in the video description.
It's like watching a lava lamp!
Strangely satisfying.
Hypnotic and very relaxing. Thank you for pre-emptively responding to my unwritten request.
ASMR for the eyes...
Ha! I just posted a comment saying "I could watch that tape looping for hours", looked down at the comments, and here's this. You're a genius, mate!
When I was very young (around 1985) there was a premium rate number we used to call and listen to children's stories. It may well have been one of these machines with something like a 5 minute story running on a loop. Later on we called and it had changed to a message saying "This service has now closed" over and over.
Oh my. Wow. Calling something like a 1888 or 0845 number for a short audiobook sounds like a fever dream, but reminds me of the first time I heard an audiobook, which was on a Qantas domestic flight from Perth to Brisbane as part of a Gold Coast holiday my family had back in 2010, and they tended to use older aircraft, so the one I was on at the time was from the 1980s or 1990s and the in-flight entertainment on it was comprised of just the audio feed from the RGB projector up front and several audio channels, one of which was playing what I didn't know could've been an audiobook. I only really listened to my first real audiobook in 2020.
Cool that you did a second version with the FAQ! Thanks Mat!
Patreon lets me see when something isn't working - and gives me the opportunity to fix it. It's very useful this way.
Actually thought this was going to be a tape delay machine at first glance.
Watching that tape transport is really relaxing! I was astounded when you showed the cassette album duplicator. I've not seen that video yet. I'd always assumed they were duplicated from a good quality reel-to-reel machine. Quite surprising.
To me that was a very interesting recording. Its the mundane things like this that are most intriguing. You get to sort of experience history from a place I never was. In a way its like time travel.
Wow, that's the kind of technology I remember working on in my youth. Discrete components: capacitors, resistors and transistors - in very big boxes... excellent.
yes, I was disappointed there wasn't a comment about how easy the thing was to open and inspect, and something about the nice clean, unambiguous layout of components.
But as they say: "show, don't tell"
I’ve got an old ‘please mind the gap’ machine from London Underground.
Similar design?
Send it to him!
That’s awesome I would love to be able to listen to the recording from that
@@Techmoan as far as i recall, the mind the gap recording is on solid state media, which is why the original message is so brief - solid state media was extremely expensive even at low capacity in the late 60s. would definitely love to see the inside of one of them
@@ExperimentIV Check this out - very interesting: th-cam.com/video/6c6uAUjady8/w-d-xo.html One of many Videos by Jago Hazzard about railways history in the capital - this one about the "mind the Gap" recording.
That thing looks like an old tape delay like we used to use in the 70's and 80's. All it needs is another tape head in there. Watching these types of machines like this announcement machine, or a tape delay, is oddly satisfying. The tape loop going around is almost hypnotic.
If the announcement was "our alien overlords have taken direct control, all hail the great Zarg!" I would be impressed.
That was the message, but it is backmasked.
It happened long ago now...
3:45 The machine dates from 1984 so it could have been a Two Minutes Hate or an update on "increases" in chocolate and gin rations.
Planet Hoosten, kneel before Zod!
A covid message.
@@tonyromano6220 that would be freaky
Being just 19 years of age, I probably have never “used” (as in, having a recording played to me) a machine like this.
Just like many other of the items shown on this channel, I have no real nostalgic connection to these, yet your videos are really quite fascinating!
I enjoy taking the time to watch your video every saturday morning as they come out, sitting down with a cup of tea to learn about some new old technology!
Looking inside the devices, finding out how they work and what their purpose was holds a certain charm, especially in our digital age - seeing the curious ways automation problems were solved before everything had silicon in it.
As a DevOps Engineer, I’m somewhat guilty of solving all problems using computers myself, though once you take a look at what is needed, especially when it comes to hardware, networking, reliability and security, the modern ways of solving problems are just as fascinating to me as old technology is.
I’m also 19, but considering how long it takes infrastructure to update their technology, I would assume we’ve both “used” these at least once
@@EnigmaticLucas In some cases "old tech" can be used for a supricingly long time, things are often left be if it works and if the alternative costs more.
