LGR Oddware: The 5.25" PC Cassette Tape Deck! Plusdeck 2c

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
  • Unboxing and testing the Plusdeck 2c, an audio cassette player for desktop computers! It fits into a 5.25-inch drive bay and offers the ability to play and capture tapes to digital files. Including MP3s, ooh. Let's install and try it out using the serial port on a Windows 98 PC!
    ● LGR links:
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    ● All background music licensed from:
    www.epidemicsou...
    #LGR #Retro #Computer

ความคิดเห็น • 1.6K

  • @jessieo5757
    @jessieo5757 ปีที่แล้ว +1455

    I'm shocked the record industry survived this technological marvel.

    • @LGR
      @LGR  ปีที่แล้ว +532

      5.25” tape recording is killing music! 🏴‍☠️

    • @Arehexes
      @Arehexes ปีที่แล้ว +219

      LGR killed the radio star.

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 ปีที่แล้ว +64

      @@LGR ah the good ol 1980s slogan. I can already picture the cassette crossbones logo.

    • @AurumUsagi
      @AurumUsagi ปีที่แล้ว +27

      PC taping is skill in music!

    • @olafelsberry420
      @olafelsberry420 ปีที่แล้ว +14

      @@Arehexes now it’s mp4 killed the radio star.😂😢😅😂😢😅

  • @sswc79
    @sswc79 ปีที่แล้ว +210

    I was the engineer who repaired this product.
    It's a new feeling to see it after so much time has passed.

    • @PlayitagainVHS
      @PlayitagainVHS ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Probably nostalgic 👍

    • @trueKENTUCKY
      @trueKENTUCKY ปีที่แล้ว

      How's Taiwan?

    • @sswc79
      @sswc79 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      @@trueKENTUCKY no korean

    • @cothfi
      @cothfi ปีที่แล้ว

      Did you work for BTO?

    • @sswc79
      @sswc79 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@cothfi Yes

  • @IronClad_Soup
    @IronClad_Soup ปีที่แล้ว +929

    I half expected Techmoan to pop out of the woodgrain at some point. Always love an oddware episode!

    • @DdlyHeadshot
      @DdlyHeadshot ปีที่แล้ว +38

      Maybe he'd be able to identify the mechanism - might be useful to prompt him?

    • @dansmoothback9644
      @dansmoothback9644 ปีที่แล้ว +46

      well, he did mention that at some point the belts will "perish", soooo

    • @microbuilder
      @microbuilder ปีที่แล้ว +14

      Nah, not enough puppets lol

    • @karolisr
      @karolisr ปีที่แล้ว +20

      Oh, Techmoan will be in comments soon enough.

    • @ColtGColtG
      @ColtGColtG ปีที่แล้ว +31

      @@microbuilder there has been a depressing lack of puppets lately

  • @TriangIe
    @TriangIe ปีที่แล้ว +53

    I actually have a 2c and the software works perfectly on Windows 11 with a good ol’ USB to serial converter and a usb sound card. I actually quite like it. It’s cool listening to all my dads old classic rock tapes through my pc while I work.

    • @caseystrange
      @caseystrange ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Is it worth it over USB capturing off a deck?

    • @TriangIe
      @TriangIe ปีที่แล้ว

      @@caseystrange if you have a 5.25 drive bay then yeah. But this isn’t USB, you have to have a soundcard or audio interface to capture its output

  • @aussiepunkrocksV20
    @aussiepunkrocksV20 ปีที่แล้ว +330

    I'd love to see a beige large server tower filled with all these oddware 5 1/4" drive bays.. speaker... crt...cig lighter..vu meter ... would be great!

    • @krazylegswp
      @krazylegswp ปีที่แล้ว +41

      I've been advocating for him to build a retro "hifi" tower just to showcase what was available

    • @zfoxfire
      @zfoxfire ปีที่แล้ว +8

      personally i'm looking for an audio interface that goes into a 5-1/4" bay. i want to get a nice boom mic but its weird there's no market for internal interafaces.

    • @stawmy
      @stawmy ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I could build one, how about a 5 1/4 inch bay with a huge led clock in there as well?. I love that tape deck, i want one, i want one!😆

    • @stawmy
      @stawmy ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@zfoxfire you can get a car stereo equalizer to fit in there, but all you need to do is route the mic and input sockets from the back, to the front. If you have a spare bay it's easy peasy to pop the cover off, drill some holes in it and mount the jack sockets, and then solder small diameter coax cable and either connect that with the optional 4 pin analog in/out on the card, or simply jack plugs and plug them into the soundcard at the back. OR you could just get some 3.5 mm male-female extension leads, and not even have to open the PC. Me, i would take the longer route, LOL

    • @plan7a
      @plan7a ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Don't forget the minidisc drive (bay) also! LOL.

  • @Gadgetman1989
    @Gadgetman1989 ปีที่แล้ว +48

    As much as an audiophile my pop was, he still had his old Sony dual tape deck wired into his computer with some proprietary software he had for his cassettes, but had an ION record player that was also wired in, and this.... This would have been a godsend to him... RIP pop, hope I'll get your reel to reel working someday soon and can play your reels soon

    • @blackterminal
      @blackterminal ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I'm sorry you lost your Dad..I lost my Mum a few years ago and it's still terribly painful.

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว +1

      > "audiophile"
      > "Dual tape deck"
      > "Audiophile"
      Lolwut

    • @dewdop
      @dewdop ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@TheBrandonn not mutually exclusive bro

    • @MrWolfSnack
      @MrWolfSnack 6 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      The way he did it is always better than garbage like this. It is made to cash in on nostalgia and its made cheap for idiots that don't know what they are doing. Proper recording media with good quality hardware and connections is all you need.

