168 168 Never Quit

Ferry Bring Peoples From Side To Side On Mekong River Of Cambodia

2021-08-26T20:31:00.004-07:00

Ferry Bring Peoples From Side To Side On Mekong River Of Cambodia

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Mix Plants Along The Street

The Best Palm Trees Of Cambodia

2021-08-26T20:21:00.002-07:00

The Best Palm Trees Of Cambodia

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The Building & Garden In Kok Pich Island1

Wonderful Trees In Garden At Kok Pich Island

2021-08-26T20:09:00.004-07:00

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Wonderful Trees In Garden At Kok Pich Island

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Pedro Cactus Of Cambodia

The Small Tree & Plants In White Port

2021-08-26T20:07:00.001-07:00

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The Small Tree & Plants In White Port

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Great House In Cambodia

The Best Of Green Garden In Kok Pich Island

2021-08-26T20:00:00.005-07:00

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Cambodian Small business

The Jatropha & Grapefruit Of Cambodia

2021-08-26T19:55:00.004-07:00

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Wonderful Trees Of Cambodia

The Jatropha & Grapefruit Of Cambodia

Sugar Palm Trees & The Bridge cross River At Kampong Cham Province

2021-08-26T19:48:00.002-07:00

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Coconut Tree

Sugar Palm Trees & The Bridge cross River At Kampong Cham Province

The Builing & Garden In Kok Pich Island1

2021-08-26T19:32:00.002-07:00

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Khmer Trees

The Builing & Garden In Kok Pich Island1

The Fresh Air & Green Plants By Village In Kampong Cham Province

2021-08-26T19:23:00.001-07:00

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The Fresh Air & Green Plants By Village In Kampong Cham Province

Night Street

In The Morning On 6 National Road To Kampong Cham Province

2021-08-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

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In The Morning On 6 National Road To Kampong Cham Province

Great Flowers

Wonderful Plants In Garden

2021-08-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

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Wonderful Plants In Garden

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Wonderful Plants In Garden

Nice Moon

The Sun Nearly all Go Down

2021-08-26T18:54:00.001-07:00

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The Sun Nearly all Go Down

Great Street

The Green Garden Between Royal Palace & Mekong River

2021-08-26T18:49:00.002-07:00

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The Green Garden Between Royal Palace & Mekong River

Green Garden 2

The Pigeons On Garden

2021-08-26T18:40:00.006-07:00

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The Pigeons On Garden

Mekong River

The Mekong River Of Cambodia

2021-08-26T18:37:00.004-07:00

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The Mekong River Of Cambodia

Green garden

The Flag Of Cambodia In Front Royal Palace

2021-08-26T18:26:00.005-07:00

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Nice Tree In The Garden

2021-08-26T18:05:00.003-07:00

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The Best Green Garden In Front Of Royal Palace

2021-08-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

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Lovely Green Garden In front Of Royal Palace

2021-08-26T06:10:00.008-07:00

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Lovely Green Garden In front Of Royal Palace

Lovely Tree

How To Fried Fish

2021-08-26T05:51:00.004-07:00

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How To Fried Fish

Their Best Yet! SAMSUNG GALAXY S21

2021-03-27T01:20:00.001-07:00

We have new spec leaks and renders for the samsung galaxy s21 and I’ll be sharing the details right after this. So this week we’ve got some galaxy s21 spec leaks new renders showing off its design hints of an in-display selfie camera in news that it’s going to be their best smartphone yet before we get started though please like the video if you’re a fan of samsung devices but the first story of today is news that the samsung galaxy s21 firmware development has already begun some mobile have reported that the development has started in the united states for all of the major galaxy s21 carriers and it is of course.

Based on android 11 and they’re likely going to be calling it one ui 3.1 they also report that they’re currently only developing firmware for the 5g enabled galaxy s 21 which is very interesting news this could be because they wanted the 5g completed first but it also could very likely be that all versions of the s21 are going to be 5g compatible and maybe they won’t offer an let version next up we’ve got samsung devices in china’s 3c certifications that are believed to be the galaxy s21 and the galaxy s21 plus while not much info.

Can be taken from these it does confirm their battery capacities on the standard galaxy s21 we’ve got a cell rated at 3 80 milliamp hours and on the s21 plus we’ve got a 4 60 milliamp hour rated cell now it’s important to note that these are the rated values and not the typical values the typical values will actually be higher this means that were expecting a 4 800 milliamp hour battery for the galaxy s21 plus and of course because were getting the new snapdragon 875 along with the exynos 1000 system on chip they’re both more energy efficient which means the battery life will be much better than before next up.

We’ve got a concept video from concept creator that showcases the samsung galaxy s21 ultra and its incredible and as always links to his channel are down in the description below for those that want to check it out while we haven’t had any solid leaks on the design yet were not expecting any huge changes from the predecessor we expect the galaxy s21 to be a similar shape but with trim down bezels and better hardware and cameras a likely change though is going to be the focus sensor instead of the time of flight but this is pretty much.

What we’re going to be seeing well we have been told a few times in the past the galaxy s21 would not have an in-display camera its now looking like it could while other manufacturers have already accomplished this to some extent reliable leaker ice universe advises that samsung displays in display selfie camera solution is further ahead than others samsung have stricter requirements than other brands and the under display camera of the galaxy s21 is in Schrodinger’s cat state samsung displays are arguably the best mobile display maker.

In the world and that’s why they also make the displays for popular brands such as apple and oneplus you can be rest assured that they won’t release it until its fully ready but when they do release it will work well it’s very exciting to hear that it may finally be making its way to the galaxy s21 and of course as soon as we hear more on this ill update you guys straight away so it’s great that were able to share just positive news on the galaxy s21 for you guys today for those interested were now going to run through the full details of the galaxy s21 and as always for my regular.

If you are new here then hit subscribe now and were gonna jump right into it when it comes to the actual design of the samsung galaxy s21 the truth is it really doesn’t matter too much right now well there may be a design in mind and a prototype already out there at samsung it won’t have been finalized just yet so it could of course still change we can however get information on hardware and specs that are unlikely to change the first actual leak we have comes from well-known leaker ice universe and he published a tweet last week to say that samsung is considering an in-display camera sensor on the samsung galaxy s21.

He advises that they’re evaluating the feasibility of the technology and if its ready then it will be in the galaxy s21 everyone has been very excited for this new technology and its always been expected that 2021 is gonna be the year its delivered we can finally have a full screen display without motorized parts and the only thing that people are worried about is the additional cost that it might bring we’ve also got reports suggesting that this in-display selfie camera is going to be using a half inch selfie sensor with a 48 megapixel resolution the samsung galaxy s21 will of course be using the new and improved next generation oiled display we’ve had patents filed for curved displays with protruding buttons.

We’ve now got a new patent showcasing a very curved display the patent was discovered by lets go digital and it was rendered by concept creator it shows a display that’s not only curved at both edges but it also has curves at the top and the bottom while it does look similar to the new design from Huawei its actually very different its Huawei’s is just the glass and not the display itself the pattern is for the screen To curve on all edges and it consists of the rounded off corners now we recognize it is intended for a galaxy as it was listed as a galaxy smartphone display and it’s also logged as that on the world intellectual property office database.

Its full screen design means that it will of course have an in-display fingerprint scanner and it help fuels reports that the in-display selfie camera will be there as well some people are speculating that this is of course for the note 20 but many believe it’s for the galaxy s21 next we’ve got news of an incredible 150 megapixel nano cell camera to debut in the galaxy s21 they already broke records with the latest 108 megapixel sensor that we saw in the s20 ultra and now they’re pushing the boundaries even further the new 150 megapixel camera is going to be launching towards the end of this year which will most likely be too late for the note range and this means.