These were likely obsolete in 1996. Definitely by 1998.
@@markevans2294 I have my doubts - I remember sometimes hearing phone announcements start midway through until 2004-2006 or so in the UK. In which case it was probably one of these (or other tape device) not digital.
Edit; yeah in 96 it would have only been 12 years old. No way BT just threw it out then when it was still working. But a ~05 phase out would mean it was amortised over at least 20 years. Much more likely. Or even a 25 or 30 year lifetime - if it had been decommissioned after 30 years then it only had a handful of years between decommissioning and finding its way into the hands of the donator.
I’m 26 and generally associate digital transition things with my late childhood and early adolescence. I guess that’s one of the big generational divides between millennials and gen Z? You suspect you might never have used one of these, whereas I suspect I did until I was 8-11 years old or so (by which point you’d only be three years old at most).
Just wanted to thank you for showing this kind of devices. I really enjoy seeing them. Thanks!
It's pretty amazing what those old analog devices were capable of. Everything about that old machine, not a single digital thing anywhere to be found, and mostly, discrete electronics too. Nice historic find.
Dude, that's SUPER interesting! Like, voices from the past, obscure recordings? I love it. It's part of history, and deserves to be remembered. Love seeing old tech come back to life!
trying to understand the brainworms of anyone who would get mad that you listened to a recording of a boring announcement and heard a boring announcement
Yes, as of my writing this, there are 42 downvotes on the video. I simply cannot fathom why someone would even bother watching the video just to downvote it. Boggles the mind.
"We've been trying to get a hold of you regarding your vehicle's extended warranty..."
*They were up all night to get lucky up all night to get lucky up all night to get lucky*
Another excellent video, thanks! I can't believe people complained that the railway tape machine contained a boring message, some people!! Coincidentally, that was the first Techmoan video I saw, and have watched every one ever since!
We need to bring this back, just for the tape loop
It's like a living work of art 😄
A 24 hour live video stream would be popular.
What a beautiful piece of equipment no tape stretching and hardly any friction or wear and tear. Simplicity at it's best
One of the few people I've seen on TH-cam that can take a device or topic I have never known about or thought I would be interested in, and make it engaging and worth watching again. Great work.
Ive been obsessed with these things forever, and seeing a techmoan video about it just made my week
Edit: I thought this was a tape echo. Techmoan, you never cease to amaze me
Just what I thought:)
Yup I got tricked as well.
I thought it was a tape echo too. But just think, add a few extra heads and you could turn it into one!
There's a Space Echo shown at 13:20.
Heck, you could make the taut tape pathway accessible and put a write head on a stick; when you want a delay, push the head into the tape. I imagine you could make some downright weird timings, scrubs, garbled alignments... (You'd probably also want an erase head, come to think of it.)
Watching the tape feed round and round is endlessly fascinating.
I found the spoolless design reminded me of a system I ran across when I visited my fathers workplace when I was a child. (in particular the vertical duplicator). He worked in photo finishing (film development) as a consumer service, but on an industrial scale. This meant splicing together hundreds of rolls of film in order to run them through a once through development machine, which in some cases were over a hundred feet long. It was all an exercise in maintaining tension and velocity of the film emulsion thorough the machine with no reels involved. Parts of that were very much in the same vein as the vertical tape system.
For what it's worth, the little slice of life recordings like these are fascinating to me - and a little window into history.
and a little window into a amazing tape loop too!
Aw. I was expecting the Beatles' lost song: "The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service". Classic...
You know my name look up the number
@@michaeldeloatch7461 Good one!
You have the same tape principle in old ink ribbon cartridges for dot matrix printers.
Found that out when i opened one up as a kid.... "Oh that movement is cool, (spins advance knob over and over till ribbon bursts out all over the table)
I like fact that videos are coming a lot lately, that's a good sign.
I can imagine HAINBACH having his eyes on that machine.
Same or Blank Forms. These are probably going to sky rocket in price on ebay.
Same, I thought this was an analog tape delay machine.
LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER is now collecting old phone equipment, too! This belongs in the Museum of Everything Else!
you will all be pleased to know this wont be the last you see video wise of this machine, having spoke to mat i'll be taking it on and wiring it up to my telephone exchange in the museum. also hainbach has mentionned he is looking to making his way over in the coming months after travel restrictions are more relaxed (not for this machine specifically, more of just to do stuff at the museum but im sure this will peak his interest). so yes, to answer this, there will be more content! and probably a hainbach special haha.
@@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER YES! I saw the stars aligning and am so happy this has found its way to you!
Who the heck get mad at you for the content of the old tapes being what it is, just explaining the machine alone is enough to praise you
You did it! Very nice! When you got that audio playing, very satisfying!
Absolutely fascinating. Watching you open the thing up and getting it to work always feels like going along on an adventure. Thanks for teaching us about this stuff!
Id love to see that reel-less mechanism in a wall mount scaled up with an hour of store music on the wall of some cafe. That would be cool
Yes, I would consider that absolutely awesome, but I am not sure whether anyone would understand what's going on. Except us, of course.
I am also particularly fond of the vacuum column tape drives. A length of tape is stored in a vacuum column (two vacuum columns, one for the left, one for the right reel) and each tape reel only moves (starting and stopping rather abruptly) when its vacuum column fills up with or runs out of tape, totally independent on what the other reel does. This asynchronous jerky movement is very iconic, and back in the days(*), these tape units were often seen in movies. Nowadays, they are kind of hard to find, even on TH-cam. But here we go: th-cam.com/video/lEYyZSlQEdg/w-d-xo.html
(*) Yes, the days when computers could only be operated by women.
Oh dang, almost thought this was a tape echo unit.
My tape delay filled a hole in my life...
That was my guess. It looks like the inside of a Roland space echo.
There's a Space Echo shown at 13:20.
Same. :)
Agreed..
This channel is awesome 👌😎 so many things you show I started out with when I was younger (and I'm only 30) im an RF engineer but also a Broadcast engineer that works with telecom, and High voltage so I've been around endless new and old TV and Radio equipment my whole life due to my grandfather (also in the profession) and it just naturally became my profession. I really love seeing old equipment like this out in the open for everyone to see and learn about.
Not only do you show things I learned from but you also show various other things I'm passionate about. My hobbies are chemistry and just generally making things that serve a purpose for me but I love audio like a weirdo/audiophile and old equipment like tubes of every type.
Your channel is extremely special to me and I could watch only this channel and never complain 🤣
Cheers from North Florida USA. Stay awesome 👍
The overhead shot of this thing continuously playing would make a mesmerizing screen saver.
When I watch this thinking it’s ancient then realise I was 9 when this was made
Egad. I was MARRIED the year this was made! 😲
The pace of change has been astonishing.
I was five at that time which was when I'd just started school, making you one of those terrifyingly large "bigger boys" who seemed almost grownup to me back then.
I was born the very same month, when this machine was manufactured. I love to see what was around when I came into this world, the technology, movies, music, political and social events.
christ, i was 24
I was typing about the RIAA when you mentioned it - exact reason why it's muffled and boomy
Pretty sure tape EQ works the other way around though. Tape is recorded with pre-emphasis and playback uses de-emphasis. The reason it was muffled was probably an impedance mismatch between the direct head output and his amplification input.
I ran inverse RIAA EQ in audacity over the audio in the video. Sounds a little better but still quite muffled. Maybe the tape has degraded?
@@andreasu.3546 I was just about to do that. Good thing i saw your comment first. Saved me the trouble of doing it.
When I was a child, we had a telephone answering machine that had a cassette tape that was designed like that, with a continuous loop tape with the outgoing message. It had a separate tape for the incoming messages that was not a loop.
Staring at the tape spooling/unspooling into that top section is very mesmerizing.
I used to think the tape on a rtr was pulled through by spindle 2 as well, but as soon as you said 'most people think' this, I realised why it wouldn't work (well it could work, but would require extra stuff to make it work, adding complexity, when the wee rollers did the job just fine).
