RCA SOUND large cassette-granddad of the compact cassette

[tracker-x]

http://www.archive.org/details/Revoluti1958

the first half of this 15 minute film is about stereo records, the second half is about the late-50's-60's large RCA stereo cassette (7.5 minutes per format)- if you just want to see the large cassette, advance the slider to 7:45 on the timer

interesting- the darn things even had auto-stop and recorded, and dual speeds !

 

[Sandy G]

Doncha jus' LOVE Mr. 1958 sittin' there in his fine Sunday-Go-To-Meetin'- suit, smokin' a pipe...Did people EVER really just sit around their homes all dressed up like that ?....

 

[goldear]

Interesting. They look a whole lot like the short lived Elcaset.

 

[Dan ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

Used to have a couple of those cassettes laying around once upon a time.

 

[RichPA]

Did people EVER really just sit around their homes all dressed up like that ?....

Beaver's dad did, didn't everybody?

 

[orthophonic]

I have one of those recorder/players and several of the tapes.
It actually sounds pretty good, it uses standard quarter inch tape.
It was a market flop and by 1962 RCA was hardly mentioning it,
but decks were available up to at least 1965 under the RCA and VM brand names. I believe VM manufactured them for RCA.
RCA promoted them heavily at first, but they never took off,
possibly because the decks and tapes were rather expensive
and the deks were very critical about head alignment.

 

[tracker-x]

yes- someone told me those RCA cassettes were $350 new in 1958

wow !

average workers were making around a buck an hour back then, so that would be 2 months pay for that tape deck

or like spending around $7000 on a CD player today

 

[tracker-x]

Beaver's dad did, didn't everybody?

yes, but they started putting different stuff in the pipes around 1967 or so...:nono: :yes: :scratch2:

 

[tracker-x]

Interesting. They look a whole lot like the short lived Elcaset.

EXACTLY- so much so, I'd wager Sony used that as a pattern, and improved it, to make the Elcaset

 

[goldear]

EXACTLY- so much so, I'd wager Sony used that as a pattern, and improved it, to make the Elcaset

I wouldn't go quite that far. Sony's Elcassettes opened-up much like a video tape does and pulled the tape inside the player. These appear to be completely self contained, more like the compact cassette. But the resemblance is still amazing. :yes: