Super 8 Tracks?

[Angus]

I know those valves aren't hard to come by but since I have a stash I have no need to buy.

The other somewhat special machine (or "instrument" as the manufactures refer to it) is my Ex-BBC Ferrograph 5A. OK so it only saw service with Radio 4 but its nice to have a small bit of radio history...and it is a beautifully engineered piece of machinery.

[Blue Audio Visual]

Almost as nice as my mint Brenell Mk V/III !!!

[Angus]

Almost as nice as my mint Brenell Mk V/III !!!

Yeah now we're talking!

Had the chance to get a Ferrograph Logic 7 around a decade ago but chose instead to save up for plane tickets to the states...

[James E]

D.P. Sorry.......

[James E]

I had both home and portable 8 track recorders as a kid in the 70's. My dad would record LP's and FM radio broadcasts. And w/ the mic's us kids singing and goofing off. He was a nursing student at the time and so also had a very high tech Norelco "Compact Cassette" recorder. It weighed about 8-9 pounds when full of C batteries. Later on it made a good boat anchor.

I'm giving away a funny idea here that I thought of many years ago, But since I've not done it here it goes.

"Progression of technolgies" Picture of an 8 track player with a cassette adapter pluged into it w/ a cassette adapter plugged into it w/ a CD or MP3 player plugged into it........
Cheers,

[Jim Carlile]

You know what, guys, unlike many of you I was there then in the late 60's and 70's, and nobody had 8-track recorders at home. They may have existed, and some people may have actually used them at the very end, but it would not have made any sense, which is why it was unheard of. They were a rare breed, at best.

First of all, with cassettes being contemporary, and cheap, and better quality (and longer running time,) it would have been nuts to make your own 8-track cartridges. That's why nobody did it. People made mix-tapes on cassettes at home, and then took their portable cassette player in the car and hooked it up to the cigarette lighter or whatever.

I never saw blank 8-track cartridges for sale anywhere in So Cal, and I went everywhere back then. Same with stereo stores. Radio Shack was a joke at that time-- talk about the king of orphan technologies-- they were as dorky as it could get (that's why it was a big deal when Tandy computers turned out to be very good-- nobody took them seriously before..) I wouldn't use 1975 Radio Shack as any kind of bellwether test of a technology.

And as far as it goes with portable 8-tracks-- with cassettes players better in every way, there would have been no point to use them.

So-- having been there-- 8-tracks were a very successful medium for about 12 years in the U.S., but they were car-use exclusively.

[super8man]

Jim, I have no doubt about your experiences and personal recollections some 30 years later 8O of those memories but please don't suggest that your recollections cover it for Southern California. I do have to call you on this line (emphasis added by me):

I never saw blank 8-track cartridges for sale anywhere in So Cal, and I went everywhere back then.

What can I say, eBay does not lie (well, they may do, but that's another thread), there are plenty upon plenty of 8 track home decks, mostly Panasonic, Realistic/Radio Shack, Akai, Marantz (there's a great old name), and others. And yes, car decks were the most popular application, I won't argue that point.

Sort of like me saying I NEVER SAW A SUPER 8 CAMERA IN USE WHILE I WAS GROWING UP...and I went everywhere. Fact is, I never saw a movie camera until 1991 I think...I did see video cameras, interestingly enough, but not super 8 cameras.

As we speak, Tom Petty is playing on 8 track in the home - it's a great thing. Now excuse me while I go and bid on some BLANK 8 tracks on ebay - there are more on there than you can shake a stick at - whatever that means!!!

Cheers,
Mike

[super8man]

Come to think of it, Canada may not have been the best market for super 8 cameras whereas California and its military/GI Bill spending was.

As for 8 tracks, the stereotype of the Midwest comes to mind where this technology may have been in more abundance than the immigrants that came to California.

Cheers,
Mike

[super8man]

Case proven - the direct link between super 8 and 8-tracks:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Star-Wars-Super-8-F ... 0218120262

hahahaha...I don't make this S&$t up! Too funny.

[Blue Audio Visual]

You know what, guys, unlike many of you I was there then in the late 60's and 70's, and nobody had 8-track recorders at home. They may have existed, and some people may have actually used them at the very end, but it would not have made any sense, which is why it was unheard of....8-tracks were a very successful medium for about 12 years...but they were car-use exclusively.

Have to agree with Mike here Jim - check out this ebay.co.uk item - a domestic 8 track recorder.

In the description the seller states "I HAVE OWNED THIS UNIT SINCE NEW IN 1971 AND RELUCTANTLY SELLNG AS WE ARE NOW MOVING TO A SMALLER HOME".

The point being that ordinary folk bought into this technology at the time, not just the super-rich. This seller is not only moving to a smaller house, he's also got 1705 feedback ratings on ebay so obviously needs a secondary income of some sort. Granted that these are gross assumptions, but you get my point.

My first exposure to Super 8 technology that I can remember (we didn't have Super 8 at home) illustrates the opposite so to speak: that the very rich used Super 8 despite having the money and resources to use much larger gauges.

