Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

You can build a kickass Windows ME machine with that RAM. Well, with a few sticks of it.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Dr. Zoidberg wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:35 pm You can build a kickass Windows ME machine with that RAM. Well, with a few sticks of it.
I had ME installed on an old Compaq 500mhz Celeron. It was decent but honestly I much prefer using XP then Windows 98SE or ME. 98/ME is fine if you just want a PC to play older games and nothing more. 98/ME is too old to be able to use the internet at all. XP is still pretty much completely usable as a daily OS. You can still use a modern web browser to surf the ole information super highway just as well as a newer OS but it still has support for older hardware. Windows 98/ME is good for a stand alone gaming machine but if you want to do much else with it XP is the way to go and so far I haven't had any trouble running older games on XP. I'm sure there are a few games that only run good on original hardware on Windows 95/98/ME but so far I haven't come across any.
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Calavera »

Found an extremely rare piece of vintage audio equipment today. I was very very surprised to see it there!

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A Playtape machine! Model 1604. You might be thinking what the heck is a Playtape? Well I had never heard of them either until a couple years ago when Techmoan did a video on it.


I looked all over the store for any Playtapes but there didn't seem to be any. I'll have to get one and try it out. Here are a few more pictures of the unit. As you can see the inside looks very clean and the belt is even still in tact and functional! It makes me wonder if somebody had replaced it fairly recently as I would be very surprised if a belt from the late 1960s was functional around 50 years later!



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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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No interest in Playtape? :(
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

I've never heard of it. A bit too ancient for me.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by melancholy »

Sorry, I’ve never taken much interest in your audio equipment posts. It’s not my fandom.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Doesn't mean you shouldn't post that stuff though, Cal.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Calavera wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:05 pm No interest in Playtape? :(
No interest in that at all, but you ARE like an American Techmoan!

I have to admit, I read your posts in a Yosemite Sam voice...
If I don't know what any given American sounds like, I automatically read their posts in that voice.
It works really well, and if you were to make retro youtube videos, or do a retro blog, I would follow with great interest.

When I say you're like an American techmoan... He can do the most mundane fucking thing in the whole world.. I mean he's done some seriously, SERIOUSLY tedious things that I've watched... And I watched all of them. I still read all of your posts with almost religious commitment, even if old audio is the most tedious fucking thing in existence...

Literally ANY old technology is more interesting than audio...
OH WOW... A CASSETTE OR 8 TRACK!!!! WHO THE FUCK CARES... SHOW ME AN OLD PRINTING PRESS, TV, ROOM SIZED COMPUTER, CAR, or ANYTHING other than audio devices that every human in the world has covered to death...

WE GET IT, HUMANS HAVE A LOT OF FUCKING WAYS OF RECORDING MUSIC!!!
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Calavera »

I usually pass on old portable TVs. They rarely have inputs so there isn't much you can do with them. I did have to get this one though

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I really like the color and the overall look of it. Most of the older ones are big and bulky and the later ones are small but pretty plain and
boring. This one seems to made somewhere in the middle. It also has an AM/FM radio and an alarm clock so it can still be used for something. Despite it having no video inputs I still managed to get video to it.

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Back to the Future on VHS! I just did the ole touch the coax cable to the antenna trick and it came in decent enough. Since I was messing
around with this portable TV I decided to bring in one of my TV Boomboxes and get some video to show up on it too.

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The Super Mario World opening screen being shown on that boombox zis just awesome! :ocool:

Here is a video I uploaded of me messing around with them.


0:00 Burnout 3 Takedown Xbox (Emerson TV)
0:26 Super Punch Out (Emerson TV)
0:53 Back to the Future VHS (Emerson TV)
1:27 Starfox 64 (Boombox TV)
1:42 Sonic the Hedgehog (Both Emerson and Boombox TV!)

You may notice that the image quality from Back to the Future is much better then the gameplay. I'm not sure why. I am playing the
games with CoinOPS on the original Xbox. I have it hooked into the RCA inputs on the VCR so it is outputting the same way as the VHS
tape. It would be nice if either of them at least had a coaxial input. A direct coax connection would be much better than touching the
cable to the antenna.

Both the Emerson and the boombox has an an input labeled Ext. Antenna and looks similar to a 3.5mm headphone jack. It is on the bottom left corner in the picture below.

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No antenna I've ever seen hooks up with that kind of plug. So I'm thinking there must be some kind of antenna adapter required to use it. While searching for an adapter I found this on Ebay Coax male Adapter For TV that has a Female VCA-1 VCA-2 external antenna port

I wonder if that adapter would basically give me a coaxial input? I realize it is meant for an antenna but I don't see why a VCR or other coaxial device that outputs to channel 3 or 4 wouldn't work. :dontknow"
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by ian »

See, now that’s HEAPS more interesting than old audio... :)
I couldn’t game like that, but I could totally watch all back to the future movies on those screens.
You suck at burnout by the way!

I like partway through the video the clock went from flashing 12 to set.

Are you gonna get the adapter, or make one to try get a better signal or just move on to a more comprehensive old display technology?
If I should Die Hard Arcade before I Alan Wake.
PREY the Lords of Lore my Soul Calibur to Take
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Big Boss Man »

Calavera wrote: Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:05 pm No interest in Playtape? :(
I find your audio finds interesting so this must have passed me by. There are some music releases on the PlayTape format

https://www.discogs.com/search/?country ... t=PlayTape

Mostly they are from Capitol, Reprise, A&M and Parkway.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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ian wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2019 2:22 am
You suck at burnout by the way!

Are you gonna get the adapter, or make one to try get a better signal or just move on to a more comprehensive old display technology?
It is true. When it comes to playing Burnout one handed while looking at a fuzzy 5 inch black and white screen through an old iphone I am no professional. :olol:

I'll probably pick up that adapter at some point just to see if it works. I won't be making one myself, unfortunately I would have no idea how to do so! If I did I'd try to add composite or S-video to it. Really the best way to get video to old portable TVs would be to get some kind of device that broadcasts the video to a certain channel. Then I could have several going at once, even the old Casio handheld TV! Devices like that do exist and I was wanting to buy one a few years ago. I was never able to find one at a decent price though.

Now onto the next old thing that I've bought. A pretty awesome find imo. In all my years of goodwill/flea market searching this is only the third one I've ever come across. A Betamax VCR! And not just a regular old Betamax but a Super Betamax!

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A Sony model SL-HFR70 from 1985. It originally sold for $500 back then. It is crazy how expensive VCRs were back in the 80s. With inflation that is almost $1,200. It would have really sucked to spend that kind of money back then on a Beta machine in 1985 and then have Sony admit defeat and start making VHS machines only 3 years later. Although even by 1985 I think it was pretty clear that VHS was clearly winning the format wars.

It works great. Amazingly well for a machine that is 34 years old. It has RF and composite video output with mono sound but this is a Hi-Fi ready unit. It has a properiatary connector on the back labeled "Beta Hi-Fi" what that does is hook into a separate box either a HFP-100 or HFP-200 which then allows stereo input and output to the machine. I don't know how much that would have cost but it probably wasn't cheap, at least $100 I'd guess. So after spending $500 on your awesome new Betamax you'd have to also spend $100 or more on a secondary box if you wanted stereo sound. $500 didn't even get you a stereo VCR back in 1985!

I picked the Beta up yesterday (Saturday 11/2/19) but I saw it at the flea market a couple days before but passed on it. It was $20 which is twice as much as I'd usually want to pay for something like this. When I first saw it I of course wanted it but didn't know if it was even worth spending $20 on. I looked it up online later after I got home and found that $20 was a pretty cheap price. Even ones sold in non-working condition went for $50+ while working ones have sold from around $100-$200. So I went back to the flea market and picked it up and plugged it into a nearby outlet to test if it worked. It had a tape in it already so I was able to test if it played. When I plugged it in the tape played, fast forward, and rewinded just fine. This didn't mean it would output a pretty picture for sure but I was willing to take a chance. I've already said that it works great so we know the chance paid off.

