analogue

RCA CED VideoDisc interactive (1983 – 1986)

In 1983, RCA launched a version of their CED VideoDisc system that offered random access to enable interactive features for educational and entertainment titles. The discs were ‘banded’ to allow the user to skip to a different segment.

Two models of VideoDisc player offered the ability to play the interactive disks – the SJT400 and the SKT400 – and these could be used with their own 30-button remote control, or RCA’s Digital Command Centre which could also operate certain RCA televisions and VCRs.

Just a handful of VideoDiscs were produced that made use of the interactive features, including initially ‘A Week at the Races’ (with races arranged so that participants didn’t know which horse would win) and ‘Many Roads to Murder’ (with 16 different murder mystery scenarios). The interactive titles were housed in black caddies to distinguish them.

RCA ceased production of CED VideoDisc players in April 1984. Although CED VideoDiscs continued to be sold into 1986, there were only ever a handful of interactive titles produced and these are now rare.

A couple of titles, NFL Football CED-1 (San Diego Chargers vs. Oakland Raiders) and NFL Football CED-2 (Dallas Cowboys vs. Washington Redskins), were designed for use in the Bally Midway NFL Football arcade console. This console offered live action footage via the CED VideoDisc played in an RCA SJT400 player inside the machine.

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Dynaquad (1970 – 1976)

In 1969, Dynaco introduced a system to ‘derive’ surround sound from stereophonic LPs by using a passive electronic circuit called a Hafler Circuit. This was designed by Dave Hafler of Dynaco in the early 1960s and required four speakers in a diamond configuration for derived quadraphonic (2:2:4) sound.

Around 1970, Dynaco introduced the Dynaquad system for encoding matrixed quadraphonic sound (4:2:4). The system was similar to EV Stereo-4 (EV-4) introduced in 1970, and was broadly compatible.

A sampler disc for the Dynaquad system was released in 1971 on the Vanguard Records label, and by this time it was suggested that the four speakers were placed in the four corners of the room rather than the diamond configuration.

Very few records appear to have used Dynaquad encoding. The 1970 eponymous album by The Flame may have used Dynaquad, along with some of the ‘Environments’ series by Syntonic Research. There were also some LPs and 7-inch singles produced by KL Recordings in the mid-1970s.

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Harmony Disc Record (1907 – 1916)

Harmony Disc Records was a Chicago-based record label launched by the Great Northern Manufacturing Co. in 1907. It produced 10-inch shellac records that were identical to other disc records of the time, except for a large centre hole of ¾-inch diameter. The larger hole was so that only Harmony Disc Records could be played on the Harmony Talking Machine.

Harmony was one of a number of Chicago-based labels that operated a premium scheme whereby the phonograph itself was inexpensive but the purchaser was locked-in to purchasing discs made for the player since the player had a correspondingly larger center spindle to prevent discs with standard holes fitting onto the turntable.

Harmony Disc Records were sometimes single-sided in the early days, and all were 10-inch in diameter.

Around 1912, Great Northern Manufacturing Co. left the record business, and Columbia took over the Harmony Disc Record label, which was renamed Harmony Record with the company name as Harmony Talking Machine Co. Columbia resurrected the Harmony name in 1925, but this time with a standard centre hole.

As well as the Harmony Disc Record, the other Chicago-based labels included Standard Disc Record (½-inch centre hole), United Records (1½-inch centre hole), Aretino Records (3-inch centre hole), and Busy Bee Records (rectangular cut-out in addition to standard ¼-inch centre hole).

In 1916, Harmony, Standard, United and Aretino were brought together under the Consolidated Talking Machine Company. It’s unclear when the Harmony Record label was discontinued and it may be that like the Standard Disc Record label, some recordings would have been available for a while with the larger centre hole.

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Durium Junior (1932 – 1933)

Durium Junior was a flexible single-sided 4-inch phonograph disc made from Durium (a synthetic brown resin invented in the US in 1929) with a cardboard backing. These were introduced in 1931 by the Durium Products Corp. who also made the 10-inch Hit Of The Week phonograph records in the US.

The Durium Junior mostly offered advertising and music combined though some were just music, and they played for around one and a half minutes. The format was also used for some childrens records.

The last Hit Of The Week release was in June 1932 and Durium Records in the UK ended production in January 1933. It’s unclear when Durium Junior ended, but it was likely around the same time.

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Aretino Record (1907 – 1914)

Aretino Records were 10-inch (or sometimes 12-inch) 78 rpm shellac records with an unusually large centre hole of three-inch diameter. This was the largest spindle-hole of any record and meant the centre label was reduced to a narrow ring.

