# Tech that didn't make it



## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Anyone ever had this stuff? Quadraphonic Sound Systems, Sony Betamax, Laserdiscs, DAT (Digital Audio Tape). I had a room mate at university who had a Quadraphonic System, a brother-in-law who had Betamax, someone from work who had DAT and I remember seeing laserdiscs in stores.


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

delete


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## Alsomooh (Jul 12, 2020)

Synching DAT machines! What a pain in the ass.


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## fretzel (Aug 8, 2014)

I have a Harmon Kardon dual CD burner. They were 1k when they hit the shops. I hit mine for $500 as they didn't exactly catch on. I think I had seen them blow them out for less. 

Had a DVD-R as well. 

Both of these were home audio/video equipment not PC periphery.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

We had a Betamax with a ~ hundred tapes that I threw out because I couldn't find anyone that wanted them. 
Also have a an old reel to reel with a box full of big band stuff from my wife's uncle.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Tech changes so fast these days that the boundary between stuff that "didn't make it" and stuff that was simply eclipsed by newer tech is a very fuzzy one. I have a thing for tech that's not in vogue anymore, the same way some folks have a thing for ugly pets or animals that are challenged (e.g., 3-legged dogs).

So, in the basement is a veritable museum of computers, including several Sinclair units (ZX81, Spectrum), an Acorn Atom, Coco 2 and 3, Mac Classic and Performa 575, various 386 and 486 computers, floppy drives from 5-1/4" 90k single-sided to 3-1/2" 1.44M double-sided and hard drives from5-1/4" units with a few hundred meg up to palm-sized units with gigs and gigs, as well as RAM sticks from a few hundred KB up to more recent DDR2 and 3 sticks. The dot matrix printers, however, have found their new home at recycling depots. 

On the non-computer side are several 8-track machines to play all the 8-tracks I own, and a few turntables to feed the stereo amps that actually _have_ phono preamps in them (  ). There's a couple of Heathkit guitar amps and a Heathkit stereo amp. There's also a DBX 100 "Boombox" subharmonic synthesizer that was intended to provide subwoofer-like bass content before most folks had even heard of subwoofer. It was actually a fancy octave divider, like the MXR Bluebox, but with a LOT more filtering.

I do have a few Betamax tapes, which will need to be transferred some day. And there's a stack of VHS tapes as well.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

I used mini disk recorders for interviews and field recording when they first came out (I didn't own the recorders, I just had access to them). A lot of people thought they'd be the next thing, but they didn't last long.


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

Does anyone remember those things that came before laser disks that were like a huge cartridge? A friend on mines Dad had a massive library of those, and they are probably the shortest lived media type I can think of.

Edit: I think it's these Capacitance Electronic Disc - Wikipedia


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

torndownunit said:


> Does anyone remember those things that came before laser disks that were like a huge cartridge? A friend on mines Dad had a massive library of those, and they are probably the shortest lived media type I can think of.


RCA Selectavision?


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## torndownunit (May 14, 2006)

butterknucket said:


> RCA Selectavision?


I just edited my post and added a link.


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## Alsomooh (Jul 12, 2020)

Almost bought an Elcaset deck once. I already used regular cassette and reel to reel decks so I kind of hesitated until a portable deck appeared...which thankfully didn’t.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

torndownunit said:


> I just edited my post and added a link.


That's what I was referring to.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Robert1950 said:


> Anyone ever had this stuff? Quadraphonic Sound Systems, Sony Betamax, Laserdiscs, DAT (Digital Audio Tape). I had a room mate at university who had a Quadraphonic System, a brother-in-law who had Betamax, someone from work who had DAT and I remember seeing laserdiscs in stores.


Yes to all. And 8 track and 4 track and a wire recorder and a bunch of other stuff. The younger brother had a camera that recorded on Betamax tapes. It would only record, not play back. The wire recorder was a 50's dictation device, kind different.


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## BlueRocker (Jan 5, 2020)

I bought an Apple Newton when they first came out. Do I win?


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

IBEA 3 Jet Carbs


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

BlueRocker said:


> I bought an Apple Newton when they first came out. Do I win?


I buy Fig Newton's that have been out a lot longer than the apple ones so nope, you don't win. They're passable but that's about it.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Had one of these.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Wardo said:


> IBEA 3 Jet Carbs
> 
> View attachment 333806


I've seen those on bikes. Great for the track but suck on the street. Better just to leave them on go carts.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

My dad had a palm pilot in the early 2000's.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

butterknucket said:


> My dad had a palm pilot in the early 2000's.


Palm Pilots and pagers morphed into cell phones.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

allthumbs56 said:


> Palm Pilots and pagers morphed into cell phones.


Yes they did.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

allthumbs56 said:


> Palm Pilots and pagers morphed into cell phones.


Nothing wrong with pagers except they were usually on 24/7. Had one from around 1975 to about 1998.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

butterknucket said:


> My dad had a palm pilot in the early 2000's.