I mentioned that there was a tape in the machine when I bought it. You know that rumor you hear about how VHS won because it had porn? Well I'm here to tell you that is just not true. You could just as easily get your porn on Beta!

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Of course this was the first tape I tried after hooking everything up. I pressed play and saw it was displaying a nice clear picture of some girl from the 80s sucking on a dick! So whoever had it before the last tape they watched on it was some random porn tape. Pretty hilarious and random that was the tape that was in it. I wonder if the guy selling it even knew or if he just threw it in his booth for $20 without even bothering to power it on.
I didn't watch anymore of the included tape but I'm guessing that besides that dick sucking scene there is probably a large amount of bush. And I'm not talking George W!
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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I found a cable laying around that is a 3.5mm to RCA. I'm pretty sure it is from a camcorder. So I tried it with the external antenna input on the portable TV not expecting much and.... it didn't work! :olol: It did however do something. I had it hooked to a VCR and when the VCR was powered on but play hadn't been pressed it would display a black screen with a kind of scrambled line down the middle around channel 3. When I would press play on the VCR it would go completely to static. I'm not sure but I think it is working in a way but the TV doesn't have the circuitry to process a composite signal. At this point I'm assuming the coaxial adapter I posted before will work fine. If I knew what I was doing I would try to mod that antenna input to accept composite video. It could probably be done fairly easy if you know what you're doing.
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Found this miniature IBM 5150 the other day.
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The fact that it is an official IBM product makes it pretty cool. Not much to say about it just a neat little item.



Also picked up a wired PowerA Spectra controller fox Xbox One/PC. It was missing the usb breakaway cable and the left stick looks like either a kid or an animal had chewed it up quite a bit. I have a few spare USB ends and even a few sticks from some old 360 controllers. When I plugged it in to test it the right analog trigger wasn't working correctly. When I took it apart to replace the stick I sprayed some electrical contact cleaner down into the trigger and pressed it on and off. Now the triggers work fine, it has the USB cable and a new stick. So basically a $40 controller for $3. I might end up using it as my primary PC controller. I'm currently using an official Microsoft wired 360 pad and I really like except for one major problem. It disconnects many times when the cable is moved. I've got one or two aftermarket 360 controllers with the same problem. It is so annoying! Right now I've taped the cord to the back of the controller in a way that it now doesn't disconnect. It is really annoying because I bought it brand new! It was probably around 2013 when I bought it but it has been like this for awhile now. The controller I used before this was a 360 pad that I bought used around 2006 and I used it until I purchased my current one and never had any problems with the cord.
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

That little mock PC is pretty cool.

I got a Casio Casiotone CT-640 for AU$15. It's from 1988 and came with some music books and a Casio keycard thingie.

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It makes some nice Human League/Depeche Mode sounds.

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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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That is a nice keyboard! My favorite one that I've owned was the MT-540 but I ended up selling it since I was offered a decent price for it. Recently though I picked up a MT-240. I really no nothing about playing music, I just like old keyboards. My favorite function of the 540 and the 240 is the demo song. Night Birds!

Here is my MT-240 playing the demo



I'm interested to know if your 640 also has Night Birds as the demo song and if so does it sound much different than it does in the video?
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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

It does play that song and it sounds the same.

Someone has upped the demo to YT. In it he says the MT-240 is the smaller version of the CT-640.




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Re: Calavera's Goodwill/Flea Market Finds 2: Resurrection

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Here is a video I took of my MT-540 when I had it. It is actually a bit different then how the MT-240 and CT-640 plays it. The main difference is that it has some traffic sounds in the beginning.

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