LGR Oddware - Plusdeck 2c
Added 2022-10-26 04:54:51 +0000 UTCFresh Oddware! This time it's the BTO Plusdeck, a cassette player that fits into a 5.25" drive bay. It's controlled through the serial port and Windows 98 and it's... actually kind of awesome, ha.
I've been intending to cover this thing for years now and for whatever reason, now was finally the time. I've seen Plusdecks in action on multiple other channels over the years, so I guess it kinda got set aside for a while as a result. Then I ran across it again while unboxing some stuff the other week and had to finally test it out for myself. The experience of playing and recording my cassettes through an old PC did not disappoint! Simple but effective.
Comments
I think what you are saying, and correct me if I am wrong, this tape deck is basic. :)
SuperTekBoy
2022-11-29 05:00:57 +0000 UTCI listened to a lot of Styper for a while myself. They were certainly an anomaly. Haha.
Steve Skafte
2022-10-29 06:07:31 +0000 UTCI didn't find it worth showing since it functions the same as the "auto track skip" function on other cassette decks. So how well it works depends less on the hardware and more on the the specific tape being played and the amount of silent gaps between tracks.
LGR
2022-10-27 21:29:05 +0000 UTCaww, I wanted to see how well that autosync would separate tracks
SupaPhly
2022-10-27 16:42:56 +0000 UTCI certainly think it's pretty cool. I would greatly enjoy seeing if I could get this to work with a modern Linux, just because. :)
CubicleNate
2022-10-27 13:26:12 +0000 UTCWhat I kinda figured. I'm vaguely fascinated, because it seems like this shared experience of a lot of people I know now, but even though I grew up in some similar environments, I was not into CCM at all. I was listening to Soundgarden. Still listening to Soundgarden, in fact. Just also Josh Garrels and stuff like that.
John Covil
2022-10-27 11:15:36 +0000 UTCHaha, ahh I’m not sure I’d recommend exactly but they were a childhood staple, at least in the environment I grew up. Total 80s hair metal/glam rock/Christian silliness.
LGR
2022-10-27 03:01:14 +0000 UTCYeah it got pretty exotic after a while, with wild compression and increasingly weird formats. Here’s one of my favorite oddities: https://youtu.be/_h-u20eMwlw
LGR
2022-10-27 02:58:02 +0000 UTCBlowing my mind that this is functionally an rs232 controllable cassette deck. If you have a deck with a serial port somewhere in your stash of Oddities, would definitely be worth it to hook it up and see if the control software works. I'm guessing that for 2005, they didn't bother to write their own control protocol and just borrowed from another manufacturer such as Tascam...
John Salt
2022-10-27 02:57:27 +0000 UTCI don't think I've ever actually heard Stryper. I should make a point of it, sometime. If I had to guess, I assume they're somewhere between klove schlocky and the artsy-fartsy types I like.
John Covil
2022-10-27 01:02:05 +0000 UTCOh dang! I was only aware of a cassette port on the first PC, I had no idea it went anywhere beyond that for x86 stuff. I'll have to watch your videos on it 😁
Tyler Compton
2022-10-26 22:48:42 +0000 UTCThere were dozens of tape data storage options for the PC! I've even covered some on LGR in the past :) If you specifically mean compact audio cassette storage, then yep, they had that too. All the way back on the first IBM PC in 1981! Not many programs on tape were released for it but it was indeed a thing from the factory. Cassette storage was far more common on other 8-bit systems though.
LGR
2022-10-26 21:55:51 +0000 UTCThis is already really cool but IMAGINE if they tried to create a tape data storage platform for PCs. It would probably have been useless by the 2000s but a guy can dream!
Tyler Compton
2022-10-26 18:54:36 +0000 UTCThe IC at 16:00, this looks like some 8051 from the pinout, the oscilator is at 18 and 19 and i bet if you beep it out that GND is 20 and VCC at 40. Not that it matters much, but geeking out is fun. :D
BastetFurry
2022-10-26 18:42:46 +0000 UTCIt looks like an old car radio/tape player; I love it. Maybe you could connect it to a modem and control it remotely. 🤪
Laurent
2022-10-26 17:17:43 +0000 UTCSo excited to watch this! We had this exact unit (it's probably still around somewhere) - my mom was a K-5 music teacher and every year for the school Christmas program she would inevitably want some kind of music editing done (which is where I learned the basics, really). Often it was adding a melody line to an instrumental track so that young kids could sing along easier - in earlier years she would make a copy of the tape and then use the overdubbing feature on our boombox to play a melody line on the piano over top. Ripping tapes to digital files with this thing and then using Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer was my first real foray into editing/mixing audio; I think that computer also had an Audigy 2 ZS sound card which let us hook up her Yamaha PSR-530 and record sounds directly in instead of using a microphone on the piano or whatever. Man. Good times. Good memories. Thank you already and I haven't even watched the video yet lol
Peter Metzger
2022-10-26 15:08:57 +0000 UTCOnly place I have found 3.23 so far: https://m-blog-naver-com.translate.goog/PostView.naver?isHttpsRedirect=true&blogId=pclove119&logNo=30188972684&_x_tr_sl=ko&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Lennart Sorensen
2022-10-26 14:47:56 +0000 UTCI found a review on Amazon saying that they had audio problems with it and support told them to use 3.23 rather than 3.25 software and the problem apparently went away.