I was trying to think of the name for those. The wife has a drawer full of them somewhere. The Blackberry killed them instantly. I keep thinking PDA? PD something......

We have a drawer full of Blackberry's too. I could open a museum. Another failed tech.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Lincoln said:


> I was trying to think of the name for those. The wife has a drawer full of them somewhere. The Blackberry killed them instantly. I keep thinking PDA? PD something......
> 
> We have a drawer full of Blackberry's too. I could open a museum. Another failed tech.


Yeah, I think my dad still has a few palm pilots in a drawer. He had several work Blackberries as well until he retired.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

I wanted to buy an ambient internet device for my mother.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


> Yeah, I think my dad still has a few palm pilots in a drawer. He had several work Blackberries as well until he retired.


My son still uses Blackberry. The one he has now is 7 years old. Me I have an iphone 3, 4 and 5....among other phones....that a lot say is 'old tech'. They work for me.


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## Kerry Brown (Mar 31, 2014)

I had one of the first Palm Treo phones. It was way ahead of its time. I went from it to an Android phone which was way less usable.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> Had one of these.
> View attachment 333810


I have a smaller one in the basement.

I also have my old Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter and my wife has an even older Remington.

When I was teaching CEGEP in the late '90s, the head of the computer science program had an Apple Newton. The stylus-to-text recognition/conversion was based largely on the direction of stylus strokes for particular letters, rather than the shape finally achieved. I wonder how well it worked for the different types of left-handed writers.

I don't have a quad system per se, but I do have a quadraphonic copy of Steely Dan's Pretzel Logic album. I have a "home theatre" amp that has a bucket brigade chip for providing a little bit of delay to the "rear" channels. 

I also have a couple of Omnisonic Imager devices; one built for car use and the other made for home stereo use, as well as a homebrew one I built from a Popular Electronics project. These were popular among audiophiles in the early '80s (anyone remember the Carver "Sonic Hologram"?), and eventually spawned Q-Sound that people would lease for recording albums in the studio, and eventually the Hughes Sound Retrieval System (SRS) found on earlier generations of Windows MediaPlayer. Radio Shack also included a similar circuit in one of their deluxe graphic equalizers. It was probably the first psychoacoustic effect/device geared towards home listening and amateurs.

The principle was interesting. Traditional stereo positioning uses relative loudness for a given instrument on the left and right channels. In the real world, though, sound sources that are off-axis (i.e., not directly in front of you) result in "sound shadows". What comes from a source on your left arrives at your right ear a little later, and is lightly filtered and damped down as it reflects off nearby surfaces to reach your right ear; the corresponding changes to sound also happen to content coming from your right.

"Imaging" devices would derive "difference" signals by subtracting the left from the right, and the right from the left, to more or less isolate what was unique to each channel. That derived unique content would then be crossfed and mixed in to the opposite channel with a few milliseconds delay and a little bit of lowpass filtering. The net effect was that individual instruments seemed to have an actual location in space that you felt you could point to. You wouldn't necessarily notice it when it was turned on, but if it was turned off after a few minutes, the experience was one of "Where did the stereo go to?".

One of the nice things was that you could feed your vinyl albums through it to a cassette deck and the effect was preserved to tape, such that playing those cassettes in the car didn't sound nearly as claustrophobic; your car could sound huge. There were a few caveats, though. First, most surface noise on vinyl, whether static or physical damage is unique to one side. So when the circuit took what was unique to each side and crossfed it to the other channel, you got an almost doubling of the volume of that surface noise. The vinyl had to be pristine. Second, the obviousness of the effect depended on the quality of the original mix. But when it worked, aye caramba! Quincy Jones's mix on the first few Michael Jackson albums was stellar, In particular, all the background percussion came alive. You felt like you could close your eyes and imagine each musician and instrument. The other thing I found was that it tended to decrease listener fatigue. Because it relieved the listener of much of the computational burden of identifying the spatial location of things, one could listen with ease on even substandard systems for longer periods. And trust me, mine WAS substandard.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

I have an old Brother typewriter in the other room. I'm going to call it an off grid echo friendly word processor.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

Olivetti 240.
I had one of these bought used for $50 and it got me through undergrad. Basic word pro/typewriter used 3.5 disks.


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## iamthehub (Sep 21, 2016)

Electraglide said:


> Nothing wrong with pagers except they were usually on 24/7. Had one from around 1975 to about 1998.


My best friend in university worked at a paging service in the early 90s. 

For those who don't know what this is...
You'd call a number and the operator takes your message and types it into the pager system and it goes to the persons pager in a text message. 

He told me most of the pager messages were probably for escort services or call girls because the message would be like "4393 Lakeshore Rd, Unit 434. 11pm. "


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

I still have lots of old VHS tapes and not only do I have some DAT tapes, I also have a Sony DAT recorder/player deck.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

What is the definition of "didnt make it" for reference? The whole idea behind tech is that anything not current is more or less obsolete/far less desirable, no? 

Basically everything is destined not to make it.