We could well have it debuting in the galaxy s21 we also had patents filed by samsung for multiple technologies that could also be present in the galaxy s21 we had a patent for a holographic projector to produce stereoscopic images in the air almost like a 3d hologram well it could be a cool feature i think it’s just too gimmicky and not something well see in the s21 we also had patents filed for a lot of sensors that were initially thought to be in the galaxy note 20 but they are now looking very unlikely this means if they are to go ahead with these plans.

Then we could well see them in the s21 instead first we’ve got mention of an electromyography or emg sensor now emg is used to measure electrical signals generated by muscles and can be used to assess the health of a muscle and the nerve cells that control them we also have mention of an electro encephalogram sensor or eeg sensor this is again to measure electrical signals but instead of muscles eeg sensors are for measuring our brain activity finally.

We have the electrocardiogram or ecg sensor this measures electrical activity of the heart and help diagnose abnormal heart rhythms while we always get many patterns filed which do fuel rumors of new features I believe if any are to be true then it’s going to be the new sensors that we see in the s21 while a holographic projector would be an incredible feature it would be very limited in its use and not something i can see them doing fitness and health are very popular at the moment and used commonly.

In today’s phone peripherals so I assume this would be a remarkable fit for the s21 now of course all of that is estimation and hypothesis from patents samsung document a lot of patents to protect their ideas and it doesn’t mean it’s definitely going to be happening one thing we can be certain of though is that the galaxy s21 is of course going to come in a few different sizes to suit all consumers it’s going to have the latest samsung display along with the best hardware and cameras they can source at the time going by the current releases we can expect them to stick with the rectangular shaped camera module on the rear and they’re going to provide three to six cameras depending on variants when it comes to the chipset.

They’ll of course be using the snapdragon 875 which is a 5 nanometer system on chip it’s going to provide better performance and efficiency over the current chipsets used and unfortunately as usual this is only going to be for certain regions including north America and for most markets globally well be getting the equivalent exynos chip that doesn’t actually perform as well likely get the usual choices of 128 256 or 512 internal storage and this will of course be ufs 3.1 when it comes to ram well likely be getting a choice of 12 or 16 gigs of ram which is still more than were ever gonna need there will likely be a hybrid sim tray to support micros cards.

But there won’t be a three and a half mil audio jack it’s going to have all of the usual sensors and we can of course expect an in-display fingerprint scanner until the design and the screen sizes are finalized we unfortunately cant estimate the battery capacity but expect slight improvements on the predecessors and of course wireless and reverse wireless charging as always it’s going to be ip68 water resistant and when it comes to price its no doubt going to be expensive samsung surprised us with just how high the galaxy s20 ultra launched at so it’s going to be interesting to see if they create another very premium device or work at bringing this cost down of course there’s unfortunately a lot of speculation right now.

But as soon as we receive any solid leaks I’ll be sharing them with you guys straight away as always though I’d like to know your thoughts in the comments who out there is waiting for the samsung galaxy s21 and are you happy with the news that we may be getting an in-display camera but thanks for watching.

Thrifts Ep.46 Back to RealThrifts

2021-03-27T01:04:00.002-07:00

Oh my goodness!

Are we actually going thirsting again? Yes!

In fact, I’ve never stopped. It’s just, it’s been cut down dramatically over the past year or so due to ongoing circumstances as they are. But yeah, even when I have gone, not very frequently, but whenever I go, it’s just not the same, you know, there’s not really the same amount or quality of just interesting things to show on any kind of episode of Thrifts. So, I just haven’t acquired as much footage as quickly and yeah, that’s why it’s taken however many months it has to get another real thirsting episode out. But, here we are. I have accumulated enough footage and put it all together for your viewing pleasure. So, let’s go thirsting!

Oh yeah. It’s a nice day out. And it’s nice to be back at Goodwill again. And as soon as I got inside, I’m greeted by a slightly different sight than usual, a bunch of electronics near the front of the store instead of the back. Including a whole bunch of neat little monitors but, what drew my eye even more was this 1950s looking Magnavox stereo system with a turntable, made in England apparently. Check out that old logo, that old design just everything about this. That paint job with the tan and black and kind of champagne gold. Oh yeah. And up above that with all those monitors, there were a bunch of 4:3 aspect ratio ones that caught my attention.

But, the main one that did was this NEC Multi Sync 1540 M. Nice little 15 inch deals. Got built in speakers, missing some components around back, which was kind of unfortunate, but you know, nice monitor for someone in need of that aspect ratio. And hey, just around the corner from that was no shortage of old records, including a whole box full of 33 1/3 vinyl on top. And a whole bunch of 12 inch and 10 inch records down below that. That are much more substantial, shellac type of things. Yeah. Whole lot of RCA Victor stuff, An intriguing collection, although mostly covered in mold and you could smell it.

Just out from there in the media, a couple of things caught my eye immediately. Namely, Microsoft Encarta: 1994 Edition on CD-ROM. It’s a little bit older than I normally see in terms of Encarta releases. And Hey, this is an AST OEM version. So, packed in with one of their Advantage computers probably. Oh, and of course we got a Zoombinis game down there too. Zoombinis Island Odyssey. Mm! Nothing I’m needing and neither was this. But it was just darn pleasant to see we’ve got a couple of big box games or bigger boxes. With the first one, a CD-ROM classics edition of Wing Commander Privateer. And their slimmer very cost reduced box. And below that, the ever-present Myst. Pretty much guarantee you’ll see one of these at every single Goodwill period.

But, you don’t always see it in the box. So you know what, whatever, I haven’t been to thrift stores in a long time. So this was kind of exciting just to see a big box PC game in a while again. And even more exciting than that, seeing a boxed application in the wild. Now this is increasingly my thing as the years go on. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but whatever man. Print Master Gold for Windows, in the box with the stuff and the disks. Yes, please. I did not have a version of Print Master this old and I’m rather fond of these print programs. I don’t know. I just like em all. So this one I’m grabbing and putting it on my shelf. Got milk? Or, at least a bunch of milk, what are these?

Whatever you call them. Those classic almost antique cans. Looking like they’ve been out in the elements for a while. But hey, if that’s aluminum, I’m sure that’s uh... a material. And then over by a shelf near the front of the store was an intriguing selection of older books. Mostly from the early 20th century, some late 19th century. But all marked $5, which is way more than books normally go for a Goodwill. I guess cause they thought they were told they could mark em up but, there’s like an antique shop just down the road that sells like a whole group of old books, this old or older, for five bucks for like 10 of them. So, yeah these’ve been there for like six months now. Check out this Rolodex.

All metal except for the parts that aren’t, which kind of felt like Bakelite, but yeah, classic Rolodex logo and clunky sound of moving this thing around, 1960s kind of thing. Just a little older than most I come across. And then up above the balls, we got a little guy here. Who is this?

A spark plug with a party hat? Ah, he’s skiing. Sparky Do-or-Die. Sparky you do you. Can tell he’s got a real spring in his step. Oh hey look at this. We’ve got some lighter hued wood grain down here, turntable from Zenith. Yeah. Just a lot of mid-century goodies have been running across lately at these Goodwill’s. Look at this cool turntable. Those knobs and all the components painted white in the middle there. I don’t know. Just gotta design that really appeals. Ooh. Also appealing in a different way.

Is this JVC down here, a KD-A55 stereo cassette deck. Fantastic looking VU meters. The red has faded into a yellowish-gold but, I have always dug this JVC aesthetic. And the fact that the tape deck is on the right instead of the left is yeah.

Its, it’s kind of a thing I enjoy. Has a nice metal tape inside too, which that’s pretty cool on its own. You don’t see those terribly often in the wild. Yeah. Overall an impressive little deck. And just down from that, I was intrigued by this little carrying case thought it might be binoculars or something, but, nope. Check this out. It’s just a little thing made for holding Realistic speakers from Radio Shack. From their Minimums line of speakers. I don’t know. I just like the case that they came in.

