I am so glad you did this video. I worked for the RNIB in the 1980s and there are a couple of things you didn't find out. Firstly, the tapes were sent freepost in special mailers, not paid for by the RNIB, but the Royal Mail. It was a special class of mail that was required to be sent free of charge by law. The RNIB didn't have to pay it, the Royal Mail did. The other thing is that these machines were maintained by volunteers, who were mainly retired TV repair people or Radio Amateurs. As a Radio Amateur myself, after I left the RNIB I did a stint as a volunteer and I had the service manual until I cleared out my mum's house recently. The library of tapes was considerable and they were used by other services like the hospital one you have the examples from. The RNIB mailers had to go through the post so they were reusable and made of padded plastic material unlike the cardboard hospital ones you showed which were for handing back to the hospital library. I hope this is of some interest to people who watched this video.
Woke up this morning and found a box in my garage, full of what looks like steel funnels of endless-looping 7-track tape. Now I see this upload and it makes sense 🛸
nah, the rabbit hole of formats ais both deep and wide. The closer he comes, the more come to light. I still have a few unseen oddballs I'll send in a few years if he hasn't found em yet.
My late dad was a self-employed plumber, and I often helped him. One of his customers was virtually blind, and I can remember seeing one of these in his living room, 25+ years ago. I saw the thumbnail,and recognised it straight away. Thank you for bringing back some memories of working with my dad, and his wonderful clients.
@@CommodoreFan64 I didn't realise that my tablet had automatically spelt 'employed' like that until reading these comments! My apologies, and your answer was spot on
You never fail to deliver with the obscure formats of the past. Agreed it is very interesting these were used up to the 2000's. Thanks for another great video!
Techmoan: Unfortunately, the belt that runs the self-destruct mechanism was gone to goo, and I couldn't find a proper replacement. Well, I suppose that's probably for the best.
@@hadeishadeis7462 Your "guide dog" looks suspiciously like an old rug thrown over a stack of explosives, with a piece of detonation cord for a "leash".
Well, to be fair, it's just plastic tape with a magnetic material coating. What you do with it is your prerogative, and the alignment of the tracks was more often defined by the pickups available for them to use. So it is more about the same type of pickup head being used.
I'm not surprised to see how robust these decks are, nor am I surprised by the simplicity of its controls. Easy-grip handles with a wide spacing, a cabinet that was built for the rigors of daily life instead of flashy aesthetics, and at first glance it looks quite serviceable inside as well. Simple, reliable, durable, exactly what these units needed to be.
It seems as if it should have had a fast-forward option, too, although I suppose that the user could accomplish the same thing by flipping the tape and selecting rewind.
I remember these, as my mum is Registered Blind, (as are most of my family, i'm a lucky one) - they had all sorts of gadgets and gizmo's including these... My Mum had a slightly more advanced version though, with variable speed control, she could make it 'read' faster, get through books quicker :D I'll ask around the family if anyone still has any of the old cartridge/tapes... :) Great vid xD
I don't mean to be rude with this question, but I have to ask: How does your family even exist if most of them are blind? How do they earn a living and thus prove their worth to potential mates? I'm sure they are charming people, but being charming doesn't pay the bills.
@Shawn Elliott You can work when blind/partially sighted etc you know, companies put provisions in place etc... That and not ALL are blind, just the majority....
@@deusexaethera You sound charming yourself🙄. Seriously though try not being an asshole. Not sure how you function when that’s how you interact with people.”How do they earn a living and thus to prove their worth to potential mates”. That’d fucking earn you a punch from many disabled people I know, or their family.
@@Savannah_Simpson: I'm not asking about a disabled person, I'm asking about an _entire family_ of disabled people. How do a bunch of people who all have the same _inheritable_ disability decide to have children who are doomed to inherit that same disability? I'd be pretty fucking angry if I found out my parents knew their kids would be doomed to be born blind but decided to have kids anyway.
@@Ghozer: I'm really not trying to be a jerk, but I really can't imagine what kind of work someone could do if they can't see at all. If they're extremely nearsighted, that's a different story because that can be corrected with optics. I admit I've only come across a few truly blind people in my life, and always in public places. None of them worked for my highly-inclusive employers, who work on government contracts and pride themselves on hiring a diverse workforce. I know one person who developed severe glaucoma in their 20s and lost their sight, and they stopped working and live on government disability payments. So I have no experience with what kind of work blind people are capable of doing. Furthermore, I swore to myself to be an endpoint for the problems I grew up with, and I spent decades working through them before considering having a family, so I struggle to imagine people deciding to willingly pass on an inheritable disability to children. If any of my problems had been inheritable, I'd have at least tried to find a fertility lab that could fertilize a few egg cells and filter-out the ones with the genes I didn't want to pass on, but more likely I would've opted to not have children at all.
Interesting! I’m guessing that the track changer only functioning on every second push is because it’s simpler to instruct users to push it every single time they turn the tape over, rather than have them wonder if they need to push it this time or not.
especially if you stopped in the middle of a session and didn't remember if you'd pressed it last time or not! and the tape itself doesn't know if it's synchronised with your machine, if you're jumping from book to book depending on your mood.
In my opinion this system can be more confusing. Imagine somebody came in and pressed the button when you weren't around. Now the head moves when it's supposed to be a discarded press, and the head doesn't move when it's supposed to. You'd end up playing the tracks out of order. I think it's more sensible for the head to move with every press. Then you'd just follow the instruction recorded on the tape, simply flipping and pressing only if it says to.
My Mother was blind, recognised it straight away! I remember books arriving, but also the local newspaper in Harlow Essex was delivered on this format!
Using the flywheel as a bell is absolute engineering genius. A lazy design, each component does only one thing. A well thought design, each component may serve multiple functions.
I remember these very well from the late 60s as my grandmother was blind and would get her regular delivery of talking books, which she loved. I always helped her choose from the catalogue (the narrator was as important as the content as there were some readers whose voice she really disliked). The machines were very sturdy; the controls never felt like they would break and the cartridges were easy for my nan to use even though she was elderly. I loved to listen to the books with her and used to post them back after we had finished with them. Seeing them again has been a nice reminder of childhood days with my wonderful nan.
@MomoTheBellyDancer Its the way the mind works. Because when you're speaking German all the time, you're more used to those associations. So when in a foreign context you see a German word, or at least a familiar string of letters your brain jumps to that first association it has, which is usually in your mother tongue. So even in the context of techmoan, the first second of seeing that title you'll be thinking of that word.
"Talking Bulk" will be my stage name when I embark on a career as a spoken-word performing artist. It struck me that neither the controls on the device nor the tapes seemed to be labeled in Braille. I guess the expectation was that somebody sighted would set it up? I'm sure a person could learn what the controls did by touch pretty easily, particularly since they were so big and widely separated, but figuring out which tape was which and which side to start on would have required an annoying amount of trial and error.
Braille labelling isn't always necessary, and not all blind people can read braille to begin with; which is especially common amongst people who became blind later in life. You wouldn't want a device like this to be inaccessible to people who can't read braille. That's why the tape has explicit instructions and tells you which book it is right at the start, that's why the controls are big and chunky, and that's why the label that's on only one side of the tape is such a thick and sturdy label, helps with identifying which side is which. All things that are trivial to pick up once you get used to the system and which don't rely on braille.
@@daredaemon8878 Certainly understandable and foreword thinking on their part, but given that Braille is the recognized standard it still seems odd to not include it _along_ with the audio prompts, large, well-spaced controls, and label design.
I wonder if it was because hardly anyone was using Braille in that part of the world at that time. I can't link the article but there's one I found from a quick google search from the BBC in 2012 that even then only %1 or so of sight challenged or blind people were using Braille. Although the addition couldn't have cost too much time or money. What really makes me scratch my head is the lack of large font on the carts or the player for those who aren't completely without sight.
For the record, I didn't mean I was surprised it wasn't ONLY labeled in Braille. And I may have been conditioned by the ubiquity of same over here in the States, where--I kid you not--drive-up ATMs often have Braille instruction panels on them.
Dare Daemon Even if they didn't use Braille, you would think that they would have a distinguishing mark on the controls to make it easier to use for the blind. For instance, someone who was blind might have problems with the tone and volume controls because they seem to be basically identical.
Thanks so much for doing this. Since I’m blind and from the UK I’m very familiar with these but knew nothing about how they worked or even what they were called. I just assumed they were the regular 8-track tapes that were popular in the US, having only heard about those. When I joined the talking book service they had switched to DAISY but I knew people that had these machines, albeit the slightly more modern version you mentioned. BTW DAISY is worth its own video.
Thanks for showing this! I’m a blind American and used the 4-track compact cassettes as a child. I have always been curious about the ways other countries did things. Your channel is one where I try to never miss an upload.
This video brings tears of nostalgia to me as I grew up with one of these machines from about the age of 13 because of severe vision impairment. They were widely used across Australia where I live and I still remember the wonderful stories I heard on this format. Thank you for posting this!
I was almost disappointed when that perfect transition to doing a sponsored plug for Audible actually turned out not to be an ad. Such a missed opportunity!
In North America talking books for the blind used more mainstream formats such as records that spun at 16 2/3 RPM and 8 1/3 RPM. There was cassette that played at 15/16 IPS and played the each of the 4 tracks one after another after another to provide eight times the playback time. Radiotvphononut has done some excellent videos about these devices.
@@guyfellows2293 My father got tapes and a free loaner machine from the Wolfner Library. In the 1980s and into the 1990s at least they used a compact cassette based system. The machines ran at half normal speed and only used a single track at a time, similar to what Techmoan showed for the Tapete. They could therefore get four times the audio duration on a cassette. You'd play track 1, flip the tape to play 2, flip again and use the track switch for 3, then flip again for track 4. You had to remember to change the track switch back for track 1 on the next tape. The players also supported variable speed control, so you could slow down the rate at which the narrator spoke to some extent, but that also affected the pitch. The cassette tapes themselves did have the raised Braille bumps on them. The player my Dad used was a semi-portable, if I recall it had rechargeable batteries and an AC line current cord as well. It was laid out like a portable cassette player, top loading, with piano-key buttons along the left front, and the audio and speed controls to the right, all on top. The tape motion control piano-keys had raised tactile indicator shapes like X, O, and >, plus they were different colors, allowing for both impaired vision and totally blind people to use it. My Dad would get books, but also periodicals like Time Magazine, and enjoyed them immensely.
UPDATE: Cassette Cold Turkey www.sos.mo.gov/WolfnerNewsFall2017 "Starting January 1st, 2018, Wolfner Library will no longer circulate books on cassette tape. The National Library Service project to convert the back catalog of books on cassette to digital media has concluded, and we are ready to clean out storage and make room for new materials in the collection." Follow that link and you'll see a picture of the big yellow player I described.
@@bobblum5973 Hi Bob that sounds like a Telex talking Book Machine. They were pretty robust for devices with lots of moving parts. The main advantage was, as you said, having four tracks - which doubled the playing time of the cassette. They were easy to use and our members loved them when we had them in service. I just checked the link you had and yes, definitely a Telex. We had some in that colour but most were in an ugly deep blue green. We may still have some of the green cassette containers in the picture in our collection. We are currently sharing parts of our audio collection with NLS at the moment.
@@danielbooth5310 Thanks for your response, glad to get more details! Telex does sound right for the model, it's been 25 years since my Dad passed away so I haven't seen the unit since then. I'm familiar with the Telex brand name from their audio gear such as headsets and microphones back around the 1970s or so at least.
Brilliant and fascinating, thank you. I worked at RNIB Transcription Centre in Glasgow In the late 90s, working with volunteers to produce recordings on request such as instruction manuals, books which had not yet been recorded, magazine articles or textbooks. All of our tapes were produced on compact cassette using standard Yamaha tape decks in a small recording booth. A small beeper was used to indicate a page turn. We had to check volunteer recordings for accuracy as a missed page or misread line would confuse the listener and cause copyright issues. Our volunteers were amazing, and mistakes were not that common. We checked the recordings on a mono cassette player with a speed control - you got used to listening at triple speed! I never saw a Tapete, but I did begin learning about the DAISY format which used XML to markup texts for a digital voice system. My favourite job was reading “A Description of the Western Isles” by Martin Martin from 1703!
I guess the head only has two wires because the frequency of the recording on the index tracks would be so low at normal playback, a high pass filter would remove the sound
Not sure about that - the head moves about so the head for the index tracks would be over a regular speech track sometimes. Maybe if the gap between the index and the regular head was more than 1/4 inch apart, it would mean that the index head was always off the tape when the book was playing and the regular head was always off the tape when the index was playing.
Thank you this very informative video. My late Uncle Bobby used talking books provided to him by The Braille Institute. First, it was a record player with an 16 RPM speed option, then he transitioned to a (compact) cassette player in the mid-80's. He relied on those players until his passing in 2009. Thank you again...marvelous channel.
This was a truly lovely video. I first had one of the machines which could play this format back in 1978 and enjoyed many books as a child and through later years using it. The audio indexing during rewind was very useful. When I started listening at night, I would take a mental note of the index number as often I would go to sleep. When I came back to the book, at least I knew approximately where to rewind back to. Great memories!
A belated congratulations on 1 Million subscribers. You are among the RUclips elite. I have learned a great deal from watching your videos, and found much enjoyment as well. Thank you for all you do!
Sir, this was yet another trademark video of yours. Your fan from past 6 years. I am anxiously waiting for the review of 'One of the best boom box ever made'. Thank you.
I do think it makes sense that the layout has the index tracks in the middle. It's playing while the tape speed is very high, so if the head coils are in parallel, just the frequency responses at the different speeds would mostly cancel out the other track. Note the geometry also supports this, with the "high speed" coil being stretched out
@@johndododoe1411 very true, but that way I see two issues: - suboptimal head design for the tape speed. see the different widths of the slit in the head - added complexity to the frequency response of the recording equipment I think it would be very impractical to have a DC response that low for the recorder, and if recorded at higher speed there's other issues
You know, for a long time I have been watching your videos, for several years in fact and somehow I haven't really seen any videos for quite a while, which is of course appalling on my part. You are simply very entertaining to listen to and without knowing a lot about the things you discuss on your channel I just wanted to say thanks for the information and entertainment. You never fail to make me interested in weird formats and hifi, a huge thanks from Denmark.
Several decades ago I made an astonishing discovery at an estate sale. It was a box of magazines, all in Braille with obviously no pictures. A few of them were Playboy! For those wondering, no, you couldn't "feel" the centerfold! I no longer have them, but I think that the existence of Playboy for the blind was quite bizarre.
I just love these videos, explaining tech that I've never have seen before but each time it has an interesting story and purpose to it. It's just like diving into a new universe. Keep it up!
Because of this channel, if I ever have the money, I am going to buy every kind of obscure audio, video, or electronic device I can get my hands on. The stuff is just so darn cool
How interesting! A person who is blind wouldn't be able to see a track number indicator, so they designed the device to "remember" whether it's playing an odd track or an even track so the user doesn't need to know when to press the button and when to just flip the tape. That's an affordance that would really only work when a single organization controls the players, the media, and the recording- if there had been a third-party building those devices they would have been tempted to simplify that track advance mechanism, and then all of the first-party tapes that tell you to press the advance button on every track would have been wrong.
This UX is probably THE reason. It is simpler to just repeat the same motion on a track change than to think which side is playing. What I really lack on the device (and casettes) are braille writings. I assume, the levers were distinct enough, but still...
When I was a child in the USA in the late 1960's, the Library of Congress had a Talking Book program. Although the primary users of the program were the blind (the records had braille as well as print on them), one of my brothers had dyslexia, and he was able to use the program despite not being blind. The Library of Congress supplied a record player which could play as slow as 8 rpm and as fast as 33 & 1/3 rpm. They sent records which usually played at 16 rpm. My brother listened to talking books every night. The record player had a high quality speaker, so the baratone readers came through loud and clear. My brother eventually outgrew or otherwise got over his dyslexia, but until he was a teenager, the Talking Book program was a godsend to him.
Great video as always :-) I am totally blind, and enjoy collecting and repairing boomboxes, and other vintage audio, and various tape formats. I’m only 25, so didn’t use this talking book machine much myself, but I do remember my mum (who is also blind) owning one. I was always fascinated by the fact there was a voice counting down when the tape was rewound, and I always wondered how that was achieved, I always presumed it was a voice built into the machine, so it was fascinating to learn that it was actually recorded on one of the tape tracks! I don’t know if my mum’s talking book machine was older or newer than the one you have, but the track select lever was a multiposition lever, rather than something you pressed, and it didn’t have a bell. The other strange quirk I remember with that machine was that you needed to be ready to stop the tape when the counting got to 0, otherwise the machine would spool the tape off the end!
Ooh, all the way up to Orkney! Always disappoints me when Shetland gets cut off of maps of the UK though. Can I send you something obscure to fix that?
Great video! As a digital accessibility professional, I love seeing these older machines and esp how they worked. Im actually not that shocked that these lasted as long as they did for not only the reasons you mentioned (the contract with the RNIB, for instance) but also the general slow speed that these types of devices evolve. Technologies for the disabled generally have a very slow evolution as long as it works as intended. The old adage, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it," applies in assistive technology almost to the extreme. That's not saying that entrepreneurs aren't developing some amazing stuff, but their adoption seems to take longer, largely bc of the expense involved in purchasing and learning a new AT. Some of today's non-OS provided screen readers the blind and visually impaired, among others, use for using their computer are often prohibitively expensive, but I digress. TL;DR Great video that I'll be sharing!
Wonderful stuff, thank you. It's also a great example of how assistive technologies can also be useful for those they were not initially intended for, as you allude to at the end of the video.
I use this service in Sweden and we use an app in our phones nowadays so we don't need to move heavy tapes. We can also change the speed of the audio. Thank you Technoman for a new awesome video.
I don't think there were any. You were only allowed a certain number of books out at one time, and had to send back the ones you had to receive more. The postage in both directions was free, too. New word for today: cecogram.
There weren't any late fees, you could only borrow, I think, three books in any one go. You'd return one, and another would drop through your door a few days later.
Fascinating and as usual, really well put together. You go the extra mile to delve deep into the ins and outs of these things and that’s what makes your RUclips channel stand out, so thanks.
I can't recall ever having seen an ad on any of Mat's videos (although I've YT premium so it would only be baked in sponsorships I'd see). Given the money Mat (and his Patreons) must spend to bring us this wonderful history I'd be quite happy for him to accept sponsors.
As someone who has used APH (American Printing House for the Blind) talking books since he was a child, it was nice to see the UK alternative. Our format is just a standard 4track cassette, so I was surprised to see how drastically different it really was. Of all the RUclips videos I see sponsored by Audible, this was one I would have actually expected it, but I know you don't do many, if any, sponsored videos. Just would have been humorous to my twisted mind.
I used to record church services for our local nursing home as it also specialised in helping blind people. We used regular compact cassettes but I remember seeing some of the residents using these machines as well. As you said, everyone should be able to enjoy a good book even if they can't see it.
Thank you for that video. I used all of the mentioned formats. I remember the tape that's quite fondly. The machine I used was extremely simple and I actually broke a few tapes falling asleep.
My mother was a Itinerant teacher of the Blind, she had a ton of books on tapes multiple formats and I remember her owning a couple of these, but not the player, probably because we're american Many institutions and charities for the blind in America used compact cassette but they were different very solid and heavy. I remember distinctly her getting audiobooks from the Braille institute in these unbreakable green boxes that had a couple of standard size compact cassettes made out this grey or white plastics often with the title and chapters printed in braille that would be played in these humongous tape players that often times had large chunky buttons and dials. I just googled it, they were called C-1 Library of Congress cassette player for the blind, I have good memories of them.
That was a blast from the past. Back in the early 70s, Dad bought one of the MK1 tape machines (1:29) from a junk shop in London, threw away the cartridge player and fitted a BSR reel to reel deck so I had a tape player. A bit later he added the necessary bits to turn it into a recorder. It out-performed all my friends' crummy cassette machines of the time...
I used both of those tape systems. I remember both of those systems very well. They were used by the CNIB here in Canada. I am 62 years old and started getting talking books when I was 11.
This was so informative and extremely well put together. Reminded me of Tomorrow’s World. Your enthusiasm is completely addictive. I never used the Tapeets as I only started using RNIBs talking book service at the point DAISY was introduced and now, they have an online digital audio book service as you are no doubt aware.
I used to work for a company that supplied reading machines for the blind as well as having several older machines in stock to repair a customers machine if the needed it, this may have even been a bit too old for them but they had several daisy players and other audio book style devices and it was super interesting whenever I had to take one of them apart to fix them.
Wow thanks so much for this video. When I was 8 years old my Mom and Dad and I moved to Victoria BC Canada back in 1978 and we would visit one of my Dad`s Aunts. She must have been in her late 80`s or early 90`s She was also legally blind. She had one of these machines near her bed I was always fascinated by it as I had never seen it before and I have never seen this format since until now. She would get books on tape from the CNIB this is so cool. Now I want one :)
Used to work for RNIB in the 70's & 80's mainly servicing the the 6 track cassette machine ( 8 track if you include the index). The track change mechanism was its main draw back which was often the first thing to fail. As you found out the head only moved every other press so had only 3 actual playing positions. As you can appreciate aligning the head was quite critical, surprised it lasted as long as it did.
Well, you may know this, but on various publications which were made for the blind, cue tones were recorded at very low pitches, so that if you had a tape player with the cue and review function, you could press play and fastforward, or play and rewind together. Then you would hear the audio rattling through at a very high speed, and then the beep that told you you were at the next section. Obviously no good for music albums as the beep is audible even at the low pitch and would interupt the music, but it was a neat feature for magazines. If you weren't interested in an article, you could fastforward right along to the end and know where the next one began.
Thanks for a fascinating video - it brought back memories of a stay in Moorfields Eye Hospital in the early 1990’s when I used a device of this sort to listen to books whilst recovering from an eye operation. I can’t remember if it was this device, but I do know it definitely wasn’t the standard compact cassette. It had a mono earpiece and I vividly recall a book by Basil Boothroyd which amused me greatly at the time!