Though niche fan clubs will carry the torch for old tech, and that's fine with me. _Looks at his records_


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

iamthehub said:


> My best friend in university worked at a paging service in the early 90s.
> 
> For those who don't know what this is...
> You'd call a number and the operator takes your message and types it into the pager system and it goes to the persons pager in a text message.
> ...


Didn't know you were from the North Okanagan. About half of mine were either from security services because an alarm went off or when I was flagging from the company I worked for or the RCMP. The other half of the calls, well smoke mostly. In the 70's and early '80's it was really basic. A number from 1 to 40 and a phone number which was usually a pay phone


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## JBFairthorne (Oct 11, 2014)

Prior to text pagers, there were audio pagers. My step dad had one. Someone would call the pager number and leave a message line call home and it would come through as a radio message.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Budda said:


> What is the definition of "didnt make it" for reference? The whole idea behind tech is that anything not current is more or less obsolete/far less desirable, no?
> 
> Basically everything is destined not to make it.
> 
> Though niche fan clubs will carry the torch for old tech, and that's fine with me. _Looks at his records_


I would think something that was supposed to be the big thing, but was short lived. Items like iPhones get updated, but the product concept stays on the market for many years.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

My "computer" for working from home and at client sites in the 80's:










I still have the leather bag and use it for my smaller pedalboard.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

Had 2 things....Minidisk, amazed me how fast they disappeared...flash memory technology just came on too strong and Sony couldnt get enough artists on to the format. I think I still have a Mariah Carey MD somewhere lol.

Had an HP version of a palm pilot as well that I got from work at the time (HP). Only thing I used it for was datalogging my old Dodge Stealth Twin Turbo to assess mods/performance. Included it when I sold the car. It had promise but was so primitive...you could buy a GPS add on for about $100. in order to have that functionality in your car....then you had to buy/borrow map software, but it was back when Garmins were expensive.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

Budda said:


> What is the definition of "didnt make it" for reference? The whole idea behind tech is that anything not current is more or less obsolete/far less desirable, no?
> 
> Basically everything is destined not to make it.
> 
> Though niche fan clubs will carry the torch for old tech, and that's fine with me. _Looks at his records_


i think it likely pertains to not achieving mainstream success.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

I had a minidisc player in high school for about a year. Not sure where it ended up. Didnt want to jump on the ipod trend lol.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Diablo said:


> Minidisk, amazed me how fast they disappeared...flash memory technology just came on too strong and Sony couldnt get enough artists on to the format.


Yeah, when I was in broadcasting a lot of people were amazed when mini disk came out because the recorders were much smaller and lighter than portable DAT recorders, and the sound quality was very good. Unfortunately, mini disk was barely a blip on the radar.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

I didn't even know you could buy albums on mini disk. I thought they were just for commercial use.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

butterknucket said:


> I didn't even know you could buy albums on mini disk. I thought they were just for commercial use.


ya, i think it was just artists in Sonys catalog though...Sony didnt learn much from Betamax in terms of sharing technology to grow it.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Diablo said:


> ya, i think it was just artists in Sonys catalog though...Sony didnt learn much from Betamax in terms of sharing technology to grow it.
> View attachment 333874


It was at a time when physical media was dying as well.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Budda said:


> What is the definition of "didnt make it" for reference? The whole idea behind tech is that anything not current is more or less obsolete/far less desirable, no?
> 
> Basically everything is destined not to make it.
> 
> Though niche fan clubs will carry the torch for old tech, and that's fine with me. _Looks at his records_


By some definitions here, tubes "didn't make it". For the whole world, with the exception of about 0.01%, tubes are now irrelevant. Meanwhile, in guitar forums .........


Betamax is an interesting one. Sony thought people would buy it for the slight increase in performance over VHS so they didn't market it to many other companies. Meanwhile, VHS was being sold cheaper, had more builders competing with each other, and getting a huge base of users. The porn industry saw that and the rest, as they say, was history.

But the funny thing about Betamax, it was also the basis for BetaCam, a pro format that lasted well into the 90s, going digital in '93 and carrying for a while after that. The same basic tape and drive mechanism, but much different recording format on the tape (chroma and luma separated and chroma recorded using CTDM, if you care). BetaCam was _the_ standard for ENG and small format broadcast production for decades. Panasonic, about 100X larger than Sony, tried to unseat it a few times with a VHS version but it never caught on.

So what looks unsuccessful in the consumer market might actually have some life somewhere else. BetaCam was never a volume leader, but at $50k / camera (in 1985 dollars) Sony did OK with it. 

They also screwed up the Elcaset thing, Philips microcassettes wiped it out. But they learned when they and Philips, I think it was, marketed the CD format and licensed it to every builder that wanted it.


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

I have a Betacam SP (last most advanced version of the beta formet used by TV news etc until going digital) VTR (no camera) that I keep because it's actually a really good quality portable 4 track audio recorder with nice mic preamps.

I still have my old DAT machine. Wish I had sold it while you could still get $100 for them.