  • @TheRailroad99
    @TheRailroad99 ปีที่แล้ว +151

    I think the recording version would have been AWESOME in the early 2000s. In 2000, almost all cars still had tape players. Recording them was a kind of lengthy process (setting up the deck, adjusting the level, preparing a playlist, monitoring it).
    With this you should have been able ( not sure how they implemented the S/W) to just drag a few files on the App, it should be possible to automatically arrange them for best use of both sides (in theory it should even be able to apply EQ by recording test tones to the tape, rewinding, and then auto adjust the sound output EQ), click go and just walk away / do something else on the PC. Would be super convenient for quick tape recordings to be later used in a car. Almost like an analog flash drive.

    • @eric_d
      @eric_d ปีที่แล้ว +8

      You could still write software to do that. Some people are saying that cassettes are making a comeback.

    • @lachlanlau
      @lachlanlau ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Bad quality tho..

    • @dodgeramsport01
      @dodgeramsport01 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@eric_d and why wouldn't they?

    • @elmoredneal5382
      @elmoredneal5382 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I was thinking the exact same thing 🤔 I was still rockin' a cassette deck in my car until the late 2000s, and was still making mix tapes. I'd try to fill the tapes end to end so there was little to no "dead air" at the end of either side, which wasn't always easy.
      Software could definitely automate the whole process by arranging the songs in the best order to reduce or eliminate dead air at the ends of the tape.
      The only slight problem is that not all blank tapes are equal in length. Most manufacturers load more tape than a label indicates, for example 90 meters (300 feet) rather than 86 meters (282 feet) of tape for a C60 cassette, and 132 or 135 meters (433 or 443 feet) rather than 129 meters (423 feet) of tape for a C90 cassette, providing an extra minute or two of playback time per side

    • @eric_d
      @eric_d ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@elmoredneal5382 The software could check the length of the tape before laying it down. All it needs to do is run it to both ends real fast. If the tape deck was high enough quality it wouldn't even need to go to both ends. It could get a pretty good estimate of the exact length of the tape by just fast forwarding a little bit. When the pickup spool gets larger the other side gets smaller. With some math you can figure out how long the tape should be pretty qucikly by the change in speed ratio between the spools.

  • @RogueAgent007
    @RogueAgent007 ปีที่แล้ว +72

    I'd like to see someone build a 2000-2005ish tower, big as it can be, with maxed out 5.25 slots of all the silly items, all functional. That would be impressive.

    • @crash-stop
      @crash-stop ปีที่แล้ว +6

      Yea with one of those internal bay mounted vga monitors that LGR had on here as well!

    • @FunnyHaHa420
      @FunnyHaHa420 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Too bad I don't have a picture of my old PC. That's exactly what I did. A full Tower case with the lighter, the cassette deck, a zip drive, 2 optical drives, a removable HDD tray and a status board. I also had a SuperDisc and a I/O breakout in the 3.5 slots. It cracked me up and the lighter is particularly good for lighting a one-hitter bat.

  • @mikewatkinson1996
    @mikewatkinson1996 ปีที่แล้ว +72

    Ahh...digital and analog going hand in hand in harmony. What a beautiful sound to behold.

  • @Raveheart
    @Raveheart ปีที่แล้ว +315

    Also odd that it appearantly records in 44.1KHz 8 bit stereo. Did a quick calculation because when you played that clicky WAV recording in Winamp, it showed 705kbps where it should have been 1411.

    • @zim2411
      @zim2411 ปีที่แล้ว +62

      I caught that discrepancy too. That would also explain the resulting audio quality issues and why the other program (which almost certainly recorded at 16-bit) recorded just fine.

    • @LGR
      @LGR  ปีที่แล้ว +164

      Ooh fascinating indeed, didn't notice that. Could very explain the bad recordings made through the Plusdeck software. All of the other audio programs I tried here recorded in 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo and those sounded perfect, so I think you're onto something!

    • @cutchyacokov
      @cutchyacokov ปีที่แล้ว +52

      ​@@LGR As I understand it bit dept in PCM audio mostly affects the SNR (signal to noise ratio) of the digital audio, given that this thing can only handle type 1 cassette tapes without noise reduction 8bit PCM might be all you really need. So I think this is down to how the sound card or the Windows sound subsystem converts to 8bit. 8bit 44.1KHz audio can sound pretty good, but reducing the bit-depth in Sound Recorder on early versions of Windows always resulted in clicky, poppy audio like this when I tried it. I'd suggest trying it in a different soundcard or an XP machine, if you care to. You did ask for a reason to get this out again in the video : ).

    • @henryokeeffe5835
      @henryokeeffe5835 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@cutchyacokov I would agree, but that didn't sound anything like clipping

    • @robertdrisdelle
      @robertdrisdelle ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I was also thinking maybe the system audio settings were set to 48kHz, and the software was trying to record at 44.1, I get that issue sometimes recording into audacity at a sample rate that's different from my sound card setting

  • @Mercgribern
    @Mercgribern ปีที่แล้ว +288

    Man, a cup holder AND a tape deck? This thing has all the features!

    • @SUPRAMIKE18
      @SUPRAMIKE18 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      Those were selling points if you were buying a new car back in the day XD

    • @Pungentpotato
      @Pungentpotato ปีที่แล้ว +10

      Got to pair it with the drive bay speakers too. With enough bays one could convert their PC tower into a home stereo.

    • @celebraces2
      @celebraces2 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Just needs electric windows... Wait...

    • @anon_y_mousse
      @anon_y_mousse ปีที่แล้ว +4

      @@celebraces2 Underrated comment.

    • @professor-josh
      @professor-josh ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Be sure the cup holder isn't really a CD-ROM tray!

  • @HanMasho
    @HanMasho ปีที่แล้ว +428

    Man, Anders Enger Jenson sure knows how to play the game. He gets so much free publicity from pretty much every retro/tech TH-camr around.

