Gloriously pointless reel changing system for audio cassettes

qubit · Sep 20, 2016

Check out how incredibly fiddly this was. Seems to have been created more as a fashion marketing stunt than any technical benefit. Never took off and I can see why, plus I'd never even heard of it before today, lol.

This Techmoan YouTube channel is great for nerding out to old, obsolete technology like this. Love it.

Recon-UK · Sep 20, 2016

Heh pretty cool i want one!

dorsetknob · Sep 20, 2016

Oh my god what a Kerfuffle to change the Tape just buy normal cassettes (please time travel back to the 80's and take it back )

qubit · Sep 20, 2016

dorsetknob said:
Oh my god what a Kerfuffle to change the Tape just buy normal cassettes (please time travel back to the 80's and take it back )

Oh gawd, yes please do! :laugh:

Caring1 · Sep 20, 2016

Not so much reinventing the reel, but borrowing the idea from movie reels and applying it to cassettes.
It probably came about because someone was sick of pulling the original plastic cassettes apart to effect repairs.
I've had to do that myself to a number of damaged tapes in the past.

qubit · Sep 20, 2016

Caring1 said:
Not so much reinventing the reel, but borrowing the idea from movie reels and applying it to cassettes.
It probably came about because someone was sick of pulling the original plastic cassettes apart to effect repairs.
I've had to do that myself to a number of damaged tapes in the past.

I guess it would be handy for repairs if a separate shell was used for each reel. I certainly had my share of cassette foul-ups. They never worked properly as hi-fi media especially, always suffering azimuth error which really spoiled the sound and other analog gremlins. Digital when done right (high sampling rate mainly) is such a breath of fresh air.

The one thing that I've always wanted to know is why do BIC pens fit exactly in the cassette's reel hole. It seems too coincidental to have happened by accident. Googling for it doesn't help, so can you solve this mystery?

AsRock · Sep 20, 2016

Bah i have some of the real reels here lol.

I bet the idea was thought of but it be less profitable to do it back then when we were using tapes. You could buy tapes back then too that looked like they had reels in them.

BIC pens fit exactly in the cassette's reel

HAHAHA.

CAPSLOCKSTUCK · Sep 20, 2016

BIC pen and little brother = rewind machine.

R00kie · Sep 20, 2016

qubit said:
The one thing that I've always wanted to know is why do BIC pens fit exactly in the cassette's reel hole. It seems too coincidental to have happened by accident.

And normal pencils too

qubit · Sep 20, 2016

AsRock said:
Bah i have some of the real reels here lol.

I bet the idea was thought of but it be less profitable to do it back then when we were using tapes. You could buy tapes back then too that looked like they had reels in them.

Yeah, I had some of those, Yashika branded, I think. They had a great habit of jamming. They were great looking rubbish lol.

gdallsk said:
And normal pencils too

Must depend on the model of pencil, because I found them to be a little too narrow so didn't catch the sprogs.

m1dg3t · Sep 20, 2016

I prefer cassettes over CDs TBH.

My guess regarding the BIC/pencil thing is simply coincidence, being able to rewind manually has it's advantages ie: battery/motor/cassette wear savings.

AsRock · Sep 20, 2016

qubit said:
Yeah, I had some of those, Yashika branded, I think. They had a great habit of jamming. They were great looking rubbish lol.

Must depend on the model of pencil, because I found them to be a little too narrow so didn't catch the sprogs.

TDK were the ones to buy for me, i think Maxwell did some flashy ones too.

The reels i have are just normal reels from the 80's with some recordings on them.

CAPSLOCKSTUCK · Sep 20, 2016

The first time i bought isopryl alcohol it was for cleaning the contact head on a cassette player....probably 1980.

64K · Sep 20, 2016

I don't remember that. The biggest thing I remember about cassette tapes is that they got "eaten" sometimes. That's what we called it when the tape would get spit out into the player and get wadded up and crinkled up so that it was ruined. Not a big deal when it was just music that you copied and could make another copy but when it was music that you bought from a store and paid full price for it would piss you off. It didn't seem to matter much how nice the player was either. I bought a $250 stereo/tape player for my first car in 1978 which wasn't cheap. In today's dollars that would be ~$920 and it still "ate" tapes sometimes.

CAPSLOCKSTUCK · Sep 20, 2016

Didnt you ever cut and splice your wrinkly ones.?

rtwjunkie · Sep 20, 2016

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:
The first time i bought isopryl alcohol it was for cleaning the contact head on a cassette player....probably 1980.

Your avatar....LMFAO!! :roll:

On a serious note, I hated having to clean tape deck heads every 100 hours or so! Don't miss that.

64K · Sep 20, 2016

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:
Didnt you ever cut and splice your wrinkly ones.

No, I didn't know that you could or anyone that did that with cassette tapes. Only with reel to reels do I recall that.

CAPSLOCKSTUCK · Sep 20, 2016

64K said:
No, I didn't know that you could or anyone that did that with cassette tapes. Only with reel to reels do I recall that.

Yes it was doable...sellotape (scotchtape) worked.

rtwjunkie · Sep 20, 2016

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:
Yes it was doable...sellotape (scotchtape) worked.

I did that quite frequently! Amazingly, the repair almost always outlasted the tape sound quality.

64K · Sep 20, 2016

CAPSLOCKSTUCK said:
Yes it was doable...sellotape (scotchtape) worked.

Wish I had known you back then. There's never a badger around when you really need one.

dorsetknob · Sep 20, 2016

8 track tape about 1/2" wide
Reel to reel tape is 1/4" wide
cassette which is just enclosed reel to reel in a cartrige
1/8" wide all can be spliced and were
You could buy special kits to help you do this ( kits helped keep tape aligned )
most of us just used glue and or sellotape

Great way of getting smooth flowing mix tapes in the old days cut / paste tape
re record mix to unbroken tape job done on the Cheap

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Gloriously pointless reel changing system for audio cassettes

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

Recon-UK

dorsetknob

"YOUR RMA REQUEST IS CON-REFUSED"

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

Caring1

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

AsRock

TPU addict

CAPSLOCKSTUCK

Spaced Out Lunar Tick

R00kie

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit

m1dg3t

AsRock

TPU addict

CAPSLOCKSTUCK

Spaced Out Lunar Tick

64K

CAPSLOCKSTUCK

Spaced Out Lunar Tick

rtwjunkie

PC Gaming Enthusiast

64K

CAPSLOCKSTUCK

Spaced Out Lunar Tick

rtwjunkie

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dorsetknob

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