And that was that. I see Okinawa. Yeah. Classic dot matrix printer down here, a Microcline 192. One of their Personal Printers. And it was made to be a little bit smaller, not take up as much space on a desk. Not as impressive as some other dot matrices but, it is what it is and I like seeing these. Still had a ribbon in there too. Probably dry but, whatever. I’m not gonna hold that against it. Okie-doke, Okinawa. Above that saw an Apple logo on a box that got my attention. And it turns out to one of their AirPort Extremes. One of the fifth generation ones from, I don’t know, nine or 10 years ago or something. Don’t check if it was in there but the box was darn heavy, so. I just didn’t care enough to check. I cared a little bit more about this right here.

We got a Sony Mavica. I really enjoy these floppy disk cameras. This is one of their FD-71 models. I’m not needing any more of them, but I always enjoy seeing them make an appearance. They’re just fun little cameras. And they provide an intriguing aesthetic to your photos. And down below that, check this little thing out. We’ve got a 13 inch CRT down here. JVC Master Command. Yeah, really like the way this looked. $2. It’s a color TV built in December of 1990 and its only got RF input. So I’m not gonna grab it. I just don’t need any more RF little TVs of this size, but dang it. I liked the way it looks. I hope somebody gives it a good home. Huh! Well, this is a tad unusual for a Goodwill find, we get an EVGA PC ATX power supply down here. 500 watts for $20. Just tossed in with the rest of the electrical crap over here.

It’s not modular or really anything special, but worth pointing out, I suppose. Alright. Yeah, we gotta check this our see that Slim Cam logo on the bag down there. What have we got here?

We’ve got a Sharp Slim Cam. It was indeed a slim camera. A VHS one with Zoom 8 CATS EYE 2Lux artificial intelligence system. Yeah. I don’t know man, but, that seemed pretty cool for what it is. I just like the fact that its slim considering its full sized VHS in there. And then I also noticed this little guy, look at this. We got a Micronta alarm clock with a classy little bit of wood grain going on and you know, this blue display, I just had to check it out. It looked neat. So I plugged it in and what do you know?

It’s neat. I don’t really need it but I just, again, I like looking at it. So I looked at it and then I put it back. If I’m gonna buy an alarm clock, it’s gotta be a little more special than that. Though that display here is pretty darn cool. All right. Onto this Goodwill down this way and yeah, they have finished the Panera Bread construction over there and it is finally open. I don’t think inside. I don’t know. Maybe it is. The drive through definitely is. Anyway, Goodwill!

That’s why we’re here. And immediately up front I see this box for a GE Deluxe Automatic Record Changer. But inside is not that. Instead we’ve got some components for another Magnavox turntable mid-century type of thing Microsmatic. Gotta love model names like that. But yeah, that was all that was in here. Kind of underwhelming, not even a complete thing.

Now this Case Logic cassette case on the other hand, this is a little more of just more. Look at all these. Got some Def Leppard, ZZ Top, Cheap Trick, Bon Jovi, Neil Diamond, Beaches. Someone’s 80s tape collection ended up here all at once. And then down in the case below that looked like something that had never been opened or used, a Sima Copy Kit 3. Home Theater Copy Center. I didn’t take it out of the case, but I was mighty intrigued by what I was seeing on the box itself. Turns out this is kind of like a home televise kit. Where you take a video camera, point it at this little lens area and then whatever is projecting through the front of the copy kit is transferred to your videotape. That’s actually pretty cool.

I’d never seen one of these before and now I have. I’m curious how well it works. And I gotta say, thirsting during a pandemic has been weird but you’re reminded of how weird it has been every so often with things like this. Four rolls of toilet paper for a $1, which I mean there was a shortage. So, you know. Same goes for hand sanitizer.

They had tons of these bottles, this store, and many of the other stores in the area. Alcohol antiseptic, 80% topical solution. Just kind of generic bottles with a label slapped on there looking shady. Hey, whatever. People needed this stuff and it was here at Goodwill. All right. Over in the furniture and look at this. This is not a pool table, even though that’s what the tag said. I mean, I guess it was technically kind of sort of correct.

This is a Bumper Pool Table. It’s a lot smaller than regular billiards. But yeah. This might be the first one of these I’ve seen at Goodwill. So, that alone made it worth looking at for a second. And now were not gonna look at it. We’re gonna look at this Wurlitzer over here, because man, look at this. The phenomenal retro-ness of it, all those colorful keys, the key pad, it’s even got a built in compact cassette recorder. Yeah, that’s just awesome. It’s no wonder somebody already bought it. Ah, this thing was neat. I just approve. It smelled like mildew and cigarettes. Now these two boxes over here certainly got my attention cause there were two of them. And inside were a bunch of unused six and a half ounce of wine glasses marked California YR Convention 1980 I think is what it said. I don’t know why it cracks me up, but it does.

Yeah, there’s two boxes of em. Anyway, take a look at this BASF! Or rather enjoyably colorful floppy disc holder for five and a quarter inch diskettes. B.A.S.F-branded goodness. I’ve got one pretty darn similar to this. No, I don’t need it but, you know what? floppy holders, they’re fun. Even more fun with color. Ooh. Hey, here we go. We got a CD player as old as I am 1986, Sony CDP-45. Much like myself the design is aged. Look at all the squares and the rectangles, the play and pause buttons. I just like the way this looks always have. Up and over from there was another tape deck that I approve of. This one being a Toshiba, which is a brand I just don’t see very often in terms of cassette decks.

In fact, I can’t think of any others I’ve ever seen thirsting. I don’t know. Regardless, It was a pretty sweet looking deck. I like their design language. And the model number, PC-G50R. Yeah. Good stuff. Then I found this little thing down here. Pretty intriguing as well. This is a Radio Shack amplified video selector. That’s just a bunch of RF connectors on the back to go to different equipment. But, what intrigued me was all the remote control-like functions in a box. Like the fact that you could not only switch to a different device to see, but also things like cable, auxiliary, VCR, antenna, that kind of thing in a box instead of the handheld remote. And down below the clocks that were no doubt sold at Brendles in 1990, we had something that was a little more my style. Check this out. A Music Star Multimedia Music System.

Plugs into any PC with a sound card. Just a little mini keyboard for the PC. Or really anything. The only thing that made this quote unquote for the PC was the fact that it has an interface to plug into your sound card, the game port, as well as some software. I have another one by Reveal that I plan to cover at some point. So, I didn’t grab this but, it was exciting to see a thrift store shelf like this. And I also absolutely love this picture on the back. That Packard Bell setup, looks so much like my computer I had back then. Let’s see. Down below that we got a box of eight track tapes, just loosely thrown in there. A format that I’d still kind of like to mess around with at some point. Especially with the recorders.

In fact, you’ll see a blank one that has been recorded onto in here. But yeah I just, you know, nothing I was needing in here or wanting, rather. Whatever. 8 track, it’s a thing. Always has my attention. And checking out the CDs because of course you gotta do it. This stood out immediately, this little Palm desktop software package. I looked around the store to make sure that the PDA itself wasn’t around somewhere. That would be fun to get, but nope. Just the software nothing special. Apparently it was to a IIIxe Handheld, year 2000. All right. More electronics. There’s always more electronics. What the heck is this? A black and white and color line amplifier?

You know, I don’t know exactly what this does. Now I’m assuming it amplifies lines and a color and black and white variety with stuff going on. Around back it had what appeared to be RJ-11 and S-video. Not the connections I was expecting to be honest. Anyway, the model number is HLA819MD. If you’re interested in looking it up. Ooh! And check this out. Up above that. This kind of reminded me of that Technics M1 that Techmoan covered at one point. It’s not that though. This is a Sony Tran Sound CFS-3000 cassette recorder, or at least part of it. The speakers aren’t here. So it’s just this detachable little system in the middle but, I kind of really like the way that it looks without the speakers.

Who needs speakers?

You just plug in headphones, carry this around. That’s my idea of a good time. Oh! What is this?