    • @ProgrammerInProgress
      @ProgrammerInProgress ปีที่แล้ว +45

      Literally watched lgr and techmoan randomly today and saw his music being used

    • @KRAFTWERK2K6
      @KRAFTWERK2K6 ปีที่แล้ว

      Yeah the retro tech youtubers pretty much love sucking each others dicks xD the Synthesizer and Camera TH-camrs are kinda the same. Though not THAT extreme.

    • @Mrshoujo
      @Mrshoujo ปีที่แล้ว +35

      Anders needs to get more copies of his sold out albums back in stock. I want a copy but I can't get it.

    • @awesomeferret
      @awesomeferret ปีที่แล้ว +29

      He was far from the first to do the "give free cassettes to your TH-camr buddies" thing, just arguably the highest profile and most successful person to do it.

    • @HanMasho
      @HanMasho ปีที่แล้ว +30

      @@awesomeferret Not sure how you got the impression that I was suggesting that he invented the concept, but okay.

  • @Kutulu369
    @Kutulu369 ปีที่แล้ว +102

    I had this and it was AMAZING. Being able to convert my jam tapes to MP3 was a game changer back in the day!

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator ปีที่แล้ว +6

      You know you could 3.5mm on a decent walkman into line in, right? Better quality and cheaper.

    • @FlyboyHelosim
      @FlyboyHelosim ปีที่แล้ว

      @@the_kombinator Is there a difference between line-in and microphone? What about line-in/mic combo ports? I've been looking at converting some cassette tapes but it sounds like a hundred cicadas in the background. Apparently mic jacks on computers are too sensitive, does that apply to line-in/mic combo ports?

    • @annaquay4183
      @annaquay4183 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@FlyboyHelosim I'm guessing you've tried the 'back' line-in on your PC - it may not be a combined one like the 'front/top' line-in/mic combo?

    • @annaquay4183
      @annaquay4183 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@the_kombinator Also there was that thing that was a cassette with a cable coming out of it to connect to a Discman. Put the cassette in the car player and there you go! Oh the 90s/noughties!

    • @FlyboyHelosim
      @FlyboyHelosim ปีที่แล้ว

      @@annaquay4183 I mainly use a laptop that is marked as mic but obviously works as line-in too, but I've got a small form-factor desktop PC that is marked as combo line-in and mic. I just wondered if there was an actual difference or whether the ports just have different markings.

  • @BudgetBuildsOfficial
    @BudgetBuildsOfficial ปีที่แล้ว +20

    I just finished tearing down a VW Gamma Stereo from the late 90s/Early 2000s for a full refurb. That mechanism looks near 1:1 with the one from the VW (which I believe was based on a Sony Design) even down to the belt layout, and the ribbon cable usage and placement.
    Kinda wanna find one of these for my Win 2000 system now. Really enjoyed finding out this was even a thing.

    • @SrWolf90
      @SrWolf90 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I think it may be Sony, or Philips, but it's probably Sony that made it. This mechanism is of very good quality and is very well built. PD: It is probably designed and manufactured in Korea, since it uses a lot of Samyoung capacitors.

  • @curtisss
    @curtisss ปีที่แล้ว +163

    It never crossed my mind that something like this would exist. My car still has a cassette player, I bought my favourite modern album (Dave - were all alone in this together) and it came on cassette, record and CD

    • @9852323
      @9852323 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I wish my car still had its original cassette deck.

    • @bepowerification
      @bepowerification ปีที่แล้ว +4

      my car (2000 corolla) still has its cassette player and it plays all the cassettes I have right at the moment I stopped playing them 20 years ago :) I never had the desire to change it... cassettes are just fine for cars.

    • @ijmad
      @ijmad ปีที่แล้ว +9

      Honestly a better option nowadays might be one of those magic bluetooth cassettes, a cheap option that updates your car stereo without having to totally replace it completely

    • @curtisss
      @curtisss ปีที่แล้ว

      @@bepowerification mine is a 2002 Nissan Micra k11, in century green 😁

    • @curtisss
      @curtisss ปีที่แล้ว

      @@9852323 I was lucky that mine had the original unit because most of the later models of my car had a CD player optioned

  • @MrDaftJustice
    @MrDaftJustice ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Bro, you're probably never reading this but today I need to share something with you... For the past 2 years I've been struggling with depression, i work too many hours and I spend my weekends usually alone, however every Friday I like to cook something good, relax and have dinner watching your videos and content... I'm not even American but I wish someday I could thank you in person for helping me survive week after week, recently things have been going better for me and that's why I wanted to share. Thank you so much LGR

    • @LGR
      @LGR  ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I’m glad to hear these videos are a positive thing :)
      Hope things continue getting better and better!

    • @ashkitt7719
      @ashkitt7719 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

      How are things going now? I hope things are at least a bit better now.
      I don't have depression so much as anxiety and I definitely got a lot to be anxious about. T_T

    • @MrDaftJustice
      @MrDaftJustice 3 หลายเดือนก่อน

      @@ashkitt7719 they have gotten better, I got a better job; moved out to a different place and found a significant other! Thank you for asking, I hope you go over the anxiety issue, it is possible

    • @MrDaftJustice
      @MrDaftJustice 2 หลายเดือนก่อน +1

      @@ashkitt7719 everything has moved forward in a positive way! Thank you so much

  • @potterj09
    @potterj09 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    Man I'm still fascinated by this older tech but I come here because we're similar in age but Clint has a lot more patience than I do these days for things to work only after a lot of troubleshooting. My first hand-me-down windows pc was a DX-33 which my brother insisted I assemble myself. Was glad he did because it inspired me to develop a competency with computers that I still enjoy today, however today I don't have alot of free time to tinker & overcome challenges. Goddamn work life.

  • @alanstringer.
    @alanstringer. ปีที่แล้ว +3

    3:38 As someone who used to smoke and work/game back in the day, lighting your cigarette with a conveniently placed lighter that's right there in the case would have been such a killer thing to have. I'd almost have to say that's the drive bay freakshow that would have had the MOST real-world application purely by definition.

