Comments on: Fun with ancient technology, for my brother on his birthday

By: John W

John W — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:59:55 +0000

I recall that R also used the time in Ewelme to prepare for his future career in water engineering by damming the local stream! I recall this caused some local concern as the only local inductry other than housing Oxford academics, was growing water cress.

Happy birthday cousin R

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:30:49 +0000

Ah yes the broken plastic tabs. Space age technology: We haz it.

By: David

David — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:14:34 +0000

We still listen to a tape recording of Ausie rock bands which my wife gleaned from the radio back in the 80s… or was that the 70s?
There’s a Cold Chisel song called ‘Goodbye (Astrid goodbye)’ which makes some rather derogatory remarks about ‘Astrid…’ In the middle of the song just after a particularly nasty remark somebody accidentally hit the record button right at the time there was a news report about sexist behavior on the radio! It couldn’t have been staged any better!
Actually come to think of it. It took me years of bungled double recordings to realize that when you punch out the tabs on the skinny side of the cassette you can prevent them being overwritten! At least I knew to place the tape recorder between the speakers of a stereo system.

By: Jovial Monk

Jovial Monk — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:05:31 +0000

As kids me and my sister taped my Dad snoring. Later when we played it back to him he got angry and denied that was him on the tape!

By: armagny

armagny — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:34:11 +0000

There’s a movie about this kid, called Damian…

By: JahTeh

JahTeh — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:41:54 +0000

I still have my walkman for those sleepless nights and the permanent cauliflower ear from sleeping on the earphones.

Did you have a favourite pencil, it had to be a pencil, to push into the middle of the tape to tighten it up?

My father had a machine like this and would rush home from the pub to record whatever joke he’d heard in the bar. It was great after he died to find those cassettes and hear his voice again.

By: blue milk

blue milk — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 07:07:54 +0000

Oh, what a great memory. My mother confiscated my old radio when I was in early adolescence for some minor transgression that neither of us can remember.. and she never gave it back to me and when we found it in her cupboard recently it was still tuned to some crappy pop radio station (that no longer exists) and was covered in kitten stickers. I couldn’t help but feel very sad for my poor deprived, uncool just turned teenager self.

By: Bernice

Bernice — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:30:59 +0000

Ahhh – sweet memories. Hours of early pirating practice; all those piles of hand written cassette cases; the first song on every album starting about the third bar in; that relentless schchunk schchunk at the end of each LP side; the ambient noise of passing children screaming, barking dogs, phones ringing, the occasional sneeze. And metres of tape erupting from the car cassette player, just as Joni was cranking it up…

sweet memories…

By: R.H.

R.H. — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:34:43 +0000

Congratulations to him, and I’m astonished you’re near that age yourself, you always seem so young.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:59:36 +0000

At school (eons ago) we recorded two girls laughing at/with/for each other. They laughed a lot, these two and you could hear them all over the school. They knew they were being recorded which only made them laugh all the more. The recording went for about twenty minutes with periods of what sounded like silence but if you listened carefully you could hear the high pitched squeaks of them taking in air. It was the funniest, simplest thing I’ve ever cried laughing over. (Something I haven’t erased from my memory of school).

My father recorded himself reciting Clancy of the Overflow on a machine very similar to the one you had. He was as pissed as a newt –apparently. He never spoke about it, but I came across the tape in a desk drawer. It was excruciating to listen to and is a gem to have. . . . somewhere.

And one of my favourite pieces of equipment at Art School was the Sony Professional Walkman. With headphones on and microphone turned up, you could just about hear the termites in the walls I loved it. I used to love making recordings of ambient sounds.