I was quite pleased with myself. :)
Thanks for highlighting stuff, that is of interest, and makes us think.
Techmoan, you have the talent to make the weirdest stuff fascinating, almost mesmerising. Well done! Thank you!
I've seen telephone announcement machines of all different kinds. Optical, magnetic drum, etc. Can't say I've ever seen one with un-spooled free floating tape before.
They were called "Stringy Floppies" (look it up) and were used commercially on Sinclair computers. Search for the Sinclair QL. I had one for 3 months before returning it, but the "stringy" didn't give trouble during that time. The tape cartridge was tiny, so it's a wonder that it didn't get crammed in tight enough to crease it - but it seemed OK.
I’m certain there’s one of these in the opening titles of Joe 90 the Gerry Anderson TV series.
th-cam.com/video/4utQWy9heEI/w-d-xo.html - Is that what you mean?
I was wracking my brain trying to think which 60's TV show's opening I had seen this on - think you nailed it with Joe 90. (I caught the re-runs as a kid).
Cool, but now I'm very angry at Techmoan that his tape didn't have a Brain Impulse Galvanoscope recording on it. 🤣
@@danjackson3672 I wonder if that was a specially built prop for the show or if the props department used an existing bit of kit for the effect?
@@KarlBunker Brain Impulse Galvanoscope Record And Transfer
B.I.G. R.A.T.
I love history! Thanks Neo for providing this piece of history to Mr.Techmoan. Love learning how technology came to be!
I always found it very interesting to learn about something that you would normally never really think twice about, this is a prime example of that.
No matter how simple or mundane something may seem there's always more to be learned from it than one might expect.
This little nugget of information will now be added to to my mental library that, even though I may never need to use in the future, will be there if the right opportunity arises.
It looks like a Roland Space Echo. That's what I thought it was.
My first thought when I saw a loop of tape was also echo machine
I knew it wasn't a Roland. I thought it might be one of the more obscure tape delays I've never seen like the Binson Echorec or the Echoplex.
I knew it wasn't a roland from the thumbnail, but I also thought "Oh, a tape delay of some sorts."
Shows how music focused we are, doesn't it?
Gotta admit, I was half expecting him to thread the tape through his reel to reel player to give us a clear playback. :P Quite the neat find!
I suspect he would do that as well, but he said in the video, if this was a long lost interesting recording, then yes he would've used a reel to reel. But because it's just a telephone message, he didn't bother. (Although I wished this unit could record...)
The point of the video was the device, not the media.
@@JohnKelly2
You've be surprised how many people think the opposite.
The sound is muffled because of phono corrector. However, the frequency response could be easily corrected with EQ after recording the message onto PC and then put into audacity or cool edit pro ;-)
Anyway, this was almost unnecessary. We all have heard the message and that's quite enough.
I thought it was a tape delay at first. Basically the same principle with the continuous tape except it records and plays back and the gap between the heads creates the echo.
Pretty much the same tech!
There's a Space Echo shown at 13:20.
@@wbfaulk woah, spoiler alert! I only watched a few minutes of the video before bed with the intention to watch the rest later.
@@soviut303 If you don't want spoilers, you shouldn't be reading comments, much less making them.
@@wbfaulk ...I was joking. I thought that was kind of obvious since we're talking about a tape delay.
I just fixed something very similar to this last week and it's still waiting to be picked up. It was a device that was called a Roland space echo. Back in the days before digital effects be were the norm Roland was making devices that used analog circuitry and analog circuitry and analog media for actual PA effects. In fact if you went to see a national touring band in the sixties many times there were no effects whatsoever on the PA as they were lucky to have APA that was even audible at that time the idea of adding effects to alive mix just wasn't something they considered back then until maybe the late sixties. The role in the space echo employs a tape loop just like this but instead of one playback head there were 3 and you could use them as a multi tap delay or the different lengths and delays created or speed up and slow down the tape which had a graduated and adjustable bias control as you sped it up and slowed it down Which was one of the amazing things this machine did and 1 of the things I had to fix. It was coupled with a Spring reverb inside which provided some reverb, and was an expensive device, even if quite low-fi and often breaking in the middle of a performance... it did sound pretty nice and interestingly analogue!