    • @samuelcolvin4994
      @samuelcolvin4994 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I certainly used mine! But I cleaned my PC regularly to avoid any grossness inside from smoke.

  • @Jimothy156
    @Jimothy156 ปีที่แล้ว +24

    I've got one these in my Gateway Destination, it made a lot of sense to put it in a PC like that. Though, I only use the playback function and haven't tried recording to mp3, so seeing you use that function was interesting and informative!

    • @tsm688
      @tsm688 ปีที่แล้ว

      gateway final destination edition

  • @Otakunopodcast
    @Otakunopodcast ปีที่แล้ว +25

    I'm probably not the first to think this, but I bet this thing could be pretty handy for use in archiving old computer tapes. Since it's serial, the protocol should be fairly simple to reverse engineer, so one could ditch the Plusdeck native software (probably a good thing, as it appears that the software is causing glitches in the recording) and write an open source app to control the deck and manage the recording (setting the sound card to highest quality of course.) Might even be possible to programatically monitor the audio stream as it's being recorded so as to detect blank/silent spots (so that tapes with multiple programs on them can be automagically split into separate files) and maybe even somehow decode the audio stream in order to automagically detect the filenames. (this latter would be tricky but doable I think.) Might have to pick up one of these at some point. Of course, if they are being used for retro archiving, the prices of these things have probably gone through the roof by now. :-P

    • @freakstarrguy
      @freakstarrguy ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I thought that was what this thing was, until I watched the video. I would be more interested in a tape drive for 5-1/4" bay. I'd have no idea where to start in reverse engineering this thing to copy data, but that would be really cool.

    • @nebular-nerd
      @nebular-nerd ปีที่แล้ว +5

      Given it's all serial you should be able to sniff out the serial commands as they are sent over the com port, then just write the control program in your favourite language to spit out and receive the commands and status signals.

    • @MrWolfSnack
      @MrWolfSnack 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I have a bunch of old computer data cassettes I want to be able to read, but not sure how. I have a Texas Instruments data tape deck that is made for data cassettes but without any sort of input I/O not sure how to find out the info on the cassettes.

  • @Vatharian
    @Vatharian ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I really, really wish you one day stumble upon 3.5" CD-RW (yes, you read that right), 8 cm recorder I saw years ago in one of my clients' PCs. He said it came as a bundle (two products bought together, not in the same box) with his CD-RW based video camera, and used normal IDE interface, same as LS-120 internal drives did. I even had written down maker & model, but the scrap of paper is long gone.

  • @Sevidical2
    @Sevidical2 ปีที่แล้ว +21

    I desperately wanted one of these back in the day, they were definitely expensive by kid standards

  • @seanferguson6774
    @seanferguson6774 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    You brought me way back when I saw the icons on your desktop! I played tons of NFS2, Duke Nukem and Carmageddon.

  • @8frostmourne
    @8frostmourne ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Jesus, the 21" CRT in the background. I knew it was big in the video he posted about it, but now that it's in a proper scale with other computers and stuff on the tables....holy dang.

  • @brandonbajc2084
    @brandonbajc2084 ปีที่แล้ว +12

    I remember back in the day in my childhood when microcenter used to have an aisle of all the strange crap you review on oddware. Late 90s and early 2000s were a beautiful time for computers

    • @brandonbajc2084
      @brandonbajc2084 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @Max I wish it was like that still. Such an amazingly inovative time! I was born in 1990, so I was still a child then, and was just happy that the game would run at 20fps so I could play it lol. I remember 64 megabytes of ram costing 250$ around 2001 lol 😆

  • @bacongl
    @bacongl ปีที่แล้ว +41

    Pretty cool. There are still modern day solutions for this but the retro factor is great. Love those old Roland speakers. I always wanted a pair of those back in the day.

    • @curvingfyre6810
      @curvingfyre6810 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      yeah, but can the modern solutions fit in an optical bay? I didn't think so.

    • @bacongl
      @bacongl ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@curvingfyre6810 But do cases even have optical bays anymore.

    • @curvingfyre6810
      @curvingfyre6810 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@bacongl I mean, some have one or two, but you don't have to use brand new cases. I run an antec 900, that things *all* front bays, but still with as much airflow as I could ever want. imo, pc cases peaked in that era, other than the... uh... lets say minimalist cable management options. But theres solutions for that too.

    • @rich_edwards79
      @rich_edwards79 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      I bet those speakers cost a fortune back in the day. Probably still worth a bit now.

  • @AndersEngerJensen
    @AndersEngerJensen ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Neat! 😅 Man, I gotta finish this new album I have in mind… lots of useful computer related songs I’m sure you’d like to use in your videos!

  • @Benzona
    @Benzona ปีที่แล้ว +31

    As a cassette collector I was always curious about these!

    • @blackterminal
      @blackterminal ปีที่แล้ว

      Do you know what causes a tape to play dim on one channel and louder on the other?

    • @jphoneu
      @jphoneu ปีที่แล้ว

      @@blackterminal It may be gunk on the read head of the player (a relatively easy fix, with some isopropyl alcohol and cotton bud to clean). Or it could be misalignment of the heads in the player, which I've heard is a difficult problem to solve as it requires precise adjustment of the read head...

    • @JohnCena-iw2vk
      @JohnCena-iw2vk ปีที่แล้ว

      i have one of these! mine doesnt work for some unknown reason tho.

  • @Explodington
    @Explodington ปีที่แล้ว +7

    I think Oddware is my favorite on this channel. I just love seeing all the goofy and/or innovative stuff that's fallen by the wayside over the years.

  • @ShadowWizard123
    @ShadowWizard123 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    You always find the best oddware

  • @Damien.D
    @Damien.D ปีที่แล้ว +1

    as someone who tries to get and keep original head units in vintage cars, I'd love to had a tape drive capable of recording tapes in my PC.
    Sure, there are cassette-shaped devices that allows to plug a modern MP3 player or phone using a jack or bluetooth in a deck, but having a collection of real home-recorded mix tapes (that magically convert into Best Of Queen) is the real vintage experience.