My grandpa was blinded in WW1; I knew him in the 1970s when he was an old man. So I recognised this cartridge straight away, though I've not seen one for probably 35 years!
Great episode. We had a different system here in the US that also used special tapes, but they more closely resembled audio cassettes. You needed a special player for them that came from the library. I should say actually, we had that system where I grew up in Montgomery Co, Maryland. In the US, libraries are often on the local government level.
I've spent many hours untangling those tapes for my gran & great aunt, they were amazing at getting the machines to chew them up... I never took the player apart though so it was interesting to see what was inside them & how they worked
What a fascinating piece of equipment. It's design and construction certainly harks back to a bygone era, strange for a device that isn't very old at all. I was surprised that Australia (my country) used these machines too!
honestly, wish i could gain access to the govt libraries for the blind collections, so many books i KNOW are on those services but are nowhere else in audio... audio books make books far more enjoyable for us dyslexic folks.
I know that at least in US, you can also request to have access to the audio books when you are certified by a doctor to have "difficulties on reading due to an organic defect" (which is not necessarily limited to blindness).
Report from Sweden. The Tapete never made it to us. Talking books for the blind moved from open reels to compact cassette and in the end we also got Daisy as you did in the UK. Though it was my mother who was blind, but she has been dead for quite a few years now, so I actually don't know if Daisy is still in use.
The US tape system used a compact cassette with 4 tracks running at 15/16 IPS vs the normal 1 7/8 IPS. "Sides" 1 and 2 played when in the 1&2 side position and Sides 3&4 played when in the 3/4 position. Playback was by a standard stereo head with the side switch simply changing channels on the head. I'm not sure how or if Indexing worked on this method. On some of our slower speed talking book records, a subaudible tone is recorded that becomes audible when the record player is increased to 33 1/3 RPM. Talking books were first 33 1/3, then 16 2/3, followed by 8 1/3. One of the reasons for the 8 1/3 RPM speed was due to the availability of players with a 16 2/3 RPM position as the Library of Congress' National Library Service is required to make talking books available in an Incompatible format. These days, they have electronic cartridge machines and a download format as well. RUclips User RadioTVPhonoNut has some videos about the American equipment as he is both legally blind and a collector of said equipment.
I knew about the four-track half-speed cassette system, and the various speeds of phonograph records. I was not aware of the 'incompatible format' requirement of Library of Congress and I'm confused - those machines did have a 16-2/3 rpm setting, which would seem to imply that some Library of Congress talking books were released in the 16-2/3 rpm format. Could you clarify that?
@@xaenon The requirement of the agreement between the Library of Congress National Library Service and the publishers required that talking book records to be made in a way that couldn't be played on standard phonographs and cassettes could not be played on standard cassette players. This meant that when the 33 and 1/3 speed and later the 16 2/3 speed came available on home phonographs, the talking book records had to be transitioned to a lower speed.
As how the indexing worked on the 4 track cassette. It was a beep that could be heard a fast fwd and rewind. On the Machine while the book is being recorded a button could be pressed for like two seconds and it wouldn’t bet a cone on a tight but it was too low of a frequency for you to hear while the tape was playing some people could discern a low rumble during normal playback but the trick was at a faster speed of rewind or fast forward it could be heard as a standard beep.
Talking Book for the Blind in the US used standard cassettes. A stereo cassette has 4 tracks per side, so they used all 4 tracks for the book audio. Once the tape neared the end it prompted you to stop, flip a switch, and the tape played in reverse on that side. Then, you flipped the tape over and flipped the track switch back to the normal position, rinse and repeat. Magazine in audio format were made on those floppy vinyl records. Later, they switched to a digital cartridge format and even toyed with streaming audiobooks.
I am so glad you did this video. I worked for the RNIB in the 1980s and there are a couple of things you didn't find out. Firstly, the tapes were sent freepost in special mailers, not paid for by the RNIB, but the Royal Mail. It was a special class of mail that was required to be sent free of charge by law. The RNIB didn't have to pay it, the Royal Mail did. The other thing is that these machines were maintained by volunteers, who were mainly retired TV repair people or Radio Amateurs. As a Radio Amateur myself, after I left the RNIB I did a stint as a volunteer and I had the service manual until I cleared out my mum's house recently. The library of tapes was considerable and they were used by other services like the hospital one you have the examples from. The RNIB mailers had to go through the post so they were reusable and made of padded plastic material unlike the cardboard hospital ones you showed which were for handing back to the hospital library. I hope this is of some interest to people who watched this video.
Every time Techmoan has covered every historic format, the Universe adjusts itself to generate some more.
There is no way there are any more media formats he hasn't yet covered I'm sure of it!
it is his curse. His purgatory
@TimoThere is some joke here involving the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics here that I am too dim to properly articulate.
Woke up this morning and found a box in my garage, full of what looks like steel funnels of endless-looping 7-track tape. Now I see this upload and it makes sense 🛸
nah, the rabbit hole of formats ais both deep and wide. The closer he comes, the more come to light. I still have a few unseen oddballs I'll send in a few years if he hasn't found em yet.
My late dad was a self-employed plumber, and I often helped him. One of his customers was virtually blind, and I can remember seeing one of these in his living room, 25+ years ago. I saw the thumbnail,and recognised it straight away. Thank you for bringing back some memories of working with my dad, and his wonderful clients.
If you don't mind me asking, why did you censor the word "emp!oyed"?
@@djdjukic looks to be a simple typo to me.
@@djdjukic sorry, typo!
@@CommodoreFan64 I didn't realise that my tablet had automatically spelt 'employed' like that until reading these comments! My apologies, and your answer was spot on
Typo in the word 'employed' now corrected
I almost started skipping forward when I heard him say "Audible". That's a Pavlovian level response right there.
Speaking of Audible... ;)
How raidshadowlegendsy of you.
"This audiobook is sponsored by Raycon..."
@@samuelschwager how do you skip it in vanced?
@@GhoulToast I have no idea. I pay for YT Premium ;)
You never fail to deliver with the obscure formats of the past. Agreed it is very interesting these were used up to the 2000's. Thanks for another great video!
Many thanks to both of you.
Ya big dummy! 😆
Dude! Put more home amps on the dynos. They don't have to be new get some 2nd hand junk
Big D! Great to see you here!
I remember seeing them in librarys where I live in bolton
Personally i was kinda expecting to hear: "This audiobook will self destruct in 10 seconds"
He already did the mission impossible one, check it out!
Techmoan: Unfortunately, the belt that runs the self-destruct mechanism was gone to goo, and I couldn't find a proper replacement. Well, I suppose that's probably for the best.
* Hunter x Hunter flashbacks *
@@hadeishadeis7462 Your "guide dog" looks suspiciously like an old rug thrown over a stack of explosives, with a piece of detonation cord for a "leash".
@@hadeishadeis7462 This is turning into a really bad Monty Python sketch!
The amount of cartridges they managed to put the exact same 1/4" tape in never ceases to amaze me.
Well, to be fair, it's just plastic tape with a magnetic material coating. What you do with it is your prerogative, and the alignment of the tracks was more often defined by the pickups available for them to use. So it is more about the same type of pickup head being used.
I'm not surprised to see how robust these decks are, nor am I surprised by the simplicity of its controls. Easy-grip handles with a wide spacing, a cabinet that was built for the rigors of daily life instead of flashy aesthetics, and at first glance it looks quite serviceable inside as well. Simple, reliable, durable, exactly what these units needed to be.
The 1960s were a better time
@@MikehMike01 Shame leftists have been slowly denigrating western society.
Yet it doesn’t have brail on it…lol
It seems as if it should have had a fast-forward option, too, although I suppose that the user could accomplish the same thing by flipping the tape and selecting rewind.
@@solitairepilot not every blind person can read braille.
"Aww man are you ever going to run out of formats?"
"No, because I work at the format factory"
An infinite supply of format tat.
So you work at sony?
The format factory has two manufacturing lines: one for the media, and one for the machines.
My electronic engineer dad would service and repair those machines in the 80s and 90s on a voluntary basis.
I remember these, as my mum is Registered Blind, (as are most of my family, i'm a lucky one) - they had all sorts of gadgets and gizmo's including these... My Mum had a slightly more advanced version though, with variable speed control, she could make it 'read' faster, get through books quicker :D
I'll ask around the family if anyone still has any of the old cartridge/tapes... :)
Great vid xD
I don't mean to be rude with this question, but I have to ask: How does your family even exist if most of them are blind? How do they earn a living and thus prove their worth to potential mates? I'm sure they are charming people, but being charming doesn't pay the bills.
@Shawn Elliott You can work when blind/partially sighted etc you know, companies put provisions in place etc...
That and not ALL are blind, just the majority....
@@deusexaethera You sound charming yourself🙄. Seriously though try not being an asshole. Not sure how you function when that’s how you interact with people.”How do they earn a living and thus to prove their worth to potential mates”. That’d fucking earn you a punch from many disabled people I know, or their family.
@@Savannah_Simpson: I'm not asking about a disabled person, I'm asking about an _entire family_ of disabled people. How do a bunch of people who all have the same _inheritable_ disability decide to have children who are doomed to inherit that same disability? I'd be pretty fucking angry if I found out my parents knew their kids would be doomed to be born blind but decided to have kids anyway.
@@Ghozer: I'm really not trying to be a jerk, but I really can't imagine what kind of work someone could do if they can't see at all. If they're extremely nearsighted, that's a different story because that can be corrected with optics. I admit I've only come across a few truly blind people in my life, and always in public places. None of them worked for my highly-inclusive employers, who work on government contracts and pride themselves on hiring a diverse workforce. I know one person who developed severe glaucoma in their 20s and lost their sight, and they stopped working and live on government disability payments. So I have no experience with what kind of work blind people are capable of doing. Furthermore, I swore to myself to be an endpoint for the problems I grew up with, and I spent decades working through them before considering having a family, so I struggle to imagine people deciding to willingly pass on an inheritable disability to children. If any of my problems had been inheritable, I'd have at least tried to find a fertility lab that could fertilize a few egg cells and filter-out the ones with the genes I didn't want to pass on, but more likely I would've opted to not have children at all.
Interesting! I’m guessing that the track changer only functioning on every second push is because it’s simpler to instruct users to push it every single time they turn the tape over, rather than have them wonder if they need to push it this time or not.
This makes sense, I was wondering what was the point of pressing it each time.
especially if you stopped in the middle of a session and didn't remember if you'd pressed it last time or not! and the tape itself doesn't know if it's synchronised with your machine, if you're jumping from book to book depending on your mood.
Exactly. One of the first rules of human machine interaction - make the UI consistent. Very nicely done in my opinion.
In my opinion this system can be more confusing. Imagine somebody came in and pressed the button when you weren't around. Now the head moves when it's supposed to be a discarded press, and the head doesn't move when it's supposed to. You'd end up playing the tracks out of order. I think it's more sensible for the head to move with every press. Then you'd just follow the instruction recorded on the tape, simply flipping and pressing only if it says to.
@@eDoc2020 Perhaps a warning should have been added to the tape:
"This machine and tapes are intended for one specific user" :)
My Mother was blind, recognised it straight away! I remember books arriving, but also the local newspaper in Harlow Essex was delivered on this format!
@Jon Goat I recall that it was a summary, covering more than one week. I going back to the late 70's here so a bit vague!
@Jon Goat The newspaper I received today said : "Man walked on the moon !"
How did she recognize it on a 2D picture displayed on a screen?
@@angolin9352 ha, ha, ha. very funny, pedantic man.
@@angolin9352 You can be blind and not be totally blind
Using the flywheel as a bell is absolute engineering genius. A lazy design, each component does only one thing. A well thought design, each component may serve multiple functions.
I remember these very well from the late 60s as my grandmother was blind and would get her regular delivery of talking books, which she loved. I always helped her choose from the catalogue (the narrator was as important as the content as there were some readers whose voice she really disliked). The machines were very sturdy; the controls never felt like they would break and the cartridges were easy for my nan to use even though she was elderly. I loved to listen to the books with her and used to post them back after we had finished with them. Seeing them again has been a nice reminder of childhood days with my wonderful nan.
Fun fact: "Tapete" ist German for "Wallpaper". So I was confused when I first saw the video ^^
@MomoTheBellyDancer He knows that. And yet it's confusing for a second. Got me to.
@MomoTheBellyDancer Its the way the mind works. Because when you're speaking German all the time, you're more used to those associations. So when in a foreign context you see a German word, or at least a familiar string of letters your brain jumps to that first association it has, which is usually in your mother tongue. So even in the context of techmoan, the first second of seeing that title you'll be thinking of that word.
Fun fact: "Tapete" is Spanish for "Rug". So I was confused when I first saw the video ^^
@@rickhunter7 a German, a Spaniard and an audio engineer walk into a DIY store
@MomoTheBellyDancer The fact that Tapete is the German word for Wallpaper!
"Talking Bulk" will be my stage name when I embark on a career as a spoken-word performing artist.
It struck me that neither the controls on the device nor the tapes seemed to be labeled in Braille. I guess the expectation was that somebody sighted would set it up? I'm sure a person could learn what the controls did by touch pretty easily, particularly since they were so big and widely separated, but figuring out which tape was which and which side to start on would have required an annoying amount of trial and error.
Braille labelling isn't always necessary, and not all blind people can read braille to begin with; which is especially common amongst people who became blind later in life. You wouldn't want a device like this to be inaccessible to people who can't read braille.
That's why the tape has explicit instructions and tells you which book it is right at the start, that's why the controls are big and chunky, and that's why the label that's on only one side of the tape is such a thick and sturdy label, helps with identifying which side is which. All things that are trivial to pick up once you get used to the system and which don't rely on braille.
@@daredaemon8878 Certainly understandable and foreword thinking on their part, but given that Braille is the recognized standard it still seems odd to not include it _along_ with the audio prompts, large, well-spaced controls, and label design.
I wonder if it was because hardly anyone was using Braille in that part of the world at that time.
I can't link the article but there's one I found from a quick google search from the BBC in 2012 that even then only %1 or so of sight challenged or blind people were using Braille. Although the addition couldn't have cost too much time or money.
What really makes me scratch my head is the lack of large font on the carts or the player for those who aren't completely without sight.
For the record, I didn't mean I was surprised it wasn't ONLY labeled in Braille. And I may have been conditioned by the ubiquity of same over here in the States, where--I kid you not--drive-up ATMs often have Braille instruction panels on them.
Dare Daemon Even if they didn't use Braille, you would think that they would have a distinguishing mark on the controls to make it easier to use for the blind. For instance, someone who was blind might have problems with the tone and volume controls because they seem to be basically identical.
Thanks so much for doing this. Since I’m blind and from the UK I’m very familiar with these but knew nothing about how they worked or even what they were called.
I just assumed they were the regular 8-track tapes that were popular in the US, having only heard about those.
When I joined the talking book service they had switched to DAISY but I knew people that had these machines, albeit the slightly more modern version you mentioned.
BTW DAISY is worth its own video.
Thanks for showing this! I’m a blind American and used the 4-track compact cassettes as a child. I have always been curious about the ways other countries did things.
Your channel is one where I try to never miss an upload.
This video brings tears of nostalgia to me as I grew up with one of these machines from about the age of 13 because of severe vision impairment. They were widely used across Australia where I live and I still remember the wonderful stories I heard on this format. Thank you for posting this!
I was almost disappointed when that perfect transition to doing a sponsored plug for Audible actually turned out not to be an ad. Such a missed opportunity!
In North America talking books for the blind used more mainstream formats such as records that spun at 16 2/3 RPM and 8 1/3 RPM. There was cassette that played at 15/16 IPS and played the each of the 4 tracks one after another after another to provide eight times the playback time. Radiotvphononut has done some excellent videos about these devices.
Really appreciating these weekly videos. Something to look forward to!
We have “Free matter for the blind” here as well.
My state Missouri has the Wolfner library that sends players and books to the blind
what formats do/did they use?
@@guyfellows2293 My father got tapes and a free loaner machine from the Wolfner Library. In the 1980s and into the 1990s at least they used a compact cassette based system. The machines ran at half normal speed and only used a single track at a time, similar to what Techmoan showed for the Tapete. They could therefore get four times the audio duration on a cassette. You'd play track 1, flip the tape to play 2, flip again and use the track switch for 3, then flip again for track 4. You had to remember to change the track switch back for track 1 on the next tape. The players also supported variable speed control, so you could slow down the rate at which the narrator spoke to some extent, but that also affected the pitch.
The cassette tapes themselves did have the raised Braille bumps on them. The player my Dad used was a semi-portable, if I recall it had rechargeable batteries and an AC line current cord as well. It was laid out like a portable cassette player, top loading, with piano-key buttons along the left front, and the audio and speed controls to the right, all on top. The tape motion control piano-keys had raised tactile indicator shapes like X, O, and >, plus they were different colors, allowing for both impaired vision and totally blind people to use it.
My Dad would get books, but also periodicals like Time Magazine, and enjoyed them immensely.
UPDATE: Cassette Cold Turkey
www.sos.mo.gov/WolfnerNewsFall2017
"Starting January 1st, 2018, Wolfner Library will no longer circulate books on cassette tape. The National Library Service project to convert the back catalog of books on cassette to digital media has concluded, and we are ready to clean out storage and make room for new materials in the collection."
Follow that link and you'll see a picture of the big yellow player I described.
@@bobblum5973 Hi Bob that sounds like a Telex talking Book Machine. They were pretty robust for devices with lots of moving parts. The main advantage was, as you said, having four tracks - which doubled the playing time of the cassette. They were easy to use and our members loved them when we had them in service. I just checked the link you had and yes, definitely a Telex. We had some in that colour but most were in an ugly deep blue green. We may still have some of the green cassette containers in the picture in our collection. We are currently sharing parts of our audio collection with NLS at the moment.
@@danielbooth5310 Thanks for your response, glad to get more details! Telex does sound right for the model, it's been 25 years since my Dad passed away so I haven't seen the unit since then. I'm familiar with the Telex brand name from their audio gear such as headsets and microphones back around the 1970s or so at least.
Brilliant and fascinating, thank you. I worked at RNIB Transcription Centre in Glasgow In the late 90s, working with volunteers to produce recordings on request such as instruction manuals, books which had not yet been recorded, magazine articles or textbooks. All of our tapes were produced on compact cassette using standard Yamaha tape decks in a small recording booth. A small beeper was used to indicate a page turn. We had to check volunteer recordings for accuracy as a missed page or misread line would confuse the listener and cause copyright issues. Our volunteers were amazing, and mistakes were not that common. We checked the recordings on a mono cassette player with a speed control - you got used to listening at triple speed! I never saw a Tapete, but I did begin learning about the DAISY format which used XML to markup texts for a digital voice system. My favourite job was reading “A Description of the Western Isles” by Martin Martin from 1703!
I guess the head only has two wires because the frequency of the recording on the index tracks would be so low at normal playback, a high pass filter would remove the sound
I’ll go along with that - I’m not at all clued up on this.
Yes, rewind speed seems to be much higher than play speed. That's rather elegant way to shift complexity from player to tape mastering step.
It'd also explain why the head for the index is so much wider, to ensure it gets a clear signal.
Not sure about that - the head moves about so the head for the index tracks would be over a regular speech track sometimes. Maybe if the gap between the index and the regular head was more than 1/4 inch apart, it would mean that the index head was always off the tape when the book was playing and the regular head was always off the tape when the index was playing.
@@hegedusuk that's a good point! Maybe the head resets when you fast wind?
Thank you this very informative video. My late Uncle Bobby used talking books provided to him by The Braille Institute. First, it was a record player with an 16 RPM speed option, then he transitioned to a (compact) cassette player in the mid-80's. He relied on those players until his passing in 2009. Thank you again...marvelous channel.
OMG! Techmoan has done it again. Yet "another" format that I have never seen. LOL!
Thank you Sir. #Peace
This was a truly lovely video. I first had one of the machines which could play this format back in 1978 and enjoyed many books as a child and through later years using it. The audio indexing during rewind was very useful. When I started listening at night, I would take a mental note of the index number as often I would go to sleep. When I came back to the book, at least I knew approximately where to rewind back to. Great memories!
I never knew my electric typewriter ribbon refills had music on them. :O
A belated congratulations on 1 Million subscribers. You are among the RUclips elite. I have learned a great deal from watching your videos, and found much enjoyment as well. Thank you for all you do!
Sir, this was yet another trademark video of yours. Your fan from past 6 years. I am anxiously waiting for the review of 'One of the best boom box ever made'. Thank you.
I do think it makes sense that the layout has the index tracks in the middle. It's playing while the tape speed is very high, so if the head coils are in parallel, just the frequency responses at the different speeds would mostly cancel out the other track.
Note the geometry also supports this, with the "high speed" coil being stretched out
@@johndododoe1411 very true, but that way I see two issues:
- suboptimal head design for the tape speed. see the different widths of the slit in the head
- added complexity to the frequency response of the recording equipment
I think it would be very impractical to have a DC response that low for the recorder, and if recorded at higher speed there's other issues
@@johndododoe1411 I got that! just for completeness, but yes, you're absolutely right
Is that why the pitch is a little higher or the speed is a little higher well announcing what indexes passing?
@@johndododoe1411 oh I see.
You know, for a long time I have been watching your videos, for several years in fact and somehow I haven't really seen any videos for quite a while, which is of course appalling on my part. You are simply very entertaining to listen to and without knowing a lot about the things you discuss on your channel I just wanted to say thanks for the information and entertainment. You never fail to make me interested in weird formats and hifi, a huge thanks from Denmark.
Several decades ago I made an astonishing discovery at an estate sale. It was a box of magazines, all in Braille with obviously no pictures. A few of them were Playboy! For those wondering, no, you couldn't "feel" the centerfold! I no longer have them, but I think that the existence of Playboy for the blind was quite bizarre.
I just love these videos, explaining tech that I've never have seen before but each time it has an interesting story and purpose to it. It's just like diving into a new universe. Keep it up!
Because of this channel, if I ever have the money, I am going to buy every kind of obscure audio, video, or electronic device I can get my hands on. The stuff is just so darn cool
How interesting! A person who is blind wouldn't be able to see a track number indicator, so they designed the device to "remember" whether it's playing an odd track or an even track so the user doesn't need to know when to press the button and when to just flip the tape. That's an affordance that would really only work when a single organization controls the players, the media, and the recording- if there had been a third-party building those devices they would have been tempted to simplify that track advance mechanism, and then all of the first-party tapes that tell you to press the advance button on every track would have been wrong.
This UX is probably THE reason. It is simpler to just repeat the same motion on a track change than to think which side is playing. What I really lack on the device (and casettes) are braille writings. I assume, the levers were distinct enough, but still...
When I was a child in the USA in the late 1960's, the Library of Congress had a Talking Book program. Although the primary users of the program were the blind (the records had braille as well as print on them), one of my brothers had dyslexia, and he was able to use the program despite not being blind. The Library of Congress supplied a record player which could play as slow as 8 rpm and as fast as 33 & 1/3 rpm. They sent records which usually played at 16 rpm. My brother listened to talking books every night. The record player had a high quality speaker, so the baratone readers came through loud and clear. My brother eventually outgrew or otherwise got over his dyslexia, but until he was a teenager, the Talking Book program was a godsend to him.
Man, that really sounds quite a lot better than I was expecting for such a low-speed format!
You brought some old memory, my father who was blind had one of these.
Great video as always :-) I am totally blind, and enjoy collecting and repairing boomboxes, and other vintage audio, and various tape formats. I’m only 25, so didn’t use this talking book machine much myself, but I do remember my mum (who is also blind) owning one. I was always fascinated by the fact there was a voice counting down when the tape was rewound, and I always wondered how that was achieved, I always presumed it was a voice built into the machine, so it was fascinating to learn that it was actually recorded on one of the tape tracks! I don’t know if my mum’s talking book machine was older or newer than the one you have, but the track select lever was a multiposition lever, rather than something you pressed, and it didn’t have a bell. The other strange quirk I remember with that machine was that you needed to be ready to stop the tape when the counting got to 0, otherwise the machine would spool the tape off the end!
Ooh, all the way up to Orkney! Always disappoints me when Shetland gets cut off of maps of the UK though. Can I send you something obscure to fix that?
Using the big flywheel as the bell is really cute! The way it works reminds me to stereo-8 a lot.
Have one and loads of tapes from when I was a kid, had loads of audio books from the RNIB.
If you have some of these carts I'd be interested in acquiring a few you don't want any more.
What a great idea and a beautiful machine. I have never seen such a device and these tapes before. Thank you for showing and demonstrating!
That first talking-book-tape really reminds me of the Tefifon, at least in general cartridge-shape with rounded top-flat bottom.
It contained two spools, one on top of the other.
I have had a couple few drinks but this is about the coolest tape thingy I've seen you cover Sir! Thank you.
Fun fact: "Tapete" is portuguese for "carpet". So I was confused when I first saw the video ^^
Great video! As a digital accessibility professional, I love seeing these older machines and esp how they worked. Im actually not that shocked that these lasted as long as they did for not only the reasons you mentioned (the contract with the RNIB, for instance) but also the general slow speed that these types of devices evolve. Technologies for the disabled generally have a very slow evolution as long as it works as intended. The old adage, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it," applies in assistive technology almost to the extreme. That's not saying that entrepreneurs aren't developing some amazing stuff, but their adoption seems to take longer, largely bc of the expense involved in purchasing and learning a new AT. Some of today's non-OS provided screen readers the blind and visually impaired, among others, use for using their computer are often prohibitively expensive, but I digress.
TL;DR Great video that I'll be sharing!
7:00 open up the machine... Wooohooooo!
Extraordinary the depth you go into each of your videos. Thank you!
Another excellent presentation. Thank you! Applause! Applause!
Techmoan: \*makes an excellent video about a British books for the blind format*
Germans: "I must tell you about ze wallpaper"
Wonderful stuff, thank you. It's also a great example of how assistive technologies can also be useful for those they were not initially intended for, as you allude to at the end of the video.
5:40 "And unsurprisingly, these pads have..."
Me: Perished
Techmoan: "...Rotted Away"
Me: *Surprised Pikachu face.jpg*
I use this service in Sweden and we use an app in our phones nowadays so we don't need to move heavy tapes. We can also change the speed of the audio. Thank you Technoman for a new awesome video.
@Jon Goat Yes
The late fees from those tapes must be huge!
I don't think there were any. You were only allowed a certain number of books out at one time, and had to send back the ones you had to receive more. The postage in both directions was free, too. New word for today: cecogram.
Maybe that's why Alexander lives in the Orkney Islands....he's on the run LOL
There weren't any late fees, you could only borrow, I think, three books in any one go. You'd return one, and another would drop through your door a few days later.
Another wonderful tape format! Thanks for this video, Techmoan.
I wouldn’t have been able to resist using the title “The enduring audio format you (probably) haven’t seen”
"The enduring video format you (probably) haven't smelled" :P
Fascinating and as usual, really well put together. You go the extra mile to delve deep into the ins and outs of these things and that’s what makes your RUclips channel stand out, so thanks.
I was really expecting an audible ad at the end. They probably would’ve sponsored you as well if you said you were making this video.
I can't recall ever having seen an ad on any of Mat's videos (although I've YT premium so it would only be baked in sponsorships I'd see). Given the money Mat (and his Patreons) must spend to bring us this wonderful history I'd be quite happy for him to accept sponsors.
This is a wonderful video. I found myself entranced and completely engaged by the story of this tape mechanism. Thank you so much!
Podcast Blast from the Past!
Love It!!!
Just when I think I've learned about every obscure audio or video format, you blow my mind again!
As someone who has used APH (American Printing House for the Blind) talking books since he was a child, it was nice to see the UK alternative. Our format is just a standard 4track cassette, so I was surprised to see how drastically different it really was. Of all the RUclips videos I see sponsored by Audible, this was one I would have actually expected it, but I know you don't do many, if any, sponsored videos. Just would have been humorous to my twisted mind.
Can't imagine this sold particularly well in France with that name 😬
Christine Boutin approuve ce message !
I used to record church services for our local nursing home as it also specialised in helping blind people. We used regular compact cassettes but I remember seeing some of the residents using these machines as well. As you said, everyone should be able to enjoy a good book even if they can't see it.
Simply fascinating. A part of the history of accessibility. Hats off to you, sir!
Excellent video -- I was really impressed by your forensic analysis of the track layout!
Always looking forward to your new video to discover some new format.
Thank you for that video. I used all of the mentioned formats. I remember the tape that's quite fondly. The machine I used was extremely simple and I actually broke a few tapes falling asleep.
My mother was a Itinerant teacher of the Blind, she had a ton of books on tapes multiple formats and I remember her owning a couple of these, but not the player, probably because we're american
Many institutions and charities for the blind in America used compact cassette but they were different very solid and heavy. I remember distinctly her getting audiobooks from the Braille institute in these unbreakable green boxes that had a couple of standard size compact cassettes made out this grey or white plastics often with the title and chapters printed in braille that would be played in these humongous tape players that often times had large chunky buttons and dials.
I just googled it, they were called
C-1 Library of Congress cassette player for the blind, I have good memories of them.
I'll be honest now, you can start inventing stuff up and I will believe you.
That was a blast from the past. Back in the early 70s, Dad bought one of the MK1 tape machines (1:29) from a junk shop in London, threw away the cartridge player and fitted a BSR reel to reel deck so I had a tape player. A bit later he added the necessary bits to turn it into a recorder. It out-performed all my friends' crummy cassette machines of the time...
Was anyone else expecting an audible sponsorship at the end?
I used both of those tape systems. I remember both of those systems very well.
They were used by the CNIB here in Canada. I am 62 years old and started getting talking books when I was 11.
What an obscure machine, love it! Love your videos!
This was so informative and extremely well put together. Reminded me of Tomorrow’s World. Your enthusiasm is completely addictive. I never used the Tapeets as I only started using RNIBs talking book service at the point DAISY was introduced and now, they have an online digital audio book service as you are no doubt aware.
Audible should have been a sponsor.
@This world is on the edge Oh go blow it out your tailpipe.
This world is on the edge Yea Michael Obama is a real communist isn’t she? Make sure you apply your makeup btw 🤡
@This world is on the edge Nobody likes the willfully stupid, son. Run on home now.
@This world is on the edge I love that you deleted your original comment, but have kept the restnof your troll posts. LOL
I used to work for a company that supplied reading machines for the blind as well as having several older machines in stock to repair a customers machine if the needed it, this may have even been a bit too old for them but they had several daisy players and other audio book style devices and it was super interesting whenever I had to take one of them apart to fix them.
Wow thanks so much for this video. When I was 8 years old my Mom and Dad and I moved to Victoria BC Canada back in 1978 and we would visit one of my Dad`s Aunts. She must have been in her late 80`s or early 90`s She was also legally blind. She had one of these machines near her bed I was always fascinated by it as I had never seen it before and I have never seen this format since until now. She would get books on tape from the CNIB this is so cool. Now I want one :)
Used to work for RNIB in the 70's & 80's mainly servicing the the 6 track cassette machine ( 8 track if you include the index). The track change mechanism was its main draw back which was often the first thing to fail. As you found out the head only moved every other press so had only 3 actual playing positions. As you can appreciate aligning the head was quite critical, surprised it lasted as long as it did.
Wow. I wish cassette tapes had audible indexes. That is a legitimately good feature.
Well, you may know this, but on various publications which were made for the blind, cue tones were recorded at very low pitches, so that if you had a tape player with the cue and review function, you could press play and fastforward, or play and rewind together. Then you would hear the audio rattling through at a very high speed, and then the beep that told you you were at the next section. Obviously no good for music albums as the beep is audible even at the low pitch and would interupt the music, but it was a neat feature for magazines. If you weren't interested in an article, you could fastforward right along to the end and know where the next one began.
Thanks for a fascinating video - it brought back memories of a stay in Moorfields Eye Hospital in the early 1990’s when I used a device of this sort to listen to books whilst recovering from an eye operation. I can’t remember if it was this device, but I do know it definitely wasn’t the standard compact cassette. It had a mono earpiece and I vividly recall a book by Basil Boothroyd which amused me greatly at the time!
My grandpa was blinded in WW1; I knew him in the 1970s when he was an old man. So I recognised this cartridge straight away, though I've not seen one for probably 35 years!
Great episode. We had a different system here in the US that also used special tapes, but they more closely resembled audio cassettes. You needed a special player for them that came from the library. I should say actually, we had that system where I grew up in Montgomery Co, Maryland. In the US, libraries are often on the local government level.
I've spent many hours untangling those tapes for my gran & great aunt, they were amazing at getting the machines to chew them up...
I never took the player apart though so it was interesting to see what was inside them & how they worked
"Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program."
What a fascinating piece of equipment. It's design and construction certainly harks back to a bygone era, strange for a device that isn't very old at all. I was surprised that Australia (my country) used these machines too!
honestly, wish i could gain access to the govt libraries for the blind collections, so many books i KNOW are on those services but are nowhere else in audio... audio books make books far more enjoyable for us dyslexic folks.
I know that at least in US, you can also request to have access to the audio books when you are certified by a doctor to have "difficulties on reading due to an organic defect" (which is not necessarily limited to blindness).
Yes, that is why I used this service when I was a kid. Licensed to so many books. It gives me such joy.
My uncle was registered blind and had one of these. As a result my dad, a telephone engineer, became a local repairman for the RNIB.
The best part about waking up on a lazy Saturday is seeing what gem Techmoan has for us.
Report from Sweden. The Tapete never made it to us. Talking books for the blind moved from open reels to compact cassette and in the end we also got Daisy as you did in the UK. Though it was my mother who was blind, but she has been dead for quite a few years now, so I actually don't know if Daisy is still in use.
The US tape system used a compact cassette with 4 tracks running at 15/16 IPS vs the normal 1 7/8 IPS. "Sides" 1 and 2 played when in the 1&2 side position and Sides 3&4 played when in the 3/4 position. Playback was by a standard stereo head with the side switch simply changing channels on the head. I'm not sure how or if Indexing worked on this method.
On some of our slower speed talking book records, a subaudible tone is recorded that becomes audible when the record player is increased to 33 1/3 RPM. Talking books were first 33 1/3, then 16 2/3, followed by 8 1/3. One of the reasons for the 8 1/3 RPM speed was due to the availability of players with a 16 2/3 RPM position as the Library of Congress' National Library Service is required to make talking books available in an Incompatible format. These days, they have electronic cartridge machines and a download format as well.
RUclips User RadioTVPhonoNut has some videos about the American equipment as he is both legally blind and a collector of said equipment.
I knew about the four-track half-speed cassette system, and the various speeds of phonograph records. I was not aware of the 'incompatible format' requirement of Library of Congress and I'm confused - those machines did have a 16-2/3 rpm setting, which would seem to imply that some Library of Congress talking books were released in the 16-2/3 rpm format. Could you clarify that?
@@xaenon The requirement of the agreement between the Library of Congress National Library Service and the publishers required that talking book records to be made in a way that couldn't be played on standard phonographs and cassettes could not be played on standard cassette players. This meant that when the 33 and 1/3 speed and later the 16 2/3 speed came available on home phonographs, the talking book records had to be transitioned to a lower speed.
As how the indexing worked on the 4 track cassette. It was a beep that could be heard a fast fwd and rewind. On the
Machine while the book is being recorded a button could be pressed for like two seconds and it wouldn’t bet a cone on a tight but it was too low of a frequency for you to hear while the tape was playing some people could discern a low rumble during normal playback but the trick was at a faster speed of rewind or fast forward it could be heard as a standard beep.
Love your videos always learning something. And top top it of only ads at start and finish of your content so a win win for me
Talking Book for the Blind in the US used standard cassettes. A stereo cassette has 4 tracks per side, so they used all 4 tracks for the book audio. Once the tape neared the end it prompted you to stop, flip a switch, and the tape played in reverse on that side. Then, you flipped the tape over and flipped the track switch back to the normal position, rinse and repeat. Magazine in audio format were made on those floppy vinyl records. Later, they switched to a digital cartridge format and even toyed with streaming audiobooks.
Thank you that was fantastic. I did enjoy this a lot. Great seeing one of this old thing work agen. Keep up the excellent work.
You describe as strange that it was still in service up until 2000, but to me I would expect to see this still in my local library.
Never a dull moment with Matthew Taylor.