Back to the Commpak

There's something about the voice on the slide shows and the way they're recorded that takes me back to being a boy in the early 1980s. Fab video, Mat.

I do seem to remember these being played in the post offices, but not our local one as it was a small village terraced house style post office. It was only in the "big" post office in the town which we rarely went to and a bit of a novelty. Hmmm The Post Office .... The place to buy greetings cards with a sailboat into the sunset .... Funny how you remember things. Good video as always Mat.....thanks

139K views trending higher than typical for January, methinks? Any uptick in traffic on your Tefifon videos? 🙂

I was watching an old training video on YouTube the other day and realised it had no video, just stills. Then I realised it must have been made on one of these!

I loved this one, even with the hacked-way you made it work. Having a proper play of the cartridge is such a lovely thing to see!

This format hat a special place for me. While I never experienced it back in the day, it seems the kind of Frankenstein that modern management loves. "it is all there, we don't need to invent anything, just slap them carts, works like a charm" I've heard those words from innovation manager too often.

Is there any chance we'll get access to the contents of those 15 Commpak carts? That's the kind of stuff I'd love to see!

Do some retro brithing to get rid of the yellow plastic https://youtu.be/JX-RJM8MZpU?si=8LQw7_TJAbo004fD

Not related to the video: Patreon messed up their billings and, for whatever reasons, probably to make sure they don't do something I don't actually want, unsubscribed me in the process. If that happened to not only me, I hope you don't lose a lot of subscribers due to Patreons ineptitude...

Richard Burton did the voice over for that QE2 documentary, and he died in 1984 giving us an approximate date for this film (can't find it on IMDB). Assuming that's the case, £20.95 in 1984 adjusted for inflation equates to £93,

Another Post Office scandal: £20.95 for a video about the Queen.

I wonder if the images were processed to take advantage of the yellow backlight or if an LED replacement bulb would give a better colour? Using an LED would reduce the need for a fan too.

Another shout out for Techmoan https://youtu.be/uYGUdWpeg_w?si=U4FQovOfrEraPfew

I would advise you to put an 8Ω resistor over the output, it might balance the audio a bit better, although I guess it won't bring the bass back...

Love this format, some childhood memories for me as I remember being mesmerized by the one at my local Post Office. Do you know what dates these tapes were created?

The thin, distorted sound is due to the impedance mismatch between the speaker output (8 or 16 ohms) and your camera's microphone input (usually designed for 500 ohms or higher). You can get a speaker-level to line-level converter designed for car stereo systems, and add that to your audio recording setup.

I came across LaBelle many years ago when I looked after a Cockpit Procedures Trainer for an airline. One of their 8 track units was used to (badly) simulate the voice of the Ground Proximity Warning System, but it was a 60Hz unit so was always sounded depressed. We couldn’t get a correct sized drive pulley for 50Hz so we calculated the correct size and had one made. Then the tape broke and we had immense fun re-recording the voice onto 1/2” tape and butchering it into an 8 track cartridge.

1985??? Even back then this would have seemed liked 20-year-old "ancient" technology for a retail display. I guess the UK Post Office is not far off the US in that respect. :-)

I watched the video before reading your comment about audio levels, Mat. I did not notice anything that bothered me at all while watching the video. Fun content as always.

Great Video and I feel capturing this footage will be interesting...as you mentioned the aspect ratio fills the centre of any 16:9 camera easily and playing with various borders is worth a go, as for the sound it is too thin and needs equalising, unless you try taking the high level speaker output and feeding into a nice quality standalone speaker and listening to it in it's pure form. Taking this feed via a microphone may give you better results. As it is the level is too high for your headphone amplifier and it sounds distorted and wrong. Ideally it would need an inline attenuator to reduce the level of audio if you prefer to use the headphone amp.

Another interesting video. I actually like the yellowed color. Gives it a cool look. Also- I've always wanted to say that I love the electronic sounds you have over the very end of the video image with the ads and whatnot. Vey pleasing.