Excellent video of a fascinating device. Good on you, Neil, for letting us all see it.
Yep - Joe90 - the opening credits and whenever Joe was 're-programmed'
Wasn’t that child abuse?
I googled this because American. That's terrible, they didn't even do a backup.
@@TomEarley pretty much!!! :O
@@TomEarley - not in the 60’s. Besides, the uploaded knowledge only worked when poor little lab rat Joe wore the electronic birth control glasses.
@@nmccw3245 can I clarify, his dad was the inventor of it right? So his dad was just using his child as a lap rat?
3:09 You said "a common problem on a brushed motor like THIS"
But I cannot see any brushes on this motor. This looks more like an AC motor like the ones commonly used in turntables and tape machines. That also would make sense since their speed is linked to the mains frequency which as we all know is very precise. A brushed motor however would need a speed control.
Yes, its a simple induction motor, with the run capacitor next to it. Probably has some gummed grease in the bearings and needed help to start up therefore. Possibly also the run cap might be degraded, reducing starting torque.
I find thid actually quite interesting!! We've all gotten these messages many times in our lives, and always will, but noe we see how it worked in the old days (aka: my days). What amazes me is the tape is loose in thar cavity! I just never saw a tape handled loose and not reeled :) but hey it worked!! 👍
I LOVE Mechanical Automation ! I never got past the point when mechanical machines were replaced by computers etc. Once again a efficient detailed clear nice vide to watch !!
What an interesting contraption. Never saw one before. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. Howdy🇬🇧...from🇺🇸
When the audio finally came through, I kept expecting him to channel Steve1983MREinfo and say, "Nice Hiss".
*giggles*
Was anyone else mesmerized watching the tape spool in and out of the top compartment? So many beautiful curves. I wonder if the pattern would ever repeat itself, or is it genuinely random?
This recording is giving me post-apocalyptic vibes.
Yes, Mr Shute was on the beach.
these seem like good candidates to be converted into tape echos for studios. give them another lifetime of usefulness
Back in early 70's we made a continuous loops on cassette tapes with drum beats for band practice. Easy to do and worked great.
I suspect like you that the output requires exchange battery
Hi, good to see you around here.
Love your channel, your Dual turntable repair vids have been really helpful in the past! 👍
@@QoraxAudio
You won't see my comments on many channels as I don't watch that many TH-cam channels and don't comment much. This is really me though, unlike the imposter that that been lurking on Facebook and has scammed people.
@@12voltvids Oh wow I didn't know there was a scammer around.
I've quit Facebook for over 10 years ago when they changed their privacy policy.
@@QoraxAudio I'm not on Facebook either. I do have an account but it is not active. I don't post or update and i don't use messenger. This is how the scammer operated. I found out (thought an investigation) that the scammer convinced someone through messenger that they were talking to me and were given a "hot lead" on an investment which they invested a bunch of money and it was a scam and they list it. The IP was traced to Florida. That all i was able to find out. Don't know how many people were scammed but someone I know personally was taken to the cleaners and he isn't too happy. Was totally convinced that he was talking to me. Quizzed the person by asking him a question that he thought only i would know. Was a technical question that the answer was readily available on google.
@@12voltvids Damn... That shows you can't be too careful when money is involved!
It wouldn't surprise me if the IP in Florida was just a proxy server IP, forwarding from an entire different part of the world.
Could've been worse... could've been a lost Yoko recording.
techmoan makes every single video fun and interesting to watch.
Even if Matt reviewed a potato I would imagine it would be a fantastic video.
that would be awesome for 1 april!
th-cam.com/video/APCv5FRoqmo/w-d-xo.html
@@hamburgerfrenchchips lol, good one!
The action of the tape is fascinating. It reminded me of the opening credits of 'Joe 90' (1968).