  • @240pixel
    @240pixel ปีที่แล้ว +46

    That would've been useful back in those days. A lot of cars back then were cassette only. but 150$ was quite a lot back then too

    • @repatch43
      @repatch43 ปีที่แล้ว +6

      I'm not convinced. Why not just plug your walkman (or other tap deck) into your computer a record? Over $200 (with inflation) for this device seems nonsensical TBH

    • @VeyronBD
      @VeyronBD ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@repatch43 Its the older version that appeals to me more, the idea that you could record your music from PC to tape deck that easily, mind you again its not hard to just run an aux to a recorder but maybe its more convient if you do it alot

    • @marcst3199
      @marcst3199 ปีที่แล้ว

      You basically got a radio, the iso to your car pin adapter and some guy that installs it in your car for that

    • @stragulus
      @stragulus ปีที่แล้ว +1

      For probably less than half of that money back in the day you could just get a cheap boombox with a cassette deck and a line-in that was more versatile than this. But this is most certainly way more awesome with the 'digital controls'. I have 2 of these in fact (the old ones, with the record button) just for that reason! I knew about these back then, but it was too gimmicky to actually consider buying for the price.

    • @0311Mushroom
      @0311Mushroom ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@repatch43 you could record on very few portable players.

  • @Cherijo78
    @Cherijo78 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Had a friend with one of these. She used it for ripping old computer software on tape for modern emulators. Worked well.

  • @paulh7736
    @paulh7736 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    I need to see a car themed build with this and the thermaltake lighter cup holder combo

  • @Ice_Karma
    @Ice_Karma ปีที่แล้ว +5

    This is a pretty cool gadget. Just wanted to mention that because it's controlled via RS-232, it should be easy to intercept the data and reverse-engineer the protocol, so you can replace their broken software. SysInternals have a free utility called PortMon that I've used to do just that kind of thing before. 🐱

  • @98.11Deet
    @98.11Deet ปีที่แล้ว +12

    I used to have a big cassette collection and I wanted one of these so badly when I was in high school.

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator ปีที่แล้ว +6

      LOL I went out to cash converters and bought a 3 head Yamaha tape deck (still have it) for like $20 and connected it to line in. I don't see why you'd need to spend 8x that to install a (likely) shitty head built into a small bay.
      This is a gimmick, not a usable product.

    • @Quickened1
      @Quickened1 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@the_kombinator I suppose most people who bought one of these did so for the convenience of being able to control all the processes directly from your computer, as apposed to having to manually do it...

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Quickened1 Yes, and it was such a success that the company made only one product SMH. Also, you press one button (play) on the tape player and let Audacity record everything from the tape, then separate the tracks manually after the tape ends. This is exactly how I did it with Win 98. Paying $160 for the "convenience" of not having to physically press a button is simply retarded and a waste of money.
      The device itself is an interesting topic to cover, but from a technical standpoint it is useless, there's no target market, and the quality of the thing seems low.

  • @Eon46
    @Eon46 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Ahhh, man, your videos are just pure time travel magic!

  • @SmoothEmJay
    @SmoothEmJay ปีที่แล้ว +23

    It's bad that I kinda want a modern version of this. Pretty damn sweet.

    • @scaleop4
      @scaleop4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      same

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Honestly you can accomplish the same thing still, just buy a cassette deck and an RCA to aux cable. Most PC cases don't even have space for drives now anyway

    • @SmoothEmJay
      @SmoothEmJay ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@TheBrandonn I know you can do this. It's easy to hookup a decent Walkman for a similar experience. But I like the idea of it being just there. Obviously my case and pretty much 90% of cases these days can't fit such things and they look ugly. Would've been neat to see a modernised version of it.

    • @MrWolfSnack
      @MrWolfSnack 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

      I have one and put it in my Windows XP gaming rig that I built to look like a LAN party PC from 2006. It's got all the obnoxious neon lights and the alien-like tower case and all the neon colored hardware and motherboards that flash strobe lights. Can play cassettes while smashing in Unreal Tournament or Quake. @@SmoothEmJay

  • @Bugzie666
    @Bugzie666 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    thats the coolest thing ive ever seen. software controlled cassette! WTF? I want one!

  • @thishereanakinguy
    @thishereanakinguy ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Seeing WavePad brought back memories, that was my go-to for easy audio editing back in the day!

    • @WITCYST
      @WITCYST ปีที่แล้ว

      Still use it every day!

  • @macgvrs
    @macgvrs ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I did use a cassette deck and a computer, through a home made a adapter, to digitize my cassettes. I never knew such a thing as this existed. That is actually true of many of the things you show us. If someone were to try to build something like that today, they would have a problem getting quality cassette mechanisms. As far as I know, there is only one company making cassette mechanisms now and they are poor quality. Anyway, it is a neat device.

  • @NotOnLand
    @NotOnLand ปีที่แล้ว +8

    This doesn't even seem like Oddware to me, it's just genuinely useful!

    • @Gatorade69
      @Gatorade69 ปีที่แล้ว

      Just because it's oddware doesn't mean that it isn't useful. Just a bit odd.

  • @That_AMC_Guy
    @That_AMC_Guy ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Man, do I have the perfect pairing for this! I've been hanging onto an item for years since I've never seen another one. It's a PCI-card FM-Tuner for Windows 3.1 but it also works on 95, 98 and 2k. Yes, you too can now listen to the FM radio on your PC with this funky little gadget. I still have the card, and the 3.5" floppy with the program to run it.

    • @channelname1019
      @channelname1019 ปีที่แล้ว

      My old tv tuner card had FM capabilities.