The label was based in Chicago in the US, and began producing disc records and the phonograph machines to play them around 1907. The large spindle on the phonograph meant that only Aretino Records could be played on them (though adapters were available to play Aretino Records on other phonograph machines). The players were sold very cheaply since consumers were locked into purchasing Aretino Records to play on them. This was a tactic employed by a number of Chicago-based record labels, including the Standard Disc Record (½-inch centre hole), Harmony Disc Record (¾-inch centre hole) United Records (1½-inch centre hole), and Busy Bee Records (rectangular cut-out in addition to standard ¼-inch centre hole).

Aretino records were produced as single-sided and double-sided 10-inch discs, and as double-sided 12-inch discs.

Aretino was merged with Busy Bee records in 1910, and Aretino records ceased production around 1914.

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Worlds of Wonder Action Max Game Video (1987 – 1988)

The Action Max was a game console that used VHS video cassettes (called ‘Game Videos’) for live action footage. It was introduced to the US market in 1987 by World of Wonder, a company that had distributed the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the US when it was first introduced.

To play Action Max, you needed a VHS video player to which the console was attached. The console also provided headphones, a light gun and a sensor to attach to the television screen.

The VHS cassettes contained no game data, just analogue live action game footage with special effects, music, and of course the targets to hit. The games were simple shooter games for one or two players, where the player needed to hit targets with the light gun. However, the footage didn’t change even if a target was hit, so for example in the bundled Sonic Fury game, planes might explode whether hit by the player or not. Scoring was by a simple LED counter on the console, and you could lose points by hitting a friendly target. A small built-in speaker played gunshot sounds, and the hit and miss signals – stereo music came from the VHS Game Video cassette and was normally played through the TV’s speaker.

Just five titles were released for the system, all of them being shooter type games due to the limitations of the Action Max system.

Worlds of Wonder filed for bankrupcy in 1988.

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Hickok Cardmatic Tube Tester (late 1950s – late 1960s)

The Hickok Cardmatic name was used a number of different of models (both military and civilian) of vacuum tube (valve) testers. These used plastic punched cards to configure the settings on the device to test specific models of vacuum tube. Due to the number of models of tube available at the time, thousands of cards were required to cover all of them, and the cheaper models came with a few hundred of the most commonly needed card but it was also possible to create additional cards using the blank cards supplied with the tester and a special punch.

The cards had 187 different hole positions, in 17 rows of 11, and so the card reader had 187 electrical contacts for supplying configuration information to the tester, which also offered a range of sockets for plugging in different types of tube.

A small number of other tube testers also used punched cards, including the Western Electric KS-15874 (a rebadged Hickok Cardmatic 1234B), the RCA WT-110A, the TeleTest DynaMatic and the B&K Model 675 Dyna-Quik.

By the mid-1960s, transistors began to replace vacuum tubes in electronic devices.

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Mini Movi (mid 1960s)

The Mini Movi was a small handheld player for silent 8 mm films. Produced by Belco (Bellmann & Co) in West Germany and Austria, it seems to be been introduced in the mid-1960s after Belco moved to using plastic in its toy production.

The film transport in the player was powered by batteries, but there was no internal illumination so it needed to be held in the direction of a light source. Although the cartridge was endless-loop, it still required careful threading into the device.

Each cartridge contained around 5 meters of film (about 16 feet) for around 75 seconds of playback time.

The name ‘Mini Movi’ was also used on an unrelated handheld projector produced by Ideal Toys in the US in the late 1970s.

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Bolex Multimatic (1969 – 1972)

The Bolex Multimatic projector was introduced in 1969, and used cartridges of Super 8 film for projection being sold as ‘the world’s only automatic cartridge changing projector’. Up to six cartridges, each with 50 feet of film, could be loaded and then the Multimatic would then automatically thread them and project them sequentially while rewinding the previous film.

Cartridges could be added to the stack as the Multimatic worked its way through them, and there was a reject button that could be used to skip a partially viewed cartridge and advance to the next one.

The Multimatic could also do forward and rewind projection, still projection, and slow motion.

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110 film slides (1972 – 1982)

Kodak 110 film was a cartridge-based film format for still photography, introduced by Kodak in 1972 for use in its Pocket Instamatic cameras. Both Kodachrome-X and Ektachrome-X colour reversal films were initially available for colour slides.

110 films slides could be mounted in a standard 2 × 2 inch mount, like 35 mm slides and used in a standrard projector, but a 1 × 1 inch mount was available for Kodak Pocket Carousel projectors or the Leica 110 projector. The smaller mount size is much less common.

Kodachrome 110 slide film was available from Kodak until 1982 (it’s unclear if other brands of 110 slide film were available later) and Kodak stopped making 110 cameras around 1994. Lomography re-introduced 110 slide film in 2013, and also produces some 110 cameras for film enthusiasts.

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