Voice Mail - 1967 Style
Added 2017-09-19 15:51:53 +0000 UTCFollowing that rubbish Bacon Express video...here's something I hope should be of more interest, a bit of forgotten retro-tech from 1967.
This video is also a segue between two other videos. The first one being the Playtape and the second...well all things being well, you'll get to see what that is in a week or two. However in the meantime please enjoy this look at one company's vision of a future that never came to pass.
Comments
I liked the observation in the video, and here again, about no-rewind. I can see a niche market but when compact cassette was right on its heals makes you wonder. // no paragraphs allowed on patreon lol. // the specific military to civilian correspondence example shown in the advert is interesting. I wonder if they were sold in military bases.
www.TapeArchives.com
2017-09-21 20:44:24 +0000 UTCA music Playtape is recorded on two parallel tracks each taking up half the width of the tape. The Mail Pack records one track that takes up the whole width of the tape. So a playtape played in a Mail Call will play the two parallel tracks simultaneously - you hear two recordings playing at the same time. As far as whether it was a success or not, I’m just basing this on other things I’ve read and the fact that despite having access to a lot of historical documentation online, the only references I could find to the system were an advert in a single 1967 issue of Billboard Magazine and one advert in Life magazine. I’d expect to see more evidence of continued marketing beyond one advert if the product had been accepted in any way. From all the comments in the video not one person so far recalls seeing one of these devices in use at any point. This also wasn’t a business to business product, it was marketed at the public. As a business tool, it would have been pretty useless as a dictation device where rewind was an essential feature...to enable quick re-recording of segments and review of audio for transcription purposes.
Techmoan
2017-09-21 17:19:34 +0000 UTCGreat to keep seeing new/old technologies! / I guess I need to rewatch - would the play tape fit in and play okay on these and vice-versa? / Also, it's claimed these were a failure but is there evidence beyond not seeing them more in popular media that they "failed"? Could they have been a financial success still for Smith Corona? That company also made many dedicated word processors with CRTs competing with micros in the eighties and just like this product competeting with compact cassette it can be argued those products had fewer features. But often older consumers want single-purpose devices to execute one function well. Those word processors sold well for Smith-Corona. They could be also mistaken as "failures" today but I suspect were financial successes for the company. So I wonder if this product also could have been a success. How can the failure tag be objectively determined?
www.TapeArchives.com
2017-09-21 17:02:19 +0000 UTC