The videos you present are absolutely brilliant! just remember, that some of us might be blind, like myself LOL! so, make sure to verbalize the obvious sided stuff. thank you for doing this incredible series of videos! My recording studio is 80% analog and I love checking all this good stuff out!
same!
took me a few tries to figure out there weren't any reels
That seems to be a brushless motor. Seen them in Revox tape decks as well.
It is in fact an outer rotor induction motor. Matt got it wrong.
@@quantumleap359 More like a radial flux motor.
Wow, I didn't expect them to have used regional accents back in those days!
It was not all about London back then?
Yes, that was the most interesting thing about the recording for me. I'm also curious about the people who recorded the messages. In the US, I believe most phone messages were recorded by a single person: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Barbe
I could just imagine some madlad out there with one of these hooked up to his phone line so whenever someone calls him they get rickrolled.
Please include that shot of the tape looping around in your outro. It's very satisfying to watch IMHO
Thanks to this channel, I have long given up on the idea that I have seen it all. I am no longer surprised at the amount of audio formats that do and have existed, now I just watch to see what else has been invented!
My first thought when I saw this machine is that it was an echo machine! They look very similar but clearly they are not.
I'd like to see the tape loop being removed then reloaded.
It was me that did it and it wasnt easy. The easiest way was to feed it in as a straight length of tape with the motor then just before the end dissapeared you stopped the machine and spliced it in to a loop. Putting a ready made loop in was a nightmare and given to the apprentice (me😊)
0:53 I want this as a endless screensaver just to look at it when I am listening to music
07:36 Did anyone else find that amusing? Techmoan t-shirt idea: "Don't tape the hiss"
I love the movement of that tape, there's something quite hypnotic about it😦
Around 1973-1977 the Baptist church used a similar machine to provide a dial-a-prayer service in Wellington New Zealand. When the pastor was away it was my job to write, read and record a daily prayer to fit the 2 and a half minute loop tape. Quite a challenge!
I wonder if if the announcement relates to PhONEday (95) or the Big Number Change (2000)
Earlier than that. It would have been about the removal of short codes between local exchanges. For example you could dial from Manchester exchanges to Rochdale numbers by dialling a 35 for five digit number or 7 for a six digit number, rather than the STD code of 0706. Using the STD code might once have caused the call to be charged at long distance rather than local rates. Some small exchanges used 9 or 8 as a code for reaching the larger adjacent exchange. For example the speaking clock number on the large exchange would be 8081 but from the small one 98081 or 88081.
@@nowster Great information. Thank you.
@@nowster Actually, it could have been from any time in the conversion from these odd local variations on prefix numbers to the national 11-digit standard we have today. Remember, the London STD code was initially 01. This got changed to 071 for inner London and 081 for Greater London, and then changed again to 0207 and 0208 respectively.
@@simonuden8450 The messages in the London switch and PhOneDay were digital as most exchanges had converted to System-X or AXE by that time. This one's a local Lancastrian voice so is likely to be from the withdrawal of short codes from one of the exchanges that "Neil" serviced.
@@nowster I'm sure you're right. I hadn't thought about the accent. My experience of them was from 1973-76, and I cannot remember what changes were going on then. Bristol was ND, and a lot of the local exchanges were transitioning from 5- to 6-digit numbers, so that may have been what they was used for. I certainly remember a huge wad of Advice Notes coming in to change the local branch of Norwich Union from a 5- to a 6-digit number
Ah yes I was waiting for this moment for the whole day... a new techmoan video!
I want to make a coffee table with a tape loop like this inside.
Have no idea about bare tape systems at all, until this video!
Thank you, as always!
I use to work at Disney World and had access to their DACS room in the tunnels under Magic Kingdom. It was the heart of the audio for all the attractions above ( and probably other things). Special access was required. Anyways, this was how they played the audio on their rides. Now, this was back in 1995, so it may have changed a lot since. Even at the time, the DACS room didn't control the audio for all the rides, just the ones that existed since the park opened. As new attractions were developed over the years, digital started being used and the audio control was placed a lot closer to the actual attraction. But still cool nonetheless.