Look at all this, big old beefy, Panasonic wooden thing. Has a solid wood cabinet, ah. And inside, got a solid state radio turntable. Really cool kind of unit. I don’t see too many of. And down from there was another Panasonic thing, a little bit newer. Also a turntable with a radio, but had this intriguing dial area. It looks like it would be something if it lit up, but, it’s not lit up. So, it’s not much to look at here but, anyway, here’s the thing. I like things. All right! One more Goodwill. Because, it’s here. And I am too. And inside, hey, look at this. They’re selling toilet paper as well, but at least theirs is wrapped up and not just like random rolls tossed on a table. Over on the other side of the counter, I immediately noticed the little stack of PC games here.

Really the standout one was Zoo Tycoon 2 Endangered Species, but still, even in the smaller boxes, physical PC games at Goodwill, it’s an increasingly not as common sight, which is just weird. Let’s take a second to admire this whole retro office set up kind of thing on this desk here. We got the Rolodex, we got the wedge, a little solar powered calculator and a pen holder and a thing for like paper clips and whatnot, just stuck in a block of wood. And then next to the leathery briefcase thing over here is this typewriter. The Graduate, is what it’s called. Mrs. Sears, you’re trying to seduce me. It almost worked.

All right. What is this?

BBC Music Like that BBC?

Yeah, I doubt it. It’s probably just from some church, probably like Bible Baptist Church. There’s like a billion of those and they’re all titled BBC around here, anyway. I was just drawn to the spray paint stencil. Nice touch. Also drawn to these little Franklin computers. Like always. Even though I have a couple of them, they’re completely underwhelming. Doesn’t matter. Little computer, retro things in your hand with an LCD, this is the Word Master. It’s just a dictionary. With a few other little features. It is what it is. And then behind that, just gotta give props to the Fellowes floppy disk holder as a fellow that holds a lot of floppy disks himself, I approve. Across from there, in the random junk section was bunch of random junk, randomly.

And this junk randomly stood out. It was a ceramic apple server pack still sealed for who knows how long. The thing that really kind of caught me off guard was the fact that there were still cider mix in there. That was just, who knows how old. It just amuses me to see these kinds of gifts that get re-gifted forever, or just end up in a closet for decades until it ends up at Goodwill. Oh, check out these appliance boxes. That Emerson microwave on top, I admire how simple it is. Literally a switch between cook and defrost and you got a timer, that’s it. And then down below that, that was another microwave with some awesome rainbows going on, but nope, this is something called a Harvest Maid. Really it’s just a dehydrator with a timer.

Fantastic graphics. I don’t know. Its old enough that its weirdly appealing and kind of not. And then finally, just browsing through some final electronics. Noticed this Gateway 2000 desktop keyboard. Not really old enough for anything I would want, but hey, at least its beige. Honestly though, It’s what was above that, that brought me over to this wall in the first place.

Check it out. Didn’t know what I was looking at first, but yeah, it’s a little alarm clock lamp by Spartus. And there’s something about it that just immediately was like screaming out to me to bring it home. First I had to see if it worked. I like the red LEDs in the wood grain, but if it doesn’t work. But no. Turns out it does work. The bulb works,

the clock display works, everything works.

It’s a little worn down after however many decades, but aren’t, we all?

I’m taking it home. And that is it for this episode of LGR Thrifts. You know, I only got two things over the last, what, eight months? 10, I don’t know how long it’s been. It’s been awhile, but that’s fine. It’s been a degum journey getting here. And I don’t just mean going to thrift stores. I mean, not going to thrift stores. You know, just like everything else going on in the world. And whatever. I got a cool looking little lamp clock. I love this thing. I’ve been using it all the time. Its oddly enjoyable to just turn on and use and bring into areas that I’m working on smaller electronics, man! Does it have a smell!

There’s something about the way that it heats up with that little incandescent bulb in there and the metal and the dust and everything else. It gets warm. And it has a, I don’t know, it roasts in a certain old way. That’s extremely nostalgic.

Reminds me of a million things from childhood that just burned. Alight, whatever man.

the 1996 Voice-Activated Virtual Pet, Fin Fin

2021-03-27T00:50:00.004-07:00

The late 1990s, they were the golden age of virtual pets. Those keychain devices like Tamagotchi, Digimon, and Giga Pets were nearly unavoidable. And you can’t forget the trendsetting computer games, Catz and Dogz, plopping digital animals on your desktop. Then pet games got a bit weird, like Petz spinoff Oddballz that had you caring for funky ball monsters.

And of course, Yoot Saito’s cult classic Seaman, where the big draw was that it came with a microphone letting you speak to your water bound pet, instead of simply pressing a few buttons here and there. But it wasn’t the first pet game to do this, because a few years prior we got Fin Fin on Teo the Magic Planet courtesy of Fujitsu Interactive in 1996. Initially it was sold only in Japan, but several Fin variants released internationally for Windows PCs over the following year or so, like this US Deluxe Edition from 1997.

And yep, it came with its own microphone, like Seaman would a few years later. A pretty attractive prospect in 1997 considering the whole package cost just $60. A comparable mic cost between $15 and $30 back then, so if your PC didn’t have one already, it was a nice bonus even if the game sucked. And that is the question though: what kind of game is Fin Fin, is it any good, and why have I heard almost nothing about it?

Because I mean, the allure of a voice-controlled virtual pet game in ‘97 is pretty great. Just look at this hype on the box, all kinds of marketing blurbs promising innovative interactions, fantastic environments, and weird little creatures living in your PC. And the press sure talked it up back then too, with a large emphasis on the voice-controlled aspect, of course. But also lots of lofty ideas about artificial life forms and a new form of AI, termed emotional “emulation.” Turns out parts of Fin Fin were based on work done at Carnegie Mellon University under the Oz Interactive Fiction Project.

This was a computerized authoring system designed to aid in the creation of “interactive dramas,” where users interacted with computer programs to produce “rich, highly interactive worlds, inhabited by dynamic and complex characters, and shaped by aesthetically pleasing stories.” Effectively a form of AI that didn’t simply mimic intellect, but emulated cognition and emotion, conveying feelings instead of only intelligence. Project Oz director Joseph Bates compared it to Disney animation, saying You look at what people care about in animals or animations or many of their friends. Can they see emotion, can they see purpose, can they see goals. It’s not something scientists know, it’s something animators and artists know.

If you want characters that are personality rich, that are interactive living characters, listen to the writers, artists, and animators. They should be the boss. To that end, Fujitsu ended up hiring Makoto Tezuka as the project’s lead producer, son of legendary cartoonist and animator, Osamu Tezuka. Yeah, like I said, all kinds of lofty ambitions and inventiveness going on behind the scenes here. So when I randomly ran across a copy of Fin at a thrift store years ago and did some research, I was mighty intrigued. So let’s not wait any longer, and dive into the box to get this promised emotionally complex dolphin bird installed on Windows 95. First up inside Fin Deluxe is this pamphlet saying not to open it, so uh. Guess we won’t! Next is a keyboard quick reference card, more handy than usual since the main game doesn’t use a mouse.

It also came with a set of stickers, showing Fin Fin in half a dozen poses doing things with his wonky chicken feet. Then there’s the game itself in a jewel case, which I was surprised to see comes on two CD-ROMs. Typically PC games bragged about having multiple discs all over the box back then, but not here. And inside the case is where we find the instructions, a 24-page booklet going over the basics of installation, troubleshooting, and gameplay, but not much more than that. It leaves most information out to be discovered by playing with Fin Fin, or by reading an on-disc encyclopedia. It also advertises this fascinating little device, the Fujitsu Smartsensor. I haven’t been able to find one of those, but it seems to be a repurposed motion sensor from a home alarm system, so the game can see when you move. Or, so you can “GIVE FIN EYES” as it puts it.