Still have a few cassette decks.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Tied in with another thread there's this....about the 3 minute mark. On long trips to Vancouver we would have killed for one in the Buick.....you can only sing 99 bottles and 3 Little Fishies so many times. 




It was better than the Highway Hifi because it played 45's that were available anywhere.


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

in the early '90s people hooked up a kick ass high fidelity sound system to a 26" TV and now people hook up their 7' super very ultra high definition TV to a weenie little set of basic stereo speakers and stream compressed netflix audio through it

i picked up an old turntable, amp, and speakers for my son at a thrift store the other day. the amp is set up for quadraphonic sound. his question was, "why would you want that?" 

j


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

Robert1950 said:


> Anyone ever had this stuff? Quadraphonic Sound Systems, Sony Betamax, Laserdiscs, DAT (Digital Audio Tape). I had a room mate at university who had a Quadraphonic System, a brother-in-law who had Betamax, someone from work who had DAT and I remember seeing laserdiscs in stores.


Well, technically Quad got reborn as Surround Sound, the Betamax was the TV news standard for cameras for quite a while, DAT similarly had a lot of use in pro audio.

I was a MiniDisc fan for years, but unfortunately Sony crippled it with copy protect bits. Ultimately, most of what it could do is easier done on a phone, tablet or laptop these days.


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> i picked up an old turntable, amp, and speakers for my son at a thrift store the other day. the amp is set up for quadraphonic sound. his question was, "why would you want that?"


Just throw on some classic rock, crank it, and watch his eyes get wide!


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

Merlin said:


> throw on some classic rock


his eyes will get wide all right just as his gag reflex kicks in 
interesting what he wanted the turntable for is to listen to john coltrane and his grandpa's johnny cash collection
j


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## Tarbender (Apr 7, 2006)

Saw this on another thread:


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Merlin said:


> Just throw on some classic rock, crank it, and watch his eyes get wide!





Sketchy Jeff said:


> his eyes will get wide all right just as his gag reflex kicks in
> interesting what he wanted the turntable for is to listen to john coltrane and his grandpa's johnny cash collection
> j


Nothing wrong with Coltrane and Cash or the Surfaris.....Wipeout.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Granny Gremlin said:


> I have a Betacam SP (last most advanced version of the beta formet used by TV news etc until going digital) VTR (no camera) that I keep because it's actually a really good quality portable 4 track audio recorder with nice mic preamps.
> 
> I still have my old DAT machine. Wish I had sold it while you could still get $100 for them.
> 
> Still have a few cassette decks.


How many channels is your dat?


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

I have 7 SACDs, and I happen to have 2 Sony Blu-Ray players that will play them.

It is not exactly a dead format, there are still releases and there are a small group of people who buy them.

I also have a PONO. It will play the DSD music from the SACDs if you can figure out how to get the data off the disc.

Some of the troubles with the PONO are:

It's not your phone so you have to want to go and listen to music. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I don't use it as much as I would.

The hi-resolution files are more expensive. There is no reason for that. One day people will stop listening to MP3s, I hope. I see above a grumble about Netflix sound so there is hope.

The battery will die eventually and the company no longer exists so fixing it could prove to be fatal.


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## Merlin (Feb 23, 2009)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> his eyes will get wide all right just as his gag reflex kicks in
> interesting what he wanted the turntable for is to listen to john coltrane and his grandpa's johnny cash collection
> j


OK the combo of Trane & Cash gets big thumbs up from me!


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## R.S.Fraser Sr. (Aug 15, 2009)

I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet...Philips’ Digital Compact Cassette was short lived. 
The machines could play analog or the “new”. DCC.
It used PASC,
Precision Adaptive Sub-band Coding 
About 4 years was all it survived.
We didn’t see many on this continent.
I still have one cassette.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Let's not forget...

Do not bend, fold or mutilate.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

cocaine coloured computer cards ♫♪♪


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

There were a lot of formats that were the standard for commercial use that never caught on in the consumer market.


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## R.S.Fraser Sr. (Aug 15, 2009)

butterknucket said:


> There were a lot of formats that were the standard for commercial use that never caught on in the consumer market.


Yes, case in point is the Mini-Disc.
CBC Radio journalists used them for a number of years.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

KapnKrunch said:


> Let's not forget...
> 
> Do not bend, fold or mutilate.
> 
> View attachment 333915


I still have the proper punch for that.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

R.S.Fraser Sr. said:


> Yes, case in point is the Mini-Disc.
> CBC Radio journalists used them for a number of years.


See my broadcasting post lol.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> in the early '90s people hooked up a kick ass high fidelity sound system to a 26" TV and now people hook up their 7' super very ultra high definition TV to a weenie little set of basic stereo speakers and stream compressed netflix audio through it


Yea, we used to watch a 'little' TV with lots of big sound. Now I know so many people with 60"+ listening through a badly set up soundbar. There are so many great bookshelf speakers, why would people suffer through that? WAF is a disease much worse than GAS, trust me.