Lennart Sorensen
2022-10-26 14:38:41 +0000 UTCI suspect the audio clicking is a compatibility problem between the software and the audio driver/sound card. Maybe it is using a recording frequency the sound card doesn't like, while other recording programs use something it does like. Could check what the bitrate and such are on the wave files it creates versus the other programs.
Lennart Sorensen
2022-10-26 14:21:14 +0000 UTCYeah, I saw that it worked fine with a different recording software. But I still feel that because this software does some serial connection, maybe it has some "interference". As in the time when it pays attention to the serial it's not doing the recording or something. But I understand if you don't want to mess with troubleshooting anymore. It's still a fun little device, just like those drive bay speakers :)
Dukefazon
2022-10-26 12:58:05 +0000 UTCYou read my mind, haha. Already considering something like this :)
LGR
2022-10-26 12:53:07 +0000 UTCNo USB used on that systed. I showed recording of system sounds in the video, which still crackles with that software. *Only* that software though.
LGR
2022-10-26 12:50:52 +0000 UTCSilly idea: revive the lazy green giant, stick the bay speakers, cigarette lighter, vu meter and the cassette player. Grab a steering wheel and pedals, couple monitors and voila! 90's car simulator with "authentic" console and everything
Hernando Heilbron
2022-10-26 12:50:36 +0000 UTCAre you using a USB mouse on that machine by chance? I feel like there's a slight conflict in the serial port communication if not the software side that is wrong. What if you unplug the serial connection and try to record system sounds, does it still have the crackling?
Dukefazon
2022-10-26 12:37:10 +0000 UTCWhat an absolute unit, right? I adore those mid to late 70s cassette decks, they're just monstrous and do so relatively little for their size. Plus: REAL WOOD.
LGR
2022-10-26 12:31:13 +0000 UTCTypically not, argh! I do feel bad that this one took so long, but it was one of those that was sent in without any stipulations or timeframe. Just like, "hey here's an old thing I have in my closet and I'd rather send it in than throw it away" situation, so it ended up here and on the backburner until I could get to it. As tends to happen after doing this for nearly a decade and a half, heh
LGR
2022-10-26 12:30:38 +0000 UTCI've tracked down some other versions, but they're much older v1.0-2.0 releases and intended for the early Plusdeck models. Wish I could find like, v3.0 or something.
LGR
2022-10-26 12:28:16 +0000 UTCThat'd be a dream 5.25" device, but I've never seen a VHS mechanism that small! Betmax however...🤔
LGR
2022-10-26 12:27:43 +0000 UTCMaybe there are different software versions out there, have you tried to download a different version other than the one that's on the CD? The hardware clearly works fine, it's just a software issue.
Dukefazon
2022-10-26 10:43:20 +0000 UTCI misheard what this was at the start and thought it was for VHS cassettes and now I'm genuinely curious if anyone managed to fit an entire VHS thing into a 5 1/4" drive bay... I mean, almost certainly not... unless it took up two drive bays or more maybe...? :o
Kris Asick
2022-10-26 10:29:09 +0000 UTCVery cool little video. So quick question, do we have to wait 8 years if I send you a cool donation product to feature in a video?
InSyder
2022-10-26 08:25:36 +0000 UTCOh holy business the size of that Teac deck, I had completely forgotten how huge those were. I bet it has tubes inside the diameter of a soda can.
MichaelM
2022-10-26 06:34:23 +0000 UTCAnd yes, I was an audio novice back then. I was like the Hank Hill of audio recording. "Do I look like I know what a Line In is? I just want to listen to my tapes on my God dang computer!"
Headset Guy
2022-10-26 05:31:33 +0000 UTCThis is something I *dreamed* of having back in the day. I would have loved having a tape deck built into my computer; I would have been able to convert my tapes to a digital format long before I *actually* started doing that.
Headset Guy
2022-10-26 05:23:30 +0000 UTC