I think I’m good, Fin Fin eyes are staring into my soul already. And yeah okay, we can’t just ignore that brochure from earlier. It’s just a product catalog, showing other games they published and a few bits of related Fin merch. The eyeball sensor, an animated storybook, a Fin Fin plushie. And this was the only the beginning, there was also a Fin Fin watch, the Fin Fin coloring book, key chains, coffee mugs, mouse pads, a spin-off rhythm game called Tan Teo, an album of Fin Fin club anthems...

Yeah! And of course, we can’t forget the included microphone, packed alongside a little plastic whistle on a brown string. Yeah we’ll get to that, this is interesting. As is the microphone itself, I was kind of expecting a classic gooseneck design. But nope, it’s only a little mic on a stick, with one of those circular holders designed to adhere to a CRT monitor. And with that, it’s time to install Fin Fin and strike up a friendship with an alien dolphin bird!

Fin Fin begins with an installation sequence, but one that I haven’t quite seen before. Instead of a setup program, you’re dropped right into a Windows Help screen, which is how it launches the actual installation. Weird. Anyway, once that does its thing, you’re greeted with the Fin Fin Microphone Setup screen. Which is really just a volume meter letting you see that your mic is picking up sound loudly enough without clipping. An incredibly important thing to dial in, it turns out, we’ll get to that. For now let’s jump straight into the game, kicking off with some cosmic animations and enjoyably ethereal music. Welcome to Teo, The Other Earth!

At first I thought “TEO” was an acronym, but then I realized “The Other Earth” would be “TOE” and I guess that’s not as marketable. Anyway, Planet Teo is a lush world in a galaxy far away, an M-class planet described as being a lot like our own. With a 24-hour day and 365-day year, conveniently, and animals that resemble Earth creatures but they’re all bizarre and look like a SimLife creation. Hence, Fin Fin being a half-dolphin with flipper wings and bird feet.

And in order to start communicating with him, you’ll need to register as a Contac tee. Like so many other pet games, this involves the player entering their name, sex, and birthday so the game can determine how to treat them during situations year-round. And of course, Fin Fin works with your computer’s clock, synching up so that the simulation is quote “always running in the background,” even though all it’s really doing is triggering certain events based on preset times and dates.

And yeah, it’s onto disc two! Already! Wasn’t expecting to have to do that so soon seeing as we’ve done basically nothing. But yeah, turns out the entire second disc is where most of the action happens. Disc one is for taking care of the installation and profile creation stuff, and the entire rest of the disc contains the Fin Fin Encyclopedia. And this is where the majority of the documentation lies, which I’m glad to see because the jewel case manual really left a lot to be desired. It’s a nicely-designed virtual book filled with multimedia examples of all the game’s main features, like how to talk to and feed Fin Fin, what kind of events and weather you’ll run into, and a scrapbook of your own screenshots, plus a list of Planet Teo’s flora and fauna.

Heh, just look at all these goofy critters, aren’t they great? It’s like Spore a decade early. And I love Banana Deer. Banana Deer is the best. So uh, yeah! Let’s meet Fin Fin! Or try to anyway. At first, the dude is rather elusive, with most screens either showing a brief glimpse of him in the background or more often than not, nothing at all. The map screen shows the current location of Mr. Fin Fin but even if you travel there, it’s no guarantee that he’ll give a crap. As with Earth’s own cetacean poultry, Fin Fin is a dolphin bird that remains as consistently cautious as he is curious. Initially, Fin Fin ignores your existence more often than not, going about his flipper in business from moment to moment. But once you make a sound you’ll have his attention, provided the sound you’ve made is loud enough without being too loud.

And I gotta say, if you turn off the analytical side of your brain for a moment, it’s pretty darn magical taken at face value. Having a virtual being respond to your voice and react with animated expressions, yeah, that’s still neat to see now and it would’ve been even better in ‘96, ‘97. -I see you over there. Why don’t you come over here? And get some better footage?

I see your happiness going up. And in relation to competing cyber-pets back then, it’s easy to see what drew people into Fin Fin. Colorful, lush environments, a full 24-hour day and night cycle, a weather system with cloud formations and passing storms, dozens of surreal alien critters wandering around randomly, a serene ambient soundscape that’s nice to leave on in the background. And then the simple act of watching Fin doing his thing being a dolphin bird, with or without your direct involvement. He flies, he swims, he eats and sleeps.

He wanders from place to place around the planet at will, between the five map locations available here in the Deluxe Edition. He’ll even sing songs, either on special occasions like your birthday or randomly whenever he’s feeling a certain way. It’s all wonderfully pleasant stuff. However, regarding the whole interactive aspect of the interactive virtual pet experience?

Well, after a couple minutes playing around, what’s going on becomes painfully obvious. As charming as the old Fibster is, he’s simply rigged to respond to about five or six sounds of a specific volume and pitch. Remember that mic setup application? That’s a pretty good example of what it’s doing. So long as you’re making sounds that aren’t too loud or too harsh, Fin Fin responds positively. It doesn’t matter what sound it is, or what you happen to be saying, as long as it’s quiet. Otherwise, if you’re a little aggressive or simply too loud, you’ll get a negative reaction.

Yep. That’s it, that’s what you can do with the mic! Make sounds that are either soft or loud. The only other thing it listens for is the whistle, emitting a tone the program uses to grab Fin Fin’s attention if all else fails. In fact, you don’t even have to use a microphone or the plastic whistle at all. Fin responds just as well to the pre-recorded sounds it comes with, triggered by pressing W, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 on the keyboard. Yeah. For all the hype about voice control and emotional AI, Fin Fin’s a little disappointing.

It actually reminds me of the Maxis Kids game, Marty and the Trouble With Cheese. That also came with a microphone and was comparably limited in how it only listened for sound in general, not unique words or commands. To Fin Fin’s credit though, the program doesn’t try to hide how limited it is.

It’s pretty straightforward about Finny inability to understand speech and the way it works is laid out clearly in its Sound Recorder Setup program. This lets you play the built-in sounds or record your own. Keep an eye on the volume meter and you get an idea of the levels it’s looking for. Of course, the best part of this simplicity is the fact that you can say anything you want, and even record your own sounds to play back at any time. And again, as long as it’s within the preset volume range, it’ll work as intended!

Hey get over here, jerk! Now that we’re armed with recordings and knowledge of Fenton’s limitations, befriending the blue bugger is a piece of cake. Simply whistle to lure him towards you, make soft sounds to begin with, medium sounds after that, and always avoid being loud. And that’s about it. After half an hour or so of following him around from place to place, Finnegan will warm up to you and begin accepting your presence. Keep track of how he’s feeling by bringing up his stats if you like, although it’s really not too important. Just gotta stay relatively quiet and express sounds that the program perceives as friendly, and Fin Fin ford is happy to hang out all day long.

It’s at this point that he’ll start accepting food from you too, although there’s little incentive to do so since he’s capable of foraging and hunting for his own food without your involvement. And yep, that means you’ll never have to worry about forgetting to feed him and letting him die, or get sick, or hurt, or much of anything at all.

Fin Flam is a risk-free pet and exists just fine as an alien dolphin bird with or without your participation. No matter what he’ll never pass on, never fully hate you, never go away entirely. Sure, you can scare him off and maybe he’ll fly off-screen. But it’s only temporary. Simply follow him and start speaking in hushed tones and he’ll be back eating out of your hand again in time. It’s just about the most low-stakes virtual pet I’ve ever seen really, so much so that it’s hardly a pet game at all.

It’s really more like a wildlife watching simulation, where you play a hands-off visitor to another world, admiring the scenery that doesn’t pay you any attention unless you bring attention to yourself. If it weren’t for the few sound effect interactions and ability to feed Fin Fin, it’d almost be more of a screensaver than a game. Or even like one of those desktop toys or digital companions from back in the day. Heck, there was even a Fin Fin add-on for Microsoft Agent, which literally made him a desktop companion. Except there you can actually communicate using English. And that’s Fin Fin Deluxe! A game that’s not really a game, a pet that’s not really a pet, and an experience that’s charming but vapid.