> i picked up an old turntable, amp, and speakers for my son at a thrift store the other day. the amp is set up for quadraphonic sound. his question was, "why would you want that?"
> 
> j


I recall a trip to the coast in the mid 70s in my uncle's Mark IV. It had this new Ford quadraphonic 8-track. I think they got a couple of those special proprietary quad tapes with the car (good luck buying many of those). Jeeez, seemed like such a good idea, considering how people sit in cars, that each occupant would get his or her own speaker - more like 4 mono tracks than one musical event. Never caught on, for pretty good reason.


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

player99 said:


> How many channels is your dat?


Was there such a thing as a more than 2 channel DAT (ADAT, which is 8 channel, uses a much bigger cassette; like a VHS tape)? Later in the Tascam DA series they also did 8 channel units, but they used Hi-8 tapes (like for old camcorders) - similar looking to DAT cassettes but thicker. Confusing because Tascam's DAT decks also used the DA prefix for the model names but they were totally different animals. I did some sessions with a DA-98HR (after they went 24 bit), and it was a fantastic sounding machine.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Myspace


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

AOL.com

At one time, they were valued high enough to buy out a real corporation with real assets, Time Warner. It's about as crazy as trading houses for tulips, but there ya go.









HISTORY'S Moment in Media: AOL Time Warner Merger


The AOL Time Warner merger in Jan. 2000 was supposed to create the media model of the future. Instead, it became the worst merger in history.




www.mediavillage.com


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

High/Deaf said:


> AOL.com
> 
> At one time, they were valued high enough to buy out a real corporation with real assets, Time Warner. It's about as crazy as trading houses for tulips, but there ya go.
> 
> ...


They were pretty much the only name in the game early on.

Reminds me of Tandy (Radio Shack) and the first PCs - they dominated the business market for a while


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

I actually used one of those AOL cd's once. I was moving and cancelled my internet. I needed something for a month or so, so I used it. It worked.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

A million years ago, late '70s, I worked building maintenance in county properties, one of which was leased to the province for tax assessment. One night shift there were tables set up outside the keypunch lab, stacked high with dozens of stacks of punch cards in some such itemized order. It seems one of the folding table legs wasn't locked in place and I bumped it with a vacuum cleaner. The floor became a sea of cards and I never fessed up.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Mooh said:


> A million years ago, late '70s, I worked building maintenance in county properties, one of which was leased to the province for tax assessment. One night shift there were tables set up outside the keypunch lab, stacked high with dozens of stacks of punch cards in some such itemized order. It seems one of the folding table legs wasn't locked in place and I bumped it with a vacuum cleaner. The floor became a sea of cards and I never fessed up.


You probably steered the country off course with that one act.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

butterknucket said:


> You probably steered the country off course with that one act.


Haha. Just pissed off some coffee swilling chain smoking civil servant office drones who were forced to work extra shifts. 

Remember the old Pitney-Bowes postage meters? (Maybe Hewlett-Packard...?) I once caught the power cord for one in a floor polisher and sent it swinging across the room. I think it caught my ankle on the way by. The thing was practically an antique even then and wasn't light.


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

Janitors - the real power in government  Whodathunkit?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

High/Deaf said:


> AOL.com
> 
> At one time, they were valued high enough to buy out a real corporation with real assets, Time Warner. It's about as crazy as trading houses for tulips, but there ya go.
> 
> ...


At one time tulip bulbs were worth more than houses and in recent history Bill Vander Z. made good money with tulips, among other things. Possibly still does.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


> You probably steered the country off course with that one act.


Or some ones EI claim was $1.35 more.


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## Waldo97 (Jul 4, 2020)

Back in the early 90s I programmed hypercard stacks for the Toronto board of ed. The stack used a plug-in to control Laserdiscs and show, in colour, the location that you were looking at on the b&w hypercard stack. It was cutting-edge at the time. They worked very well but the tech died within a couple of years. For awhile I moved to Supercard, which could display colour on the new 255-colour macs. Gone, all gone.

The irony is that I was paid as a supply teacher, which meant I contributed to the teachers' pension plan. This year I turned 65 and they are sending me $17k in pension owed. Nice!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> At one time tulip bulbs were worth more than houses and in recent history Bill Vander Z. made good money with tulips, among other things. Possibly still does.


Tulips? They're faaaaan-TAS-tic!


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## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

I still have a Palm Pilot or two and a keyboard to go along with it hiding some place


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Granny Gremlin said:


> Was there such a thing as a more than 2 channel DAT (ADAT, which is 8 channel, uses a much bigger cassette; like a VHS tape)? Later in the Tascam DA series they also did 8 channel units, but they used Hi-8 tapes (like for old camcorders) - similar looking to DAT cassettes but thicker. Confusing because Tascam's DAT decks also used the DA prefix for the model names but they were totally different animals. I did some sessions with a DA-98HR (after they went 24 bit), and it was a fantastic sounding machine.


No I looked it up, ADAT=8, DAT=2.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Tulips? They're faaaaan-TAS-tic!


Just gotta keep that headband on.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Mechanical tv's


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## Permanent Waves (Jun 2, 2020)

For me, 3.5" floppies will never die. I just found out that up until this year, Boeing 747's still used them to boot their flight systems. I stash the old 720 Double Density disks for my 1990 Roland MC-50 sequencer (none of those new-fangled 1.44 High Density for me, thank you). Not only does it store all the sequences for our live shows, I even use them to store backup MIDI dumps of my guitar effects processor and keyboard programming in case the on-board batteries die right before a show. 

The disk drive once coughed up a huge dust bunny and died a few weeks before a show, so it was easier to order a refurbished replacement drive for $45 rather than re-program all the sequences on a different sequencer. Of course, a week later I found another used MC50 for $49. I did eventually upgrade to the compatible MC80 introduced in 2000, and that came with a mind-boggling 100MB Iomega Zip Drive - wonders never cease. I still use the MC50 live though - it is very reliable as long as you keep dust bunnies out of it.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Mooh said:


> Haha. Just pissed off some coffee swilling chain smoking civil servant office drones who were forced to work extra shifts.
> 
> Remember the old Pitney-Bowes postage meters? (Maybe Hewlett-Packard...?) I once caught the power cord for one in a floor polisher and sent it swinging across the room. I think it caught my ankle on the way by. The thing was practically an antique even then and wasn't light.


Yes, I remember those.


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

High/Deaf said:


> quadraphonic 8-track


in a '70s Lincoln Mk IV

ha ha ha so many anachronisms so little time i'm sure there's some plaid polyester pants and a sport coat in that mix somewhere too

guitar related i would add the Gibson robot tuning system


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> in a '70s Lincoln Mk IV
> 
> ha ha ha so many anachronisms so little time i'm sure there's some plaid polyester pants and a sport coat in that mix somewhere too
> 
> guitar related i would add the Gibson robot tuning system


The thing I remember most about that trip wasn't the lackluster (and badly planned) sound system, it was hearing about Elvis dying while we were in the BC mountains. I returned to school in Sept, to a class full of females lamenting the great loss of their favorite singer. Funny, not one of them mentioned his name in the previous year or two of school, but suddenly they were all big fans.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

High/Deaf said:


> The thing I remember most about that trip wasn't the lackluster (and badly planned) sound system, it was hearing about Elvis dying while we were in the BC mountains. I returned to school in Sept, to a class full of females lamenting the great loss of their favorite singer. Funny, not one of them mentioned his name in the previous year or two of school, but suddenly they were all big fans.


Everyone seems to be a fan of an artist/performer after they die.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

The Fender Cyber amps


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## Sketchy Jeff (Jan 12, 2019)

1977 
i was in kindergarten that year
my mom cried when elvis died it stuck out in my mind because i'd never seen her cry before
my dad looked a lot like 50's elvis and in his farm pickup to this day the only thing in that cd player is an elvis gospel collection that just plays and plays and plays he never gets tired of it i don't think he even knows where the pause button is
i did order him the new William Prince album Gospel First Nation which hasn't come yet. he'll give it a spin but i'll be surprised as anybody if it boots elvis from the truck
j


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Sketchy Jeff said:


> 1977
> i was in kindergarten that year
> my mom cried when elvis died it stuck out in my mind because i'd never seen her cry before
> my dad looked a lot like 50's elvis and in his farm pickup to this day the only thing in that cd player is an elvis gospel collection that just plays and plays and plays he never gets tired of it i don't think he even knows where the pause button is
> ...


My second ex and I were just starting to work on having a kid when elvis died. Paper calender's and charts on the fridge, a book of thermometer readings and times next to the bed, the full nine yards. Now a days all that and more would be on a small flash drive and bluetoothed to everyones phone. The '76 Dodge van we had had both a radio with a built in cassette player and an 8 track player in the back. Shag carpet all over the place with an icebox and a propane stove. My older brother's elvis collection increased in value. 


High/Deaf said:


> The thing I remember most about that trip wasn't the lackluster (and badly planned) sound system, it was hearing about Elvis dying while we were in the BC mountains. I returned to school in Sept, to a class full of females lamenting the great loss of their favorite singer. Funny, not one of them mentioned his name in the previous year or two of school, but suddenly they were all big fans.


A lot of the girls I went to school with had elvis in a heart on their books and binders. If you wanted to go to a drive in and have to watch most of the show take a girl to an elvis movie. Even after I left school it was the same thing.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Electraglide said:


> A lot of the girls I went to school with had elvis in a heart on their books and binders. If you wanted to go to a drive in and have to watch most of the show take a girl to an elvis movie. Even after I left school it was the same thing.


Sure, but I'm guessing that was mid 60s? By the mid 70s, Elvis was well past his best-before date. Perhaps not in Vegas, but definitely in high school.


Does anyone remember this little piece of high tech?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

High/Deaf said:


> Sure, but I'm guessing that was mid 60s? By the mid 70s, Elvis was well past his best-before date. Perhaps not in Vegas, but definitely in high school.
> 
> 
> Does anyone remember this little piece of high tech?
> ...