  • @jeremysart
    @jeremysart ปีที่แล้ว +8

    I can’t believe there was even a demand for something like this in 2006! Even I had moved on from cassettes by then with the advent of CDR drives and Limewire. I can’t believe something like this existed a year after I graduated 😂

    • @CouchPotator
      @CouchPotator ปีที่แล้ว +2

      there was a small convert-your-analog-stuff-to-digital fad in the mid 2000's. It appealed to those that weren't interested in piracy

    • @redpyre
      @redpyre ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I remember seeing stuff like this for VHS tapes in my late teens at like best buy. I guess the demand was for being able to archive your media like your home videotapes and recordings so they wouldn't be lost to time with the new century.

    • @charlie_nolan
      @charlie_nolan ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I still use cassettes occasionally lol like regularly

  • @paulbruss
    @paulbruss ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I'm excited to see you get your hands on one of these. A few years ago I rebuilt a PC for a friend and he wanted to recycle this part. Recently I was doing an upgrade and he decided to give this to me!

  • @snakeplissken2148
    @snakeplissken2148 ปีที่แล้ว +14

    back in the days i used to stuff all the gadgets i got into my pc. i also stumbled across this plusdeck, but here in europe they were absurd expensive! i think there was also a tape bay you could store data on! Like a backup tape, but with normal audiotapes.

  • @jamzales
    @jamzales ปีที่แล้ว +7

    I probably would have had bought one of these for my pc back then had I known they existed. Still a good idea if you have an old tape collection that you want to upgrade to a more modern cd/digital format. Nice video.

  • @gregorylee1879
    @gregorylee1879 ปีที่แล้ว

    I've had one of these for yeas now, and its true, under windows 98, it doesn't seem to work as well. I bought mine about 12 years ago, and have had it installed in several vintage boxes, but about three years ago I put it in an old Dell Dimension desktop, with windows XP. Somewhere along the line I found some updated drivers for it, not even sure I still have them! Upon installing them, I found it works perfectly! I've had a continuing project, off and on now for several years converting some 500 cassettes from my late Father, and it has just kept doing what I needed for it to do! Nice to see that you found this, and did a great review!

  • @Varmint260
    @Varmint260 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    Your oddware episodes have the neatest stuff! Now you just need to play some Bachman-Turner Overdrive in the BTO Plusdeck!

  • @jimfixespixels
    @jimfixespixels ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I had this or a similar thing. had a tape deck in my car for a pretty simple reason: It was in the age of loud stereos and the subwoofers in the back of the car would make a cd player skip mercilessly when turned up, tapes however were fine. The headunit had a cd changer attached as well, but i had to burn them bass tests to tape.

  • @the_leathermushroom
    @the_leathermushroom ปีที่แล้ว +15

    I've had my eye out for one of these for a long ass time! You just don't see them! Would be a lovely addition to the 98 rig so I can listen to my Prodigy tapes while playing Unreal. ❤

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว

      Holmey, just grab a Sony walkman. They're cheap enough

    • @the_leathermushroom
      @the_leathermushroom ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@TheBrandonn you are kinda missing the point.

  • @majorhemroid
    @majorhemroid ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Glad you said what BTO stood for.
    Almost thought Bachman Turner Overdrive got into the PC peripheral business for a second.

  • @Nukle0n
    @Nukle0n ปีที่แล้ว +4

    18:46 That's a 4-track head, it's a neater way to do auto-reverse instead of having a rotating tape head. It does make it harder to do recording but since that isn't a feature here, it's the more reliable option.

  • @Edward135i
    @Edward135i ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Honestly this is the kind of stuff that I live for on this channel

  • @KingBat
    @KingBat ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Converting my cassettes to CD sounds like something I’d actually do.

  • @penfold7800
    @penfold7800 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    That thing would be really useful for archiving and replicating old 1980's Home Computer games. Wow!!

  • @purringc5552
    @purringc5552 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    That cassette mechanism looks very close to the one in my 2002 Toyota Solara. Yeah, don't try to take it apart. Very complicated and easy to break.

    • @tsm688
      @tsm688 ปีที่แล้ว

      I'm sure that's where these things came from. "We got this giant crate of useless car parts, do something with it"

  • @sonyericssoner
    @sonyericssoner ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I was unable to make mine work many years ago, but i will revisit it thanks to your video. You have given me new information about it. I am planing to build a XP retro Audio PC.

  • @SJRC
    @SJRC ปีที่แล้ว +11

    Thats an intresting looking audio coverter! i never seen such thing!
    i wonder if an 5.25'' PC record player also exist haha!
    and do wanna note. you got an good music taste! epic to see that ELO secret messages & pink floyd momentary lapse of reason in the collecting!

    • @SebisRandomTech
      @SebisRandomTech ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Nice to see someone else interested in trains on a tech video! I like it when my other interests cross paths.

    • @ScottsRailroadVideos
      @ScottsRailroadVideos ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@SebisRandomTech Intro retro tech - Music and even trains yep!

  • @BronzedTube
    @BronzedTube ปีที่แล้ว +2

    years prior when cd roms were new and very expensive and napster was just getting popular, I hooked up a woodgrain cassette recorded from a component stereo to our family pc. I would make mixtapes from the mp3s I downloaded (on dial up). What a time.

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว

      I was doing both at the same time lol. Burned CDs with winmx and mixtapes using cassette + radio

  • @vjcodec
    @vjcodec ปีที่แล้ว +11

    Now that the new place is coming together! Every new LGR ep. Is a new revealing on how amazing Clint is making it! ❤

  • @MGlBlaze
    @MGlBlaze ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I love all these weird peripherals and expansion devices that get featured in Oddware. It never ocurred to me that there might be a casette tape drive made for PCs but I guess it makes sense from a certain point of view; there were cd and minidisk drives, so why not a tape drive. Early PC CD drives had a dedicated sound output you'd hook up to the sound card; and the VERY early home computers even used casettes as cheap data storage to start with.
    Still a pretty silly option in the windows 95/98 era, but I love that it existed.