As cute as it is, there’s not much to actually do with Fin, beyond squawking at him to get his attention and handing him fruit if he hasn’t already fed himself. You can’t teach him tricks, you can’t help him when he’s sick, neither of you learn much about the other or grow in meaningful ways. But really, who cares! After all, the idea was more about using animation and sound to convey emotions and feelings, rather than specific intelligent thoughts. If nothing else, Fin Fin stands as a unique piece of funky late 90s multimedia art. It gives off enjoyably weird vibes and it’s a fun glimpse into a trippy sci-fi world, and I appreciate that. The overly-enthusiastic marketing may have over sold it, but eh, its fine.

I would’ve been enthralled with this as a young in’, and it would’ve been even more amusing having that Smart sensor motion detector thing. And to be fair, there were a couple aspects I couldn’t show due to the game’s web server being long dead, as well as a rhythm minigame in the Deluxe version I haven’t been able to activate. Even without that though, if I’d played this as a kid, no doubt I’d have fond memories of Fin. And really, I suppose I do now, too. Fin Fin may not do a whole lot, but he’s a delightful little guy nonetheless.

-Fin Fin! What’re you doing?

-Get over here, I need b-roll

The one DAT got away: Digital Audio Tape

2021-03-27T00:30:00.000-07:00

Digital audiotape D.A.T. or DAT as its more commonly referred to was brought to the market by Sony in 1987 with the intention of replacing Phillips aging compact cassettes which have been available for almost 25 years at that point however despite Sony and their partners releasing a whole range of DAT enabled devices over the years the format never took off in the home. It did have some success though in the recording industry. In this I’ll try to explain why and I also find out for myself whether or not it’s worth picking up an old DAT machine to add into my existing HiFi.

The reasoning behind the introduction of DAT makes perfect sense and its very simple. In the early 1980s is the compact disc was launched in Japan and by the mid-eighties it was already a massive success so effectively they had replaced the ageing vinyl format with a new digital equivalent... time to replace the old compact cassette as well.

In the mid-1980s Sony were better placed than most to be able to realize this idea because they’d been selling a range of home digital processors since introducing the PCM-F1 at the CES show in 1982 these home processors once connected up with a home video recorder enabled the recording enthusiastic to record digitally onto video cassette tape and whilst they had been intended for home studios that also found their way into quite a few professional recording studios.

Anyway there had been a number of people that came up with the idea of combining the cassette recorder and the processor into one device. In fact it goes all the way back to 1981. Technics had the SVP 100 on the market which is a digital recorder which recorded onto full-size VHS tape however while that might be okay in a studio it’s not really a convenient and compact format for digital audio for the general public.

So after considerable development Sony started previewing their new compact digital audio tape format, and at the 1986 CES show Onkyo which is one of sonny’s DAT partners showed off their prototype DAT recorder and it sent shock waves throughout the recording industry, because for the first time you could make a perfect quality copy of an original compact disc with no degradation at all, because you were recording the digital signal.

This idea terrified the recording industry. They were reminded of how they felt they’d dropped the ball with compact cassette. When that system was first announced in the early 1960s it was just this Mr. some dictation system but by the mid-1980s due to technological advances like Dolby B and C and things it was now capable of making really good quality recordings of compact discs, vinyl records and the radio. The Recording Industry felt that was lost revenue, as they

could have sold that person recording if they hadn’t been able to make their own and they tried to encourage people not to do this, but obviously that’s not going to have much effect. So this time rather than try and lock the stable door after the horse has bolted they were going to just kill the horse. Just to show you how big a deal this was at the time I’ve got a couple of open letters here that were published in billboard magazine.

These are written by Stanley Gorchakov the president of the recording industry association of America and for want of a better term, he’s absolutely bloody fuming about DAT. I don’t think that they’d publish anything like this nowadays, it’s a certain little bit jingoistic in places. Let’s have a look at it in a bit more detail.

Some pretty fire-and-brimstone biblical type language in here, so I’ll try to do it justice. An assassination is in the making, the targeted victim is the world music industry the assailants are Japans equipment makers, the chosen weapon is DAT, Digital audio tape. You in Japan invent marvelous machines, but you damn those who fuel them. In date you’ve built a system for rapturous sounds but you imperil the creators of those sounds....you get the idea.

He then goes on to say your country overtly demonstrates that is has contempt for the copyright owners of foreign recordings and the reason he is saying this is because you could rent CDs in Japan. I don’t think had like the idea of streaming music.... and with DAT waiting in the wings ready to invade our borders we have no choice but to be suspicious and apprehensive. Definitely looking forward to the future then. Anyway obviously the DAT manufacturers

and the recording industry association of America couldn’t get together and hit an impasse, so the RIAA then took it to Congress with the intention of introducing requirements upon DAT manufacturers to install a chip in their devices which was supposed to be listing out for a special signal which would also be introduced into the original recordings, on CDs for example, if it heard that signal it would refuse to copy them.

The problem was that the signal that they wanted to put on the CDs was clearly audible to people in listening tests and ruined the original recordings. Because it’s clear that system was going nowhere and all this time the proper launch of DAT is getting stalled, the manufacturers decide enough is enough and develop their own system and came up with SCMS. Now that was enough to get Congress off their backs and allow the product to get to market. SCMS works by allowing you to make one digital copy of a digital source. So if you’ve got a compact disc you can copy it onto a DAT tape and make a perfect copy.

However you cannot then make another digital copy of that first digital copy. It was a weak system in a way and you can of course still make all the analog recordings you want. However it’s enough to finally allow the DAT product to get to market in the u.s. albeit it is now 1990, three years after the original intended launch of the format.

So everything’s ready to go and then a number of music publishers decided to get together a file an injunction against Sony selling these recorders in the u.s. because even though Congress were happy with the serial copy management system music publishers aren’t. They’re concerned that they’re losing revenue from royalties. This dispute was resolved and wrapped up within the audio home recording act of 1992, but this long drawn-out process had a very cooling effect on the launch of DAT in the u.s.

The RIAA were clearly never going to be fond of the format neither were the music publishers, they never released their catalogue on DAT there’s very little pre-recorded music ever released on DAT. Because they never got the volumes of the players out in the market, the prices of the recorders never came down and it was never a success within the home market. It did however find a niche within the recording industry, professional recording DAT machines were reasonably

successful, of course there’s only a certain number of recording studios around the world, so you never going to sell a massive lot of them. It seems somewhat ironic that the very same industry that was trying to ban DAT were quite happy to use it themselves and they quite often mix down recordings onto DAT before they sent it off to a CD mastering house.

However when the recording studios moved away from digital audio tape onto a hard drive or solid-state recorders the days of DAT were numbered and Sony produce their last DAT recorder at the end of 2005 which is when they discontinued the product. So that effectively is the story of DAT, at least the best that I can tell it anyway. So let’s now move on, change gears a little bit and have a look at some DAT recorders. The model I’ve got here is a home recorder from 1994, the Sony DTC 60 ES. Looking back at the reviews from the period it got a high recommendation from stereo Review magazine where they said it was easily the best audio recorder they’d ever tested.

At that point it cost $1200 USD. Now mine is a European model picked up from eBay for £220. I picked this model because I thought it looked nice and neat and liked the color, that kind of thing, but apparently it’s quite a decent model as well. It has got super bit mapping which is something they introduced I think with this model where it was supposed to get more quality than 16 bits would normally allowing, and apparently it does work, so just leave the button switched on.

Of course it comes with a remote control. Lot of controls hidden behind this flap on the front, the things you don’t tend to use an awful lot, some duplicated on the remote control but also you can add in chapters and things like that. This model had a simplified eject mechanism which is apparently quite a bit quicker to load than some of the earlier models and allows you to see the tape running through the window on the front there.