Yup, a cassette to 8 track adapter. Most worked ok for a while but then gummed up and got loose in the 8 track because of the vibration. The ones I had were very good at eating tapes to the point where the tape broke. They were also good at getting in the way. I probably have one or two somewhere. Another thing was one of these








so you could plug your Discman into your car stereo. Now there's one of these for your cell phone.








Depending on how old you were in '77 the people who still listened to elvis might have been you and your class mates parents, older brothers and sisters and your teachers etc.. Elvis's best before date? To some like me that would have been about 1962 or so. Not an elvis fan or a beattles fan either.


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## Hammerhands (Dec 19, 2016)

High/Deaf said:


> The thing I remember most about that trip wasn't the lackluster (and badly planned) sound system, it was hearing about Elvis dying while we were in the BC mountains. I returned to school in Sept, to a class full of females lamenting the great loss of their favorite singer. Funny, not one of them mentioned his name in the previous year or two of school, but suddenly they were all big fans.


My mom & my sister were both crying. My sister had a ‘68 Comeback Tour era poster on her wall, she freaked out.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

butterknucket said:


> Myspace


Tom still emails me.


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## GuitarT (Nov 23, 2010)

High/Deaf said:


> The thing I remember most about that trip wasn't the lackluster (and badly planned) sound system, it was hearing about Elvis dying while we were in the BC mountains. I returned to school in Sept, to a class full of females lamenting the great loss of their favorite singer. Funny, not one of them mentioned his name in the previous year or two of school, but suddenly they were all big fans.


 August 1977, I was a 14 year old kid and was staying with my sister for a couple weeks. Two things I remember about that trip, hearing about Elvis' death and seeing the original Star Wars movie in the theater. Actually there was a third. Seeing my sister play her acoustic guitar that she picked up and learned to play while away at college in the States. A year later she moved back home for a few months and I picked up that same guitar and taught myself some chords. Life hasn't been the same since.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Diablo said:


> Tom still emails me.
> View attachment 334145


I forgot about that guy. 

I know myspace is still around, but I don't know who uses it.


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## Lincoln (Jun 2, 2008)

ICQ? MIRC?


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

My grandparents had one of these. I loved changing the channels on it.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

When an 8-track got snarled the thing to do was throw the cassette out the window while hanging on to the tape. I worked on highway construction in the early seventies, and *every inch of roadside* was strewn with 8-track tape.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Remember the Epilady? Did any women actually like these things?


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## allthumbs56 (Jul 24, 2006)

butterknucket said:


> My grandparents had one of these. I loved changing the channels on it.


As did my parents - as well as the box beside it with the dial to turn the rotor antenna.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


> Remember the Epilady? Did any women actually like these things?


Like? Probably not. Use? They're still making them in various forms so I'd say yes.








Seems like they even come rechargeable now.


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## boyscout (Feb 14, 2009)

BlueRocker said:


> I bought an Apple Newton when they first came out. Do I win?


Me too. Coulda just flushed the money down the toilet. To this day there isn't anything available that can translate my scrawling. Nothing wrong with me, I can read it just fine


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

allthumbs56 said:


> As did my parents - as well as the box beside it with the dial to turn the rotor antenna.


And hooked up to a unit like this








AM/FM radio, turntable, TV from the 60's. The first wife and I had one that her folks gave us. Didn't have cable until we moved into the apt. just before we split up but the rabbit ears fit right in the middle of the top. Every time the wife dusted they had to be adjusted again.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

KapnKrunch said:


> When an 8-track got snarled the thing to do was throw the cassette out the window while hanging on to the tape. I worked on highway construction in the early seventies, and *every inch of roadside* was strewn with 8-track tape.


Or when you got tired of listening to your wife/girlfriend play the same tape over and over and over again. Having one of these didn't help in that situation.








The dog bless Radio Shack.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> And hooked up to a unit like this
> View attachment 334184
> 
> AM/FM radio, turntable, TV from the 60's. The first wife and I had one that her folks gave us. Didn't have cable until we moved into the apt. just before we split up but the rabbit ears fit right in the middle of the top. Every time the wife dusted they had to be adjusted again.


There's just something so cool about those.
At one point I had a cabinet made form something like that--no TV or stereo, but a storage cabinet.
I don't remember what happened to it.
I know I had it at one place, but I am not sure if I had it at the next place I lived.
I might have sold it or given it away.


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## Diablo (Dec 20, 2007)

butterknucket said:


> Remember the Epilady? Did any women actually like these things?


Had a girlfriend who tried one. It was apparently brutally painful. Just a device that would rip the hairs out.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Diablo said:


> Had a girlfriend who tried one. It was apparently brutally painful. Just a device that would rip the hairs out.