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว +1

      From reading other comments, this appears to have released in 2003. So that actually would be 2000/Me/xp days.

  • @bobblum5973
    @bobblum5973 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    It would be interesting to log the serial port communications, see what data and commands are being sent to/from the PlusDeck unit.

    • @grimninja2004
      @grimninja2004 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      and then either
      a) make custom software that actually works in modern windows
      b) make custom modern hardware that works with original software

    • @bobblum5973
      @bobblum5973 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@grimninja2004 Exactly!

  • @angryshoebox
    @angryshoebox ปีที่แล้ว

    Never saw such a thing before. You've got to love the beige box/iMac-influenced mashup front panel design.

  • @Francois_L_7933
    @Francois_L_7933 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I'm starting to winder how many bays you'd need to put all those oddities you collect into the same case?
    Just imagine the greatness 😅

  • @cjpwolf2436
    @cjpwolf2436 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Say yes to cassette!!!!!

  • @codygranrud6212
    @codygranrud6212 ปีที่แล้ว

    I do not remember seeing these around... wild. Great video as usual!

  • @callawolf531
    @callawolf531 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I need to take a second to say how awesome it is that you not only own Nevermind on cassette, but also Incesticide, Bleach, Remanufacture, and The Real thing as well. Good choices

  • @theandroids6796
    @theandroids6796 ปีที่แล้ว

    As a youth, I wanted one of these so badly! I have no clue what I could use one for now, but I still want one. Thanks for the oddware Clint.

  • @9852323
    @9852323 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    I still love cassettes. I wish they’d make a full-fledged come back like records did. Be nice if we could get some high-quality blanks these days and some recorders and prerecorded tapes with Dolby.

    • @pbyguy7059
      @pbyguy7059 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Records never really went away enough to have a comeback. They’ve always been consistently popular with collectors and stereo nerds

  • @yousefslimani99
    @yousefslimani99 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Nothing goes wrong, I'm glad everything works fine for you on this video!!

  • @marccaselle8108
    @marccaselle8108 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Great Video Clint! Such a oddball piece of hardware for sure. If I had that back in the day, I would have used it on the computer I had then

  • @PCUSER486
    @PCUSER486 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Awesome 👍 thx for sharing! I remember these.

  • @1kreature
    @1kreature ปีที่แล้ว +3

    For automating reading C64 tapes this would be ideal!
    A simple python script to send serial commands and read audio from soundcard is all you'd need.
    Someone may have already written something...

  • @c-v-n3322
    @c-v-n3322 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I love this device I picked one up in 2012 pretty cheap it is great that I could play my tapes again and make a lot of my collecting into mp3's.
    I used it with win 7 with no issues at all.

  • @PacoOtaktay
    @PacoOtaktay ปีที่แล้ว +11

    I would love to see a serial capture wedge between the PC serial port and the Plusdeck 2 to see what the serial commands are that are sent to it.
    I could see some interesting python or other custom capture software written for it. :D

    • @TheRailroad99
      @TheRailroad99 ปีที่แล้ว

      Even more so with the recording version. You could write some code to completely automate the recording precess (including efficient use of both tape sides, automatic and very precise equalisation (as the software could use test tones to calibrate to the cassette). Basically that would make the tape almost like an analog flash drive for music transfer.

  • @PlayitagainVHS
    @PlayitagainVHS ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Interesting but I never bought one.I remember seeing them for sale years ago.Wow, a blast from the past ! Thanks for sharing this video with us.Cassettes are still my favorite format.👍🙂 I love ❤️ cassettes.

  • @foobar-9k
    @foobar-9k ปีที่แล้ว +3

    At 3:30 nice... I still have Nevermind and Incesticide on cassette too! (Bleach, I could only get in CD back then here in Argentina, and had to as the only friend I had with a CD player to transfer it to a cassette for me 🙂)

  • @ufkrec
    @ufkrec ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Around late 90s I had a HP DAT unit the box was just like a CD/DVD unit it was great for recording wav audio in high quality for music production

  • @alexanderthomas2660
    @alexanderthomas2660 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    That looks like a pretty decent quality cassette mechanism, unlike what you'd find in present-day machines that all rely on the same cheap basic design full of plastic parts. I refer to Techmoan for the relevant videos of course :)

    • @CCMPreservation
      @CCMPreservation ปีที่แล้ว

      The same cheap Tanashin or cloned mechs.

    • @robcohen7678
      @robcohen7678 ปีที่แล้ว

      too bad the software was so crappy

  • @cheezst8ke
    @cheezst8ke ปีที่แล้ว

    the perfect device to put in your PC back then to back up or convert cassette tapes to digital and store them on the computer. Perfect for someone who has a computer and a tape collection they want to preserve.

  • @emilyquinn5047
    @emilyquinn5047 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    This might actually be really useful for archivists who are converting old media for the new age.

    • @a_guyontheinternet
      @a_guyontheinternet ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Actually not so much, seeing as it records through line in anyway, it would be better to get a higher quality tape deck and use it instead. This can't handle anything other than type 1 tapes, no DNR, and if you get one that played too fast you can't fix it.

    • @TheBrandonn
      @TheBrandonn ปีที่แล้ว

      Well if they're converting it to the new age, they might want to grab a PC that isn't 20 years old. Which means no drive bays. Which means, just get a deck + RCA to aux cord and use your PCs line in/audacity.

  • @Dosgamert
    @Dosgamert ปีที่แล้ว

    I enjoyed looking at this oddware with you. Thanks for taking us on the trip Clint!

  • @retropuffer2986
    @retropuffer2986 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    I wonder if there's any monster sized case tall enough to hold every singe drive option Clint has obtained? 🤔😛

    • @mockier
      @mockier ปีที่แล้ว +3

      One of those cd duplication cases would have enough bays.