It’s got the standard choice of three different record modes. Longplay is 32 kilohertz and of course let you get more out of a tape 44.1 is the same as a CD allowing you to get perfect copies and 40 kilohertz is the DAT standard. At the back

we’ve got analog in an out and of course we got the dreaded digital in and out, both optical and coax. Inside you can see is nice and clean, the layout typical of mid-nineties high-end Sony electronics. You’ll notice a battery on the circuit board there and that’s because DAT machines tend to have a real time clock in, and that would apply the time and date alongside any recording. That’s the analog-to-digital converter chip. The thing that’s probably most likely to go wrong with an old date machine is to do with the loading mechanism and record head. Just like a video tape recorder a DAT machine uses helical scan, i.e. a rotating record and play head.

Now the reason they do this is to store the maximum amount of data on the shortest amount of tape. Originally videotape recorders used linear scan which meant basically you had to have a big old tape and run it at great speed just to get enough data onto the tape as it would run a lot of tape past that record head. Well they figured out that if they had a rotating head you could get a lot more data onto the same amount of tape by writing it at an angle to the tape and that’s exactly what a helical scan head does. Using this technique means you can run the tape a lot slower and therefore use less tape so it makes a smaller cassette. As you can see the size of the DAT is quite small and also notice it runs very slowly.

Well just take this opportunity to have a look at the design of a DAT compared to a Phillips compact cassette. Now the cassette has a side A and a side B whereas a DAT just runs from the beginning to the end. You’ll also notice the case is quite a little bit smaller than the compact cassette which led to hopes that they’d be smaller personal stereos coming as a result but it didn’t come to pass.

More on that later. The case itself and the overall design was quite a little bit to videotape especially camcorder tapes. You noticed you have to move these little notches to open it up, that then opens up the sprockets, pulls the tape away from the inside and then of course that tape was also pulled out of the front of the cartridge and wrapped around their head in the machine.

I mentioned earlier that no major labels release their catalogs on DAT but there were some releases from smaller labels. I mean really just a few releases, a handful. I managed to find a couple of tapes on eBay, all the years I’ve been looking I’ve only found about three or four in total. I picked these two up, hoping they’d have decent quality recordings but was a little bit concerned that it was Little Richard as obviously they wouldn’t be high-quality recordings back from the fifties.

It turns out these were even later, I think they’re 1960s live recording so definitely not reference quality. If you look at the right there you can see the other titles that were released by this same company. It is a German label and I don’t think these are official releases or if they are, they’re very poor but they’re definitely not supposed to sound like this. Maybe that’s a good demonstration of what can go wrong with digital, if things aren’t quite perfect they can go completely off the rails.

Anyway a few goes with this cleaning tape and things started to sound a lot better. I’m not going to play you anymore of that. Two obvious reasons. Number one, I can’t its copyright and number two well a CD recorded to DAT sounds as good as a CD, and you know what a CD sounds like. If I had a 48 kilohertz pre-recorded DAT it would sound a little bit better than the CD, neither of which could be demonstrated on YouTube. about a master tape which I picked up

off eBay which contained a number of audio recordings of British television commercials from the 1960s. Now whilst I was searching for master tapes I also managed to find this. I picked up this lot for about £15 pounds and it’s the original master tapes of a number of Star Trek audiobooks. These would have then being sent of presumably to duplication houses to run off the cassettes from, but these are the original production masters.

So I’ll play you a little snippet back on my next machine which is a DAT field recorder I suppose you’d call it. This is the kind of thing that perhaps a reporter would carry around and plug a microphone into an interview people it doesn’t have any kind of digital in or out on this device but it’s very nice that recorder. There’s quite a range of these type of things. If you were thinking of getting a DAT recorder just to mess about with this might be the area in which you want to look because these things are quite a lot more reliable and bulletproof than some of the home recorders and especially the Walkman type devices.

Simon Schuster audio works present Star Trek the lost years written and adapted for audio by J M Dillon. This program is performed by James Doosan with Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Spock..... A single steel colored cloud advances and begins to spew rain in huge drops. It’s funny to think about all the people over the years that have listened to those audiobooks and they’ve all originated from this little tiny cassette that I’ve got here in my hand. Now briefly on to the subject of DAT Walkman. These came out later than the home date recorders of the eighties, these tend to be nineties devices. There are a few different models. The ones I’ve got here are both recorders and players. There was a playback-only model and it was quite a little bit smaller.

These ones are trying to do everything I think the idea is that you’re going to be a reporter out and about and you want to use these as a recorder in the field. This one takes four batteries, and is the earlier one of the two I’m going to show you and it’s quite a little bit larger than the other one. Now when I bought this it was working, which was a bit of a rarity for DAT Walkman as most of them tend to be broken.

But I got it out of the drawer and this one’s not working anymore either. These things are just incredibly delicate. The one on the right is a later model where they managed to squeeze down the size even more. They ran that one off two batteries as well which is two less than the other one. It’s a neater machine but again festooned with buttons all over because they wanted it to be an all-in-one recorder and playing device.

So really a lot is going on here and I think they’re just asking too much of their engineers trying to squeeze this amount of stuff into something this small. Now you can record digitally on both of these you need the special lead which is incredibly difficult to get hold of the lead at the other end has an optical in and out so you can get an optical signal in and out of your DAT Walkman. That is if you that Walkman is working which unfortunately in my case this new one doesn’t seem to work. In fact it sounds like a cat dying inside it when you try and operate it I don’t know what’s going on but it’s definitely beyond anything I could repair.

The problem is that you’ve got a spinning head in here just the same as you have in the home devices and that makes the whole thing is incredibly delicate and then you got a loading mechanism which is trying to pull the tape around that spinning head and it’s just asking too much of something this small. The intention was that you’d be able to bring out smaller Walkman than you could with the compact cassette because the tape is smaller but that’s not accounting for all the extra mechanical stuff that has to go on inside the machine which unfortunately seems to be incredibly fragile. Right lets go back to Mr. Angry for a moment because what I’m going to do now is the thing that he was most afraid of happening in the late 1980s, although I’m doing it with more recent technology, a DVD player and a 1990s DAT machine but it’s the same idea.

I’m connecting the coax output from the DVD into the coax input of the DAT recorder and I’m therefore able to make a perfect digital recording off a compact disc. So were pretending this is 1986. A CD player cost quite a considerable amount of money in 86 still but I’ve got one of those, I’ve also got some blank DAT tapes which again weren’t cheap and also of course I’ve got a DAT recorder which again was very expensive. The prices I’ve got from a magazine the equivalent price in the US in 86 I think it keywords was thirteen dollars for a tape and thirteen hundred dollars for a recorder. but I’ve got all this stuff set up so now I’m going to copy some of my CDs for my friend.

I’ve already put my CD in the CD player, I then need to turn the DAT machine into its 44.1 kHz recording mode and then I need to start the DAT machine off recording and finally press play on the CD player.... and then I’ve got to wait. Because of course this is a real-time operation it’s not like ripping a CD I have to dub the CD in real-time across to the DAT so perhaps forty six and a half minutes later I can come back maybe swap over the CD, record that one to tape then come back and swap it over again. Maybe over the course of an evening I could transfer three albums onto one tape. Then I could give that to my friend who also has to have one of these expensive DAT players to play that tape back. As you can see this is not a high-volume piracy operation.

I can understand why they were fearful of it in a way but it’s kind of comical a little bit sweet when you think about it. Because just 15 years later wed got MP3s and there was Napster around and file sharing and things. People all around the world could share all their music with everyone else, and this whole idea of having to actually physically past music to somebody was something from the past. For me though it’s all a little bit of a lost opportunity. Just think if the Recording Industry hadn’t thrown its toys out of the pram they could have been releasing recordings at 48 kilohertz on digital audio tape in the late 1980s which would have sounded better than compact disc. But that’s all history now, what am I doing with DAT now here today.