Yeah, that coil just snags the hairs.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

zontar said:


> There's just something so cool about those.
> At one point I had a cabinet made form something like that--no TV or stereo, but a storage cabinet.
> I don't remember what happened to it.
> I know I had it at one place, but I am not sure if I had it at the next place I lived.
> I might have sold it or given it away.


They were cool until you had to move one. When I split with my ex I let her take it.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Electraglide said:


> And hooked up to a unit like this
> View attachment 334184
> 
> AM/FM radio, turntable, TV from the 60's. The first wife and I had one that her folks gave us. Didn't have cable until we moved into the apt. just before we split up but the rabbit ears fit right in the middle of the top. Every time the wife dusted they had to be adjusted again.


There was a kid I knew when I was young who's family had one that also recorded records.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

You mean one that recorded what was on the record to reel to reel, 8 track or cassette or one with a built in record player/cutter sort of like this.









With a cutter would be something to have, with or without a tv. Not too sure where you'd get the discs nowadays. My older brother has grandma's cylinder record player with some home recordings of grandpa playing piano that were recorded on it.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Anyone still remember how to use one of these,








or these?








I think slide rules are still being used but the calculators ended up as a carnival give away. I got mine at the PNE back in the early 60's. We were taught how to use a slide rule in grade 8 or 9 so I used the older brother's for a short time then it went into a box.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Yup, still have a slide rule, it was a standard requirement for high school math.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Mooh said:


> Yup, still have a slide rule, it was a standard requirement for high school math.


I think I used mine for when they were showing us how to use them and then went back to using pencil and paper. I was on the academic program and didn't figure I needed one. The answers were in the back of the book. English major.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Electraglide said:


> They were cool until you had to move one. When I split with my ex I let her take it.


That's probably why I haven't had it for years.
I remember it at one place--and I know I didn't have it before I moved there, I can't say for sure I had it at the next place.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

Probably a good idea that I guess just didn't work? 

Or maybe it was the name? Nahhhh, that couldn't be it.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Remember pump toothpaste?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

I've heard about these. Not too sure what songs or sounds they play, maybe you can record your own. 








Musical Condoms


A Ukrainian scientist, Hryhory Chausovsky, has developed a range of musical condoms. A mini loudspeaker & motion sensor planted in the condom’s upper cuff provide a range of musical tones durin…




madhatters.me.uk




and hope, with these, your partner has a good sense of humour.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)

Electraglide said:


> your partner has a good sense of humour


are one of the songs the 'jaws' theme?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

laristotle said:


> are one of the songs the 'jaws' theme?


Not sure, maybe this




Depends on how much time you have.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Did we get through this entire thread without mentioning these?


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


> Did we get through this entire thread without mentioning these?


Will that be cash or chargex? I've seen those used in stores still when the internet or power is down and the last hotel I stayed in a couple of years ago used one when you first signed in.


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

Blow-through turbochargers, car-telephones, distance calculator navigation systems, rack-mounted guitar effects.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)




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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

Mooh said:


> Yup, still have a slide rule, it was a standard requirement for high school math.





Electraglide said:


> I think I used mine for when they were showing us how to use them and then went back to using pencil and paper. I was on the academic program and didn't figure I needed one. The answers were in the back of the book. English major.


Now I'm a math teacher, and have never used one.


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## Wardo (Feb 5, 2010)

laristotle said:


> View attachment 338238


Those worked fine if you put a silver dollar on top of the cartridge.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

[QUOTE


Wardo said:


> Those worked fine if you put a silver dollar on top of the cartridge.


'till you hit a big pothole and the three records on top crashed down on the tone arm or you ran low on money for beer and smokes and the silver dollar dissappeared.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)

Electraglide said:


> Will that be cash or chargex? I've seen those used in stores still when the internet or power is down and the last hotel I stayed in a couple of years ago used one when you first signed in.


I think most people working in places now wouldn't have a clue what it is.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Saw something like this in the "House of the future" at the Seattle Worlds Fair.


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

butterknucket said:


> I think most people working in places now wouldn't have a clue what it is.


There still a lot around who know what it is and how to use them. Probably anyone over 25. At the coustomer service desk at the wally world near me there's at least 2. They still make them and sell them and it sounds like Visa slowly phasing them out but they're still out there and being used.


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## oldjoat (Apr 4, 2019)

jet turbine powered cars
tire within a tire ( run till you get to a service station with a flat )
dodge left handed lug nuts
chrysler "lean burn" ignitions
stratified cylinder charging ( 2 carbs in 1 and 3 valves per cylinder )
quadraphonic sound systems


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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

oldjoat said:


> jet turbine powered cars
> tire within a tire ( run till you get to a service station with a flat )
> dodge left handed lug nuts
> chrysler "lean burn" ignitions
> ...


There were quite a few different vehicles with LH and RH lug nuts. A lot of semi's had L and R stamped on the lug studs. Probably still quite a few driving around like that.


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## butterknucket (Feb 5, 2006)




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## Electraglide (Jan 24, 2010)

Not tech exactly and not too sure if this is still out there or where it went.


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## laristotle (Aug 29, 2019)




----------