I like the cartridge repair music! Is that Sid Sponge & the Intervals playing "Padding Out"?

Could you have the visual without the audio? I presume turning down the volume would the way to do it. In that way, you could just show the visuals when you still wanted to promote stuff WITHOUT the sound. Perhaps that's why there are two speeds. The slide would stay in place longer. Just thinking out loud. Maybe I should switch something OFF in my head!

Very curious about why the projector was kept from being sent. Is there any chance that the different voltage standards between the US and UK were at fault? Certain electronics may be a fire hazard and I know that the UK has strong legislation regarding fire prevention. Perhaps there there were safeguards in more modern electronics missing from older ones (like the projector) and as such, entire categories of equipment of a certain age wouldn't be permitted for export to the UK. The unit you picked up from Germany had the UK voltage standard (I think you mentioned this) and as such, wouldn't have any issues with being imported.

Interesting thanks.

The uniformity of the yellowed cover had me thinking it must have been manufactured with that color intentionally--until you took the top off and it was easy to see that it actually had yellowed with time. Actually thought the yellow color made a nice contrast to the black of the rest of the case although perhaps seeing it with your own eyes could be... less pleasing to the eye.

I notice with mild amusement that the speaker grille resembles the early 1980s BBC News logo, and Frank Bough was part of that team (albeit through Breakfast Time!) https://ibb.co/25QqfhX

• I've been intrigued about these since I found some of the carts on eBay quite a while back. • ✔️ Time Lapse Cart Counting; I like it. • The way you flat-panned 'arse' had me cackling - I'm glad the only problem was a speed change correction. • I'm impressed how a company devised this cost-effective audio/visual system for advertisement purposes. No doubt a proper video-based setup would be too expensive for multiple locations at this time period. • I am appreciative of historians who want to preserve these things. No matter how bland the topic is, it's still worthy of archiving. • I love the music accompaniment during tape pad repair. • Incredible that it works right out of the box without any belt replacement or oiling, etc after all these years. Nicely done. Relax and have a peaceful day off. Please take care 🤍

Sweet! Nice update, this is such an interesting system, it works sooo well. It definitely would have changed your life if you were in sales/marketing then (imagine at expos, etc.)

I do remember La Belle Industries when I was a kid living in the US. It seems that the company was also geared to the public school audio-visual departments. And, as one of the geeks that worked in the library checking out the projectors and such during my free hour at school, I definitely remember La Belle projectors, and slide machines, and even some tape equipment. I can even smell the metal & oil odor of the machines as they would heat up. Sigh...

Before watching this video, I had to go back and watch the first Commpak video from last year. As a result Mat, I'm afraid I'm going to have to demand that you produce that "story for another day..." about sending postal orders to 'Dodgy Kev' for purchases of bootleg copies of Hong Kong action movies.😉

Gosh, and I thought the Post Office was only for buying stamps and posting packages...

Clever device, you going to get a few post office comments. Think it's edited well and great video.

Have a great day off. ;) 🎉

I was hoping to see the projector part demonstrated. Perhaps it would result in better picture quality and make it easier to film?

I always enjoy the revisits to previously covered tech. I need to go back and watch the original video to see what it has by way of origin history. I noticed in one shot that "Lear" was mentioned on the cart going back to the LearJet origins of the 8-Track.

An impressively robust machine, I particularly like the chunky buttons on the front. As a fan of Jeff Wayne's War of The Worlds it's a bit spooky to hear Richard Burton's voice narrating one of these.

I wonder if we can encourage someone to release an album on the format :-)

I wonder if Compaq ever used the Commpak. My local U.S. post office uses a PC running VLC Media Player to display their sequence of video ads -- or at least they *did*, until it crashed, and nobody has bothered to reboot it in several months.

As always, thanks for posting. Another interesting video. Makes a change to see a fairly trouble-free device.

From when the tech used at the Post Office was merely dull and repetitious rather than life-ruiningly scandalous...