Retro Thing

The vinyl killer

I feel somewhat guilty including this little record mangler in the Hi-fi Audio section. The Vinyl Killer is a little plastic VW bus with an ominously cheap record needle poking out below. Place it on an innocent record and it drives around and around in scratchy lo-fi circles, cheerfully destroying your best friend's precious LP collection. Prices start at 7,800 Yen.

"It's not the record that spins. The world's smallest self running record player doesn't need turntables but churns out music by driving round the record with a needle that is underneath the car. If you have this, you can enjoy music whenever and wherever you are. 33RPM Only. Built in motor, amplifier ad speaker. Requires 9V alkali [sic] battery."

New: Razy Works Mini Clubman record player

The first Daimler Benz Chryslercedes

Let's take a leisurely spin back to the year 1886. You can kiss your newfangled electronics goodbye, along with most of the mechanical doo-dads you love so much. Thankfully, it was the year that Karl Friedrich Benz patented "an auto car with gasoline engine" (1886 also saw the introduction of Coca-Cola, which takes care of another addiction of mine). Back then, you see, carriages were usually of the horse drawn variety; much more practical in a world without fuel stations.

LA Times auto critic Dan Neil was lucky enough to take a replica of the original Motorwagen for a jaunt on the streets of Pasadena. They must have been some incredibly quite streets, because this puppy tops out at a mere 18 mph (29 kph):

"...it's cool because this is the real deal, the echt automobile, the genuine article (excepting the fact what I'm driving is actually a factory-built replica of the vehicle that's in the Deutsches Museum in Munich). And from this over-tall seat you can feel all the familiar tinglings, the infatuating sensations of the automobile, pared to their essences. Why did the automobile succeed? And why is it still succeeding, in places like China and India, where citizens are mortgaging their meager lives to get a car? Here truth is revealed: The pleasure of cars isn't about high-end audio systems and heated seats. It's about mechanically multiplied self-determination. Free will with leverage. It sure beats walking."

Before the Rumble Seat (via Boing Boing)

Vintage video game piracy: the Vidco Copy Cart

The gaming industry likes to paint piracy as a terrifyingly modern problem, but the truth is that "backup" systems have been around for decades. The Vidco Copy Cart for the Atari 2600 is a wonderful example of state of the art copy technology, circa 1983.

Atari Age reports: "It was sold in a bundle with the cartridge duplicator and the game Dishaster. Basically, the copier was a double-ended apparatus in which you would insert the copy cart in one end and the source cart in the other. Press a button, and the code is copied to the copy cart. The cartridge could be erased and reused. This item is very difficult to find." They rate the device as "unbelievably rare."

Vidco Copy Cart Atari 2600 duplicator (via an old ad on pocketcalculatorshow.com)

Why the Smart car's arrival in the USA is a good thing

A few weeks ago we told everyone to expect the US release of DaimlerChrysler's diminutive Smart 2-seat city car "any day now." It looks like the day has come and company chairman Dieter Zetsche will make the announcement tomorrow in Detroit. [Update: the car was released in early 2008. Roger Penske's United Auto Group will incubate 30 to 50 dealerships in metro areas.]

You'll probably soon see a barrage of press about how the Smart is too small or faces too much competition from other manufacturers to be a success, but there are a number of good things that will come from its release...

Commodore invades suburbia (Part I)

Someone recently pointed out that we've (almost) completely neglected the famed Commodore VIC-20 and 64 computers. Let's fix that.

The Commodore VIC-20 was the first computer to sell over a million units. It arrived in early 1981 with a very reasonable $299 price tag and displayed sixteen glorious colors of graphics on your home TV. The display was slightly odd -- the screen resolution was about the same as a modern mobile phone (176 x 184 pixels) which translated into 22 very large and blocky characters per line. The machine also had extremely limited memory -- a mere 5K RAM -- which made it difficult to write complex programs in BASIC without running out of space (believe me, I tried).