    • @DiscussToUnderstand
      @DiscussToUnderstand ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Finding a mobo and PSU for them would be the bigger challenge.

  • @lineriderman7
    @lineriderman7 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Glad to see Incesticide getting some love. Clint, you would probably love the "Grunge Lite" muzak album from 1993 if you haven't heard it before. It's grunge hits redone in a muzak/midi style. I have the whole album on my channel if you're interested.

  • @blakebechtel5192
    @blakebechtel5192 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    The mechanism looked very similar to the mechanism that I have in a chrysler car radio. It even has identical ribbon cables.

  • @beatrute2677
    @beatrute2677 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    that tape collection you got there is pretty damn slick fella.

  • @j0hnf_uk
    @j0hnf_uk ปีที่แล้ว +20

    I would have found this very useful, back in the day. I had loads of cassette tapes I could have digitised, if the idea had occurred to me at the time. Alas, it didn't, due in large to not knowing about it until now. Unfortunately, it's about 23 years too late to do anything about it! Although, that price tag would have put me off. Also, there's a far cheaper way I could have done the same thing, if I'd wanted to.

    • @volvo09
      @volvo09 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      You can simply hook any tape deck up to the line in and digitize tapes. As a plus you can even record tapes if you want to make mixes, and you can select the proper noise reduction.
      While this is very neat, it's sort of a gimmick simply because it's an extremely basic tape player.

    • @microbuilder
      @microbuilder ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@volvo09 Thats what I'm doing right now, have about 20 old tapes my dad and his band recorded back in the day, using my old Technics dual deck player straight into the PC using Audacity. Its not a quick process, but better than waiting for the tapes to degrade

    • @mysticmind4563
      @mysticmind4563 ปีที่แล้ว

      My brother would've found this useful back in the day. He does have hardware that is similar if not better than this, but the fact that this existed years ago is still amazing. In fact I think 3:21 is the model that he uses when editing old audio tape recordings and storing them in his PC.

  • @shaunhall6834
    @shaunhall6834 ปีที่แล้ว

    Watching your videos makes me want to build a retro PC.

  • @dreamingflurry2729
    @dreamingflurry2729 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    Silly? Something that is usefull ain't silly!
    Seriously, had I known that this existed back then, I'd have gotten one! Hell, I was playing around with hooking up a TV and VCR to a PC!
    ps: But I am a grandpa anyway when it comes to computers, because to me a computer is defective if it has no optical drives (many people think they are obsolete, but frankly I am not a streaming kind of guy, so I own some of my favourite shows on DVD or Blue-Ray, so I need a drive - as I don't have a large TV, blue-ray-player and sound-system! Do I want that? sure, but frankly it's expensive...as is my gaming PC, so why not use that while I save up? ;)

    • @concentratedcringe
      @concentratedcringe ปีที่แล้ว

      Even as a whippersnapper, I'm with you there. Streaming and other digital options are great and all, but I like owning a physical copy of my media. I even convinced a mate of mine to get a Blu-Ray optical drive for the custom PC he's buying, since I think (and he agreed) that the extra functionality is generally a good thing to have.

  • @TerminallyNerdy
    @TerminallyNerdy ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Man the music in this episode is kinda great

  • @MegafOfficial
    @MegafOfficial ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Hi there! Please do send this to @Techmoan! I'm quite curious about the mechanism. Besides, he has the equipment to measure the deck's quality!

  • @EricTechstuffs
    @EricTechstuffs ปีที่แล้ว +2

    This has to be one of the best 5.25 bay accessory so far .

  • @GaryVaporwave
    @GaryVaporwave ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Likely, that sound issue is the processor not keeping up with the recording buffering. Needs a faster processor. I had similar issues back when I was in a band in the 90s/00s and I was working with a lot of audio files. The software probably isn't great, but note that a barebones recording software used outside the program works fine, because there isn't the overhead of it managing the hardware simultaneously. Hope that helps!

  • @noahhickerson9969
    @noahhickerson9969 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Bro your video quality has improved like crazy since I was last on your channel! Always a pleasure coming back here and seeing how much you've grown. Stay awesome!

    • @LGR
      @LGR  ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I appreciate that!

  • @reoproedros
    @reoproedros 9 หลายเดือนก่อน +3

    looks like a car cassette player

  • @MarvelDcImage
    @MarvelDcImage 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    My elderly dad liked listening to his music and recording it off radio so I bought a cassette recorder boombox with aux input and used that for the PC speakers and dad would record stuff off the PC radio stream via the boombox.

  • @bloepje
    @bloepje ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Too bad you can't record to it, would have been nice to see how much data you can record.
    I think my cassette tape backup system did at least 60MB per tape. Newer generations did up to 600MB/s. Of course they were not exchangeable.
    But doing full analog audio on an audio tape would make for some interesting DSP coding.

  • @ted356
    @ted356 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Love the things you come up with to review!

  • @willm5032
    @willm5032 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    Given the massive cost/wait times smaller labels are waiting for records to be pressed, its actually becoming more common to see new tape releases, these drives are actually pretty damn useful.
    Its still probably easier to buy an old hifi with tape decks for now though

    • @otaking3582
      @otaking3582 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      I'm pretty sure it's easier to find the stuff to make your own vinyl records, especially since you can just 3D print a record that can be used to make a mold from.

    • @toxicavenger6172
      @toxicavenger6172 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@otaking3582 what exactly do you mean by 3D a record? I've never heard of this before.

    • @Middcore
      @Middcore ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@toxicavenger6172 I presume he means 3d print

    • @Razorbun
      @Razorbun ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@otaking3582 You can't 3D print a record?
      You'd need to get a record cutter to make your own one but they're super expensive.

    • @toxicavenger6172
      @toxicavenger6172 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      @@Middcore that's what I was thinking but I haven't seen a 3d printer that's able to print at that level of detail that it would make a working copy of a vinyl record.