Well I’m not so sure whether or not it deserves a more ventilation space than this so please don’t write in. I just shoved in here at the moment to try it. I have noticed you can skip tracks pretty quickly on it because the tape moves so slowly when its playing it doesn’t actually put the tracks that far apart, so you can jump around it pretty quickly. It’s neat that way but obviously not as quick as a CD. If you look through the retro HiFi enthusiast forums and websites you’ll find very little love for DAT, it seems to be a technology that people are in a way glad to see the back of. After all you’re just dealing with a file that’s digital which could just as easily be stored on a hard drive and it wouldn’t sound any different. There’s no kind of romanticism surrounding DAT as there is with vinyl and compact cassette.

If you are thinking of adding a recording device into a HiFi, there are a couple of things that might make DAT quite attractive. The machines themselves are quite often cheaper than an equivalent high-end cassette deck model from the same era. In my case by DAT machine cost about a third the price by compact cassette machine did but they probably cost about the same when new. It’s also easier and cheaper to find blank DAT tapes that is now to find blank metal compact cassette tapes and if you are having trouble you can always use the data backup DATs. The DDS ones under 90 meters work just as well as the audio tapes. Now of course in this day and age of streaming there are very few people will want to record anything.

It just so happened a couple weeks ago I did. There was a two-hour program on the radio I wanted to record while I was out and I could’ve just put a two hour DAT tape in and used that. Of course I’ve got plenty of alternative ways to record due to the fact I have all these old formats, but then I got me thinking.

That there are many people now who can’t record off the radio, if they wanted to. If you buy a HiFi nowadays it’s pretty much a consumption device you can stream to it maybe play CDs, the radio, vinyl records but you definitely cant record anything as they don’t come with a recording device installed. No cassette, minidisc, DCC, or DAT. In effect the Recording Industry got what they wanted. Home taping was killing music so you can’t record at home anymore.

But it’s a classic case of winning the battle but losing the war because most people today can play any tune they could think of with the tap of a screen without having to pay anything...or hardly anything. If DAT had been allowed to make it to market as intended in 1987 and in turn been supported by all the major recording studios releasing their albums in high quality 48 kilohertz audio you’ve got to wonder what would have happened to minidisc. a consumer electronics failure in the late 1980s Sonly moved all their resources over into their next format which was to come out in the 1990s nineties which was minidisc. and that’ll be the subject of a future video.

One thing to say though, ,Sony did learn a lot from the experience. Never again would they allow themselves to be held hostage by the recording studios next time. When minidisc came out they make sure that they did have pre-recorded music to release on the new format, and they did that by buying a U.S. recording studio Columbia Records.... who just so happened to be one of the major opponents to the introduction of Digital Audio Tape. Coincidence? Probably not Anyway that’s a story for another time and I hope you enjoyed this look at digital audio tape, but that’s it for the moment and as always thanks for watching.

Its Time! Apple iPad Pro 2021

2021-03-27T00:16:00.001-07:00

The apple ipad pro is about to launch with some incredible new hardware and I’ll be sharing the details right after this! So today we’ve got plenty to share about the new ipad pro 2021 after lots of bad news last week we’ve got some great news about the specs design and that the tablet will be launching imminently before we get started though please like the video if you’re a fan of apple let me know in the comments what country you’re actually watching todays video from so many were expecting to see the ipad pro 2021 last Tuesday but unfortunately did not happen.

We of course knew this as no invites went out leakers are now advising that it will most likely be April that we see these devices while many others have doubted it we do finally have some evidence inside code for ios 14.5 beta 925 mac have actually found references to the new ipad pro 2021 each apple chip is referred to internally by a code name in ios and the latest beta for 14.5 makes a reference to a new chip called 13g now 13g isn’t used by any current ios device which means its either the new apple ipad pro where it’s a completely new device that no one has heard of and that is of course unlikely based on apples chip naming sequence it seems very likely.

That the new 13g code is for the apple ipad pro and this is in fact going to be known as the a14x system on chip furthermore this chip is based on the t8103 which is the new m1 chip and it backs up Bloomberg’s previous claims that the ipad pro can have a chip that is on par with the m1 so this is a huge leak as not only does it tell us that the ipad pro is packing a very powerful chipset but it also tells us that the launch is likely to be soon as its appearing in a beta for ios 14.5 it means that apple are getting the ipad pro ready for launch and an April date seems likely now next up.

We’ve got more reports confirming a mini led display on the 12.9 inch ipad pro of course Ming Chi Kuo told us this way back last year that it was going to be coming in 2021 and it now seems like a reality a Bloomberg report has stated that at least the 12.9 inch ipad pro is releasing with a mini led display to improve on the brightness levels in the contrast ratios they also state that there were prototypes with thunderbolt connectors but they’re unsure if these made it to the final release again there’s literally no mention of the 11 inch ipad pro having the mini led technology.

So it could be exclusive to the 12.9 inch model now that being said no one has specifically said that it isn’t on the 11 inch so there’s a very small amount of hope for those that are waiting for that version but to round things up its looking like an April launch for the ipad pro and were also going to see the new airpods as well as the brand new air tags at the event were now going to run through the full specs design and pricing for the apple ipad pro models for those of you that are excited for the launch for my regular viewers you guys have already seen this so just jump to the next video.

But if you’re new here then make sure you hit subscribe and well get right into it so to start with we’ve got the 11 inch ipad pro it’s going to be an 11 inch 120 hertz display but were unsure at this time if it’s going to be oiled or mini led there are rumors of an increased resolution but the exact details are not known at this time were expecting a single selfie camera embedded into the top bezel and rumors are suggesting a 10 megapixel camera on the rear were expecting a dual camera setup consisting of a wide and an ultra-wide camera and we also get the additional lidar sensor.

It’s going to be powered by the a14 chipset which is most likely coming under the name a14x were expecting six gigs of ram along with a choice of 128 256 512 or even one terabyte storage although its size has been reduced slightly were still expecting a 28.65 watt hour battery with 18 watt fast charge wireless charging and reverse wireless charging its of course going to support 5g and reports are suggesting it’ll be sub 6 gigahertz along with millimeter wave the phone is of course going to ship with ipad os 14 and while some sources are claiming that.

It’s going to have touch id and face id we expect it to be face id only when it comes to the pricing were expecting that the Wi-Fi only model to start from 800 and the Wi-Fi plus 5g to start from around 950 next up we’ve got the 12.9 inch ipad pro now this is of course going to be a 12.9 inch mini le display but it’s going to have a higher resolution than the 11 inch but going by their previous releases its likely to have the same amount of pixels per inch were expecting a single selfie camera embedded into the top bezel and as rumors suggest a 10 megapixel camera on the rear.

We get a dual camera setup consisting of a wide camera an ultra-wide camera and the additional lidar sensor it’s going to be powered by the a14 chipset which is most likely coming under the name a14x were expecting the same ram in storage so that’s six gigabytes of ram along with 128 256 512 or even one terabyte storage because its larger than the 11 inch it also has a larger battery were expecting a 36.71 watt hour battery with 18 watt fast charge wireless and reverse wireless charging it will of course support 5g and again reports are suggesting that both sub 6 gigahertz and millimeter wave were expecting the Wi-Fi only model to start from one thousand dollars and the Wi-Fi plus 5g to start from 1150 so it’s great.

That we finally got so much information about both models of the apple ipad pro it’s looking like a great tablet with plenty of hardware upgrades over the predecessor but still keeping the same ipad pro looks of course with the launch expected to be imminent then it’s not long until were going to get everything confirmed by apple but as always I’d like to know your thoughts in the comments so who out there is excited for the ipad pro 2021 and when do you think it’s gonna be released but thanks for watching the video if you liked it smash thumbs up if you didn’t hit the thumbs down twice and I’ll see you guys in the next one you.