The limited display and memory didn't matter much because the machine was based around Commodore's quite capable Video Interface Chip and included cartridge and joystick ports. This made it a competent and inexpensive gaming machine, and parents could always justify the purchase by believing that Junior was going to learn to program and invent some sort of hyperlinked Interfloozle that would revolutionize the 21st century.

Most VIC-20s came with a cassette drive for storing programs (a disk drive wasn't available until 1982). Ultimately, more than 2.5 million units were sold and the retail price eventually dropped below $100. The VIC-20 was blown out of the water in late 1982 by its extremely capable younger brother, the Commodore 64, which went on to sell an astounding 20 million units. But that's a story for another day.

The Commodore VIC-20 (commodore.ca)

The latest Sinclair gadget

The gang over at Treehugger ran a story about the world's "smallest and lightest bicycle" today. They were so enthused by the A-Bike's foldability and ubercompactness that they neglected to mention the inventor -- none other than Sir Clive Sinclair (of Sinclair radio, computer, calculator, watch, television and puny electric car fame).

Sinclair products are binary: they either ignite the public imagination and sell million of units or invite the scorn of the global press before turning into monstrously expensive flops. We'll have to wait and see whether this product (jointly developed by Hong Kong based Daka Designs) catches on. My personal appraisal? It looks too goofy to become cool. But I said that about the Toyota Prius as well.

Here are some stats for your bemusement:

weight: 12 lbs (5.5 kg)
time to unfold: a mere ten seconds. Or ninety seconds if you're in a hurry.
tires:  really, really small pneumatic ones.
size when folded:  0.3 cubic meters (1.1 cubic feet)
price: three hundredish dollars
release date: Julyish

World's Smallest and Lightest Folding Bicycle

Theremin: Ghostly electronic music with a modern twist

Here's another great piece from Duncan Waldron...

Jimmy Page, Michael Faraday, Gene Roddenberry - what's the link? Jimmy has played one, Michael gave his name to the electrical property at work, and Gene had one play the theme for Star Trek. OK, enough - it's the Theremin - the first electronic instrument.

Devised in Russia by Léon Theremin (Lev Sergeyevich Termen) around the time of the Bolshevik revolution, it made a big impression upon Lenin, who had 600 made for the good Soviet people, and even sent Theremin around the world with it, to showcase the amazing Russian technology. Contrary to Lenin's enthusiasm for the wondrous new instrument, it is said that after the 2nd World War, the Soviets "discouraged" Theremin from working on electronic music, opining that "electricity should be reserved for the execution of traitors."
 
The Theremin itself looks like a strange sort of writing desk, with a couple of aerials sticking out of it. In use, it looks even more bizarre, as the musician stands very still in front of it, and moves only his/her arms around the aerials.

Recording on classic reel-to-reel 4-track

[Ed note: one of the hallmarks of truly classic technology is that it remains useful for decades. Here's Phil Clark to tell you about some of his vintage recording gear...]

The TEAC A-3340 4-track tape deck. You probably know it already. State of the art in 1972, this was the first machine to bring multitrack (4 tracks! count 'em!!) recording out of the realms of the expensive professional studio and into the hands of the working musician. Whole albums were recorded on these things. You could bounce tracks down, and punch in and out .. sheesh, Brian Eno had one!!!

They weren't cheap though - a couple of grand in their day - and they're still quite sought-after now. I've been offered hard cash for mine! But I aint selling.

Very large, very heavy, and very analog.

Mine is running right here next to me - I did a "live to tape" session on it with my band just this last Sunday. Sounds great! And check out those giant VU meters and the chunky retro styling. How could you not love it? I especially like the entirely manual, and unneccessarily complex, switch that moves the deck from "play" into "fast" gear. This was phased out on a later model, which had an early logic control circuit and (ooh!) a remote control. But for purists... Retro Technology at its best!!