In 1979 I went to a screening of Grease at the private cinema in Mayfair (a very swanky district of central London) of legendary film producer Sam Spiegel (The African Queen, On the Waterfront, Bridge over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia etc). It was his son's 11th birthday party, and it was definitely shown on Super 8 - I remember the projector being set up in the middle of the aisle and a small screen on a tripod stand set up in front of the regular fixed screen. And it was definitely an edited/cut down version, lasting something like 30-45 mins or so, not the full feature.

I'm sure that a man with the sort of money, resources, and contacts in the film industry that he had could have got hold of a print of Grease on 16 or 35mm had he chosen to, but it was definitely a Super 8 copy that we all watched.

He also had a minion filming the event on a small cine camera - I've no idea what it was, but it must have been a Super 8. I remember the dazzling brightness of the handheld movie-light that he was using, and that the camera itself was not all that big.

[Angus]

Its all anecdotal evidence but I do recall one specific incident circa 1979 when I was at a friend's birthday party and the father of one of his other friends filmed us kids with a super 8 sound camera. I also a few years later had a friend who's parents had a Bell & Howell autofocus sound super 8 camera (lets say 1982).

I also recall less specific occasions when I was in Cornwall (so must be between 1977-1981) when I saw people with cine cameras, no doubt filming the beautiful tourist area that Cornwall is. After that sightings became less frequent, video came in.

The thing is, I have...for as long as I can remember...been interested in home recording and in all types of photography. I had my first cassette recorder at the age of 5, learned to use my dad's camera a year earlier. I desperately wanted a cine camera years before I got one (1986) and recall discovering my late grandfather's clockwork Quarz std 8mm in a dusty cupboard. My dad wasn't/isn't into cine (he's a stills man) so he'd never done anything with it, and knew nothing about how to go about seeing if it worked...nor did we own a projector.

Anyway...my first contact with 8 track was in the Tandy catalogue in 1982. I had to ask what 8-track was. I had definately never seen one...I would have known if I had. Given the name I was wondering if it was some semi pro multi-track home studio sort of machine...and was interested until I was told it was something that "used to be popular in cars, mostly in America". At that age I had been learning the violin for three years, was pretty good and wanted to "duet" with myself by means of multi tracks (oh the imaginations of children!).

But a few machines definately made it into homes. Tandy wouldn't have imported the Realistic models if nobody ever bought them in the UK. And in the mid 90's a mate of mine picked one up from a newspaper ad just for the curiosity of having one...somebody must have owned it from new.

As for TRS being crap...well some of their products were and some were fantastic. With their own branded hifi gear you had to pick and choose, they produced some dodgy stuff but then in '84 they produced a double cassette deck that was actually *really* good. ISTR quoted frequency response for metal tape was 20-22kHz which is pretty damned good...and it sounded good too. But I used Tandy because I built electronic circuits, and it was somewhere easily accessible where I could buy components off the shelf. I didn't need to order 200 2Kohm resisters when I could buy a pack of 5 from Tandy. They had some fantastic ideas such as staff who were helpful and knew the products, no quibble returns policy, offering discontinued stock at really low prices.

Oh god this is getting off topic!!!!

[leadlike]

My dad had one of the first mass produced 8 track players in his mustang (ford was the first to really introduce 8 tracks to the public). He bought about a dozen tapes (all lear jet packs) and spent most of 1969 rocking out to them. Sadly, that summer, he developed a habit of tossing the tapes into the back seat after playing them, and the combined heat and huge rear window in the fastback mustang did them in. He never had a home player, and while various family members had auto players at one time or another, none of them claimed to have owned home players either.

Angus- I wish radio shack was still that way! They have adopted a policy now where they will phase out all of their electronic parts stuff, and go right to cell phones and other mass market goodies. Most of my local ones now have either reduced their stocks or just don't carry capacitors, resistors, etc anymore. It really stinks having to mail order everything, especially when I am just one capacitor shy of fixing a radio...

[Angus]

Radio Shack pulled out of the UK circa 1992 if memory serves, and sold most of their stores to the Carphone Warehouse. A few have continued a dribble of Radio Shack products but most have no relationship with them at all.

Electronics as a hobby has almost died sadly...its probably as much a niche as super 8 now! Almost nobody makes anything themselves any more.

Two years ago we got a box of transistor radio kits from Rapid Electronics at the school where I work. After a couple of hours, kids who had never seen a soldering iron mostly had a (more or less) working AM radio. OK so most of them only picked up two or three stations but they produced speech and music, which amazed the kids. Prior to that they seemed to believe that the magic boxes were simply not destined to be understood by mere mortals. As I have always tried to tell them, its one thing knowing how to operate a computer...but some people had to work out how to design and manufacture every part inside it.

[Shanec8mm]

My Step-Father had an 8 track player installed in his brand new 1980 Dodge conversion van back in the day. The only 8 track player I had growing up was built into my then GE record player. The great thing about that player was it never ate a tape.

[Shanec8mm]

My Step-Father had an 8 track player installed in his brand new 1980 Dodge conversion van back in the day. The only 8 track player I had growing up was built into my then GE record player. The great thing about that player was it never ate a tape.