3M Sound Page
I've been on the lookout for one of these machines for a while, and while they do occasionally turn up for sale on ebay, I'm so glad I managed to acquire this particular one as the unique accompanying material weaves quite a tale. Hearing non-commercial recordings from the past is always a bit eerie and the subject matter of these is something that is going to stay with me for quite a while.
This is also the last of my automatically scheduled posts, I‘ll be back from my holiday (vacation) at the weekend. While I’ve been away I didn’t see any cool tech to buy, however that didn’t stop me ordering a few things on eBay and if you’re interested in seeing how that ‘Hi-res’ cassette player Toshiba launched in Japan performs well there‘s one of those on the way to me too.
Comments (38)
The sound of it may be eerie, but it’s pretty brilliant. I’d love to make music, record it to ‘paper’ and then record the paper recording back into the computer as an effect.
Genius video, informative and full of understated humor. I get a huge smile every time Patreon tells me a new Techmoan video is up. Thank you Mat! You mentioned other formats of magnetic-coated paper recording media ... during WW2 acetate was apparently rationed, or in short supply. My dad gave me several 7" reels of war surplus paper-backed 1/4" recording tape for my first tape recorder, in the late 1950s. The stuff was very prone to breaking if you mishandled the fast forward, rewind, and stop controls.
I suspect that those tapes would be pretty much unplayable nowadays given the way that paper dries out and gardens over time.
Thanks - so obvious when you think of it.... and right up your street too!
Hi Mat - you’ll never run out of oddball formats... there are still quite a few for you to feature. My favourite was an early dictation machine that pre-dated cassettes, it used a 3” wide loop of tape that if not looped, would have been 8” in length and oxide out. You opened a hinged panel and slid in the loop. The tape would run at 15/16th/s inches per second, and the head would slowly move across the 3” width. This effectively gave 30 mins recording and each ‘track’ although continuous, was about a minute in duration. Moving the head one click to the right or left made it jump forward or back exactly a minute in the recording - which was usually dictation. My problem is, I cannot remember what the system was called as there was no label on my machine! Hope you’ve recovered from your hols?!
I’ve been working on that one for a couple of years, but keep hitting various problems with equipment failures. It’s Dictabelt.
Hi, Mat, This brought back a memory of something I had almost forgotten. I used to have one of these... <a href="https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=95452" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?t=95452</a> I am closing in on 70 now, and I guess I had this in my late teens (second hand of course) so that would be around the mid 60s. It might be worth having a search running on Ebay for one. I would LOVE to see you make a video about that, it would bring back so many memories.
I do have a magnetic disc recording dictation device - or perhaps it’s two, I lose track of the things I’ve squirreled away over the years. I’ll keep an eye out for one of these too now and perhaps I’ll be able to do a magnetic disc round-up one day.
Nice. It's great how these devices from the past can still inspire a wow factor. If they built this now, it'd just be a QR code on the paper that points to a sound file on the web, which all seems a bit too easy really
There’s a new Japanese Music ‘format’ on a card (or something) that a few people have sent me a link to recently (I forget the name of it) - however I suspect that it works just like that - a QR code/weblink that directs the purchaser to an online music resource...and the card (or whatever) is a macguffin.
Brilliant. I don’t know where you dig up all of these vintage gems, but I love watching them.
Mat,
Yes
Boo! That thing was probably the only recording apparatus I got that you hadn't featured yet. I have the NCR-branded version of the Synchrofax (which is pure marketing wank, of course, there's nothing synced and it's not a fax machine). But I still have another machine that records just like that (fixed flat medium, rotating head), which is an old answering machine from the 60s. The medium here is more like a hard drive platter, but the way it works is just like the Synchrofax. I'm pretty sure there are a lot more weird machines out there. BTW, google "Variophone"...
Thanks for the tip on the Variophone, I’ll read up on it - I was reminded of Daphne Oram’s Optical Synthesizer <a href="https://www.soundonsound.com/people/graham-wrench-story-daphne-orams-optical-synthesizer" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.soundonsound.com/people/graham-wrench-story-daphne-orams-optical-synthesizer</a>
Wow, gotta pull my hat off again and bow before you. I have no idea how you (still) manage to discover all these odd interesting things. Awesome!
The home made ones were the sort of things that you’d hear faintly in the background of Silent Hill or Resident Evil.
Yes those recordings would help paint a very eerie scene.
The ASMR reference made me laugh out loud. This, in turn, made my wife frown at me. :)
I think I’m disapproved of by a lot of wives. I must be a bad influence.
Nice one Matt!
Blimey, social commentary, a Mark 'n' Lard as Fat Harry White impression, and technology all chucked into one compact YouTube video. Watch out Public Service Broadcasting! :)
Thanks. Wonderful stuff, as ever. I can't help noting that the microphone is ever so similar to the one Apple supplied with my Power Macintosh 6100, and others at that time. I have to wonder whether Apple designers of the time had seen or used one of these.
yay glad to see you made it out of vacationing alive! Hope it was relaxing and exciting in proper measure.
I’ve still got a few more days at sea before I get home. I’d say the excitement score was rather low, but it has been very relaxing.
Neat device. I've never heard of it before. I find it hard to believe they were still in use in 1996. I graduated high school in 1993, and never saw such a thing. I have a suspicion if they were in use, it was probably for remedial classes and thus possibly why the students had such bad spelling. Oklahoma isn't that far from here, so I don't want you to think we're all that dumb. On the bright side, at least they knew the earth was flat.
My theory is that the kids found it in a storage cupboard, where it had sat unused for many years, probably since the 1970s.
Reminds me of the time when we recorded Knight Rider off air onto the school VCR using the timer. Only a couple of “Picture Box” programmes were affected. Another fascinating lost format!
Back when I was crazily buying up every weird recording format I could find, one of these popped up on eBay. The listing confirms what I'm sure Mat has experienced - that the world is full of very strange people. The listing included a picture of the owner, dressed in leather bits, holding the Sound Page towards a similarly dressed woman on her knees, licking the mic. I did grit my teeth and buy the unit, and cleaned it very thoroughly when it arrived. Now mine was listed as a piece of office equipment, and included a plastic cover with white piping that made it look very 70's office chic. It included some blank pages. I never dreamed they were used as educational devices.
This amused the hell out of me. I can only imagine how I’d have abused this as a bored tech-savvy teenager.
Charming - and fascinating. Thankyou: I'm very surprised at the quality of the recordings. Loved the pedant making an appearance!
Another fascinating item. 1996 is (relatively) modern - I wonder what they thought of it? The spooling iz funi;-)
Loved it, especially your DJ bit and the Pedant Theme at the end.
Top. top work on presenting todays device! Oh I think youtube is going to love this one :)
I hope so.
Brilliant.
A really fun video!
This level of weirdness is exactly what I come here for.