Phil Clark is "bass player and curmudgeon" with the Gene Drayton Unit

Stylophone - Odd & Cheap Synthesizer

The Stylophone is one of the earliest consumer electronic instruments.  The palm-sized unit features a row of metal pads instead of a keyboard.  To play, you touch a pad with the metal-tipped stylus (hence the name), and you hear a friendly little buzz from the little speaker.  Friendly little monophonic buzz, of course.

The Stylophone is a little thin on features.  Besides the two volume settings of... er... "on" and "off", the pictured model also features a "vibrato" switch.  Other effects were suggested by the helpful leaflet of directions, including such nuances as cupping your hand over the internal speaker to change the sound.

That's pretty much it, but it was enough to get serious artists like David Bowie and Kraftwerk to use it in several famous compositions of the 1970's.  The little beeps may seem unimpressive, but once you slide the stylus into a nice beepy glissando, you'll see what all the fuss is about.  The simplicity of the instrument didn't stop Dubreq from launching an impressive assortment of add-ons such as music books & records, an amplifier, and even different case finishes for various tunings of the instrument.  There was even a professional two stylus model made that's still available today.

The Stylophone didn't make much of a mark here in the states (though it was popular enough for a Chicago company to bootleg the one seen above), but Brits of many ages become instantly nostalgic at its reedy buzz.  Millions were sold since their introduction in the late 60's, and every friend I have in the UK seems to have had one.  The one pictured above was even played with by Doctor Who's Colin Baker who remembered his brother breaking theirs.

I was lucky enough to find my Chicago built Stylophone at a thrift store for $3, but they are also easy to find on Ebay for around $30.  The pro model is much rarer, and can still be obtained for a fair hunk of coin from Stylophone.com.

The official site still selling Stylophones

Very nice history of the Stylophone

WordPefect: Wonderfully arcane word processing

It's easy to forget that most PC users didn't touch a mouse (of the computer variety, anyway) throughout most of the 1980s. That meant users often had to learn an arcane array of perplexing keyboard "shortcuts" for even the simplest tasks. The most unnecessarily complicated programs were word processors. They turned a simple task like banging out a letter into a delightful half hour sequence of completely illogical key sequences. And, for some reason, the most complicated and confusing program of all eventually became the most popular. Heck, I consider WordPerfect even harder to master than WordStar.

Carrera drives slot car racing into the 21st century

I have a soft spot for electromechanical toys (especially German ones), which is why I'm sitting here daydreaming about a Carrera slot car set instead of doing real work. The German company has marketed a wickedly cool selection of speedy scale model slot cars for over 40 years.

Old-school analog sets were limited to a single car per electrified track (although many thousands of us tried running more than one at a time, just to see what would happen). The latest digitally controlled sets allow up to 4 cars to race at one time on a single track. Specially designed passing sections allow you to make daring last-moment dashes around your opponents.

But wait! There's more. My old early 1980s set was often a tangle of wires. The boffins at Carrera have this problem licked as well thanks to some nifty infrared wireless controllers. Each can be switched to one of four frequencies and has a minimum range of 3 m (almost 10 ft). To keep you honest, an infrared lap counter displays lap times with 1/100 second accuracy. If they'd had gadgets like this when I was a kid, I'd still be living in my parent's house.

The Carrera product lineup
Our classic post about Scalextric slot cars

Coleco Gemini - First Atari 2600 Clone

The Atari 2600 video game system was an unqualified success, a fact that didn't go unnoticed by competitors.  Newer systems like Intellivision and Colecovision had improved graphics, but neither had the massive Atari game library - was there a way to get a taste of that business?  Enter Gemini - the first ever game clone, and the birth of a controversial twin.

Coleco had been successful in manufacturing an Atari 2600 adapter for their ColecoVision system.  Atari brought a $500 million lawsuit, but since the 2600 was designed entirely using off-the-shelf parts, courts determined that anyone could make a 2600 clone.  Coleco wasted no time in creating an Atari clone they cleverly named "Gemini".

The Gemini was much more compact than the large woodgrain console that Atari was selling at the time, and retailed for much less.  Its controllers were a unique combination of both joystick and paddle (though you'd still need real Atari paddles for a nice four player battle of Warlords).  Soon other firms were copying the 2600, adding to the video game market collapse in the early 80's.  The Gemini was later relabeled and sold through Columbia House Records, producing some of the crappiest - and rarest games for the system.

Thanks to Atari Age, for the photo.

Tech specs

Even more clone-type drama

Plusdeck2c PC cassette deck

Allow me to start this post by disappointing you. This little puppy can't be used to load vintage microcomputer programs into your PC, nor does it record. It does allow you to listen to your "classic" (cough... cough...) collection of Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and Human League mix tapes, though.

The $79 Plusdeck2c doesn't sport high-end specs (I don't see mention of Dolby noise reduction anywhere in the product description), but it could be an OK (if slightly hissy) way to transfer your tape treasures into mp3 format... unless you live in a police state that doesn't allow consumers to steal music in such an irresponsible and economically detrimental manner, in which case you'll just have to stick with your aging Sony Walkman or buy the same horrible songs over and over again on CD, DVD-Audio, mp3 or various and sundry holographic media of the future.

Plusdeck2c PC cassette deck

Build your own high-def video projector

I love projected movies, especially real film. It's just not realistic to expect modern movies on film so I've been forced to consider video projection. Commercial HD-quality video projectors can easily run $2000 and replacement bulbs usually cost a few hundred bucks.

Being a cheapskate, I decided to investigate the wonderful world of do-it-yourself video projection. It turns out that you can build a quite respectable unit for only a few hundred bucks. The trick is to base your projector on a scavenged 15-inch (or larger) LCD panel.

Basically, the rest of the device consists of a powerful 400W light source, a couple of fresnel lenses, a sheet of safety glass, a lens and a quiet cooling fan or two. One great bonus is that the HID lamp can be replaced for less than $50 -- far less than you'll lay out for a commercial projection lamp.

Of course, the downsides of building a unit yourself are that the quality won't be quite as good as a $2000 system and it won't look as sexy, although you can achieve startlingly respectable results for under $500. You'll need a few woodworking and electrical chops to pull off this project, but the results will pleasantly surprise you!

Lumenlab DIY Home Theater projectors

Polaroid I-Zone Camera

Always kind of sad to think of something from 1999 as "retro," but when you consider how digital photos have quickly steamrolled every other kind of amateur photography, Mr. Land's instamatic Polaroid film does seem retro indeed.

My father had an early Polaroid camera - it was like having the drug store built right into it. There was a bit of song and dance associated with getting the film out of the camera (pull the picture out, peel off a mysterious black layer, wait a minute, peel something else off, watch the picture slowly develop, apply the stick surfaced carboard backing to prevent the Polaroid from curling, etc. etc.). The process eventually became very simple, but instant pictures lost none of their magic.

Through the years, Polaroid introduced lots of models to inspire folks to use their products for casual photography. Putting aside that Polaroid photos are often a bit blurry, only advanced models had decent lenses, and that the cameras coudln't fit in a pocket or purse, the main problem was that the pictures were pretty expensive.

I-Zone was a line of inexpensive cameras targeted at kids, that dispensed 1" square photos that were also stickers. The cameras came in fashion colors, including transparent (yikes!  a transparent camera!), the one above even had with a color-changing thermal paint job (as evidenced by my thumb print above the lens).

There were a ton of accessories like mini picture frames, a little photo booth, even a mini handheld  digital scanner specifically for uploading the tiny I-zone pictures. Polaroid even created an expansive website for sharing pictures and chatting.  I was a member and even met other who were intrigued by the artistic possibilities afforded by the little photos, but then we were all kicked off for being too old.

Even with this cool hipster product (still too big to fit in a pocket, the film still a little too expensive), Polaroid has fallen on tough times. The newest I-zone cameras are conventional digital cameras, but if they ever come out with one that fits in your pockets and prints photos cheaply then they might have something.

Polaroid i-Zone cameras, digital film scanners and film