I've spent 15 years waiting for a sony pnumatic tape player . Got one ,misplaced the tapes 😐 Edit umatic lol Cost me a fiver ,hope i wasnt ripped orf 😁
For what it's worth, the gold disc is "Ii ja nai no shiawase naraba" sung by Naomi Sagara.. first released in July 1969. Written by Tokiko Iwatani and Taku Izumi. Popular song with lots of other later covers done on it. B-side "Sekai wa futari no tame ni" Also by Naomi Sagara A 1967 release. Big million seller. Singer sound is a bit unique.. she has a bit of boyish vocal sound...deeper than most Japan female singers. And a bit of history. But was very popular.
Welcome to vintage consumer electronics and audio :D this man is the reason I want an "all format" hifi. I'm talkin tape, CD, record, 8 track, ELCASSETTE FOR FUCK SAKE... this man is a sait and wellspring of information but if you have a collectors mind, turn heel and run before he reels you into this mess
Eddie Barclay is a household name in France. He used to marry about once a year with a new seemingly identical 20~ish Slavic beauty when he was well into his 80s himself. He's also famed as the importer of the stereo long-play record format from the US (fr: "microsillon" , en: "microgroove"), for which he secured exclusive rights to the tooling, creating the basis of his music empire when the "yéyé" wave took the charts by storm in the 60s, singing popular translated covers of classic English rock'n'roll.
Personally, I love how the advertising focused on the portability, specifically the number of records that could be carried in a pocket. It's the same sort of claim that drove early MP3 player marketing. An interesting evolutionary dead-end in man's quest to carry his music with him.
It's a bit unfortunate that the Barcalytophone didn't feature a transparent lid or show the spinning disc during playback. The golden record would look pretty neat while spinning!
Apparently a well know washing machine manufacturer once released a front loading washing machine with a door that didn't have a window in it. I understand that it was a failure as people like to have the option of watching their clothes as they are being watched.
@@Crispy_Bee Fair point. Though with a top loader you can just open the door mid cycle if you're concerned about the progress of your wash. Since there's no chance of a flood there's no need for an interlock mechanism to prevent you doing this.
@@alexistarr why does anyone need to watch their laundry? They're on timers anyways. I always thought of front loading washers as more of a convenience thing, and the clear door part just a novelty.
@@startedtech From my personal point of view their's always that nagging doubt that something will go wrong mid cycle, being able to see what's going on in my washing machine drum is reassuring. Having said that my 10 year old washing machine is vastly more reliable than the Windows 10 update process....
Here is an excerpt from a paper in ''Le Monde", dated January 25, 1968. Translated with deepl. At the same time, Barclay in particular is working to launch new formats. Two months ago, the first 33-rpm mini-discs with a diameter of 12 centimetres and six titles appeared, and the company's researchers have just developed a 5 or 6 centimetre diameter micro-disc with two titles, which will allow the use of tiny electrophones. These discs, which would sell for less than two francs, should appear on the market next summer when the American company working with Barclay on this project will have produced the pocket-sized "mange disque" ("record eater") ! C.B.S., for its part, is trying to impose the Gemini single, which has only two tracks and is already in the process of replacing the four-track single in many foreign countries. End of quote. Let me add that Eddie Barclay was extremely famous in France, not only as a producer but also for his numerous (consecutive) young wives and parties in Saint Tropez.
We had a 45 of the Jackson 5 singing "ABC, 123" that we got with a bowl of cereal. I forget the cereal though. Maybe it was Alpha Bits, as it goes with the song--or the song with the cereal...
Yes, Barclay was a french label, but their releases were popular in Japan. They had a japanese division. I got a japanese 7" record with Barclay label (and one with Carrere too).
It's not often you see a single creator produce content that is so well rounded and enjoyable to watch. I barely care about music (formats), yet I enjoyed this wideo immensely.
It used to be that if you weren't in the right place, at the right time, you simply would miss stuff and often not even be aware of it afterwards. Internet truly is a marvel.
As someone born in the 80s, I think the move towards digitization has aided in keeping stuff from my youth alive in the consciousness for a lot longer. You can't download a vinyl record with all the scratches and pops as it was but you can save a ROM from the NES and find varying ways to play it nowadays without much difficulty. I'll never really have the experience of putting a needle on a record player in my nostalgia banks but I can revisit music from when I was 8 or 9 simply by tracking down a CD and throwing it in my PC (which still has a BD-R drive). I find going back to stuff from when I was a kid requires less specialized hardware than maybe something my dad would have to resort to in order to do the same.
What a bonkers story from the format wars! As someone who was into music and computers in the 80's, I thought I had seen them all, but no. Excellent work sir.
Bravo Mat, a fascinating & well-developed deep dive into a forgotten & mysterious format! I love these types of videos, it’s like “Forensic Files” but about stuff you’d actually enjoy 😄
Thanks for the Magical Mystery Tour through some history of small-format records. I'm not surprised by your small problem with battery sizes, I've seen that before with really old equipment, The exact dimensions of the cells has changed over the years, as has the formulation. It looks like you were trying to use carbon "dry cells" as well as the alkaline ones, I recall when nickel-cadmium rechargeable ones were ever so slightly larger in diameter then the carbon-zinc or alkalines. Most people don't realize that a "cell" is a single unit, while a "battery" is technically a group of cells inside a single case, so AA, AAA, C and D sizes are cells, while a 9-volt is a battery. How many people wonder about "A" and "B" batteries? I recall needing 22.5-volt batteries that were the size of a 9-volt but instead of the snap connections they had a bump contact on each end. As a kid back in the 1960s I had some battery operated toy slot cars, Ideal Toys' Motorific series that used two AA cells in each car. When they came out with smaller "Mini-Motorific" they switched to using "N" cells instead, which (according to Wikipedia) have a length of 30.2 mm and a diameter of 12.0 mm (approximately three-fifths the length of a AA battery). At the time they were a very odd size, and the only place we could get them was Sears, Roebuck & Co. (probably where we bought the Mini-Motorific sets!).
10:05 “nothing, not a sausage”. Being British this makes perfect sense to me, but to our international friends who may have spent years studying English, I guess this sounds a bit odd.. oh how we love the English language.
I confused an American with the phrases ‘Chuffed to bits’ and ‘I could murder a fag’. With the later he thought it was homophobic, rather than just being desperate for a cigarette! 🚬
@@johnstone7697 Likewise even into at least the 1960s, American writers were still using the word "gay" as an adjective roughly synonymous with "happy" or "joyful". Strange how, almost the instant a word becomes even faintly associated with homosexuality, suddenly that becomes the _only_ meaning.
Oh there's plenty more, I've one one on Stenocassette and various professional audio formats, then when it comes to video formats it just explodes into dozens of weird and wonderful formats and sub-formats.
@@video99couk And if one were to ever somehow run out of physical formats, the continuing explosion of _software_ formats would still leave plenty of material to work with. By now I suspect an enterprising content creator could make a pretty good run just describing audio and video _container_ formats; never mind the actual encodings. Particularly if one were to detail embeddable formats - that is, containers that one can stuff into _other_ containers - well. That rabbit hole has no bottom. And the overlap with _image_ formats . . .!
Since I've been following Techmoan, I have come to realize that I haven't even scratched the surface of various recording and/or playback formats. He makes 'my' experiences with vinyl, cassettes, reel-to-reel, and digital seem like child's play. LOL!
@@Azlehria I think that's more a subject for Technology Connections. He dives into the physics and programming part too. All different types of digital containers are just theoretical, there's nothing to physically hold.
@@erwintimmerman6466 Oh, I wasn't trying to suggest that Mat should cover them! I get the impression that software in its own right isn't very interesting to him, and file formats can be terribly boring even when you _do_ enjoy the details. Although if he did decide to branch out in that direction I certainly wouldn't complain. I wouldn't say file container formats are _just_ theoretical, though, since there are certainly concrete implementations. Music is hardly tangible, after all, and that's not a pure-theory field by any measure.
"Okay, so you don't want to buy smaller records for listening, but how about wearing them in your ears?" I don't know why, but I just _love_ this desperation.
Thank the gods for you and LGR buying all of this vintage tech and showing it off. It keeps me from wanting to buy it myself and just filling up my closets.
To be honest: I never heared of any these disks before. But I have to confess that for the most part I find the story behind these odd formats alot more interesting than the format itself. Thank you for sharing your findings with us. I really enjoy your videos.
I absolutely love the rabbit hole episodes! Oh and the Japanese/French connection stems from Japan falling in love with foreign films where the main characters end up in Paris as part of the romance segments. There are so many french names places in Japan because of this love of Paris in film. On a sad note, there is an actual thing called Syndrome de Paris, where Japanese tourists return from Paris all traumatised from how Paris is very far from the romantic portrayal in film.
I went to Japan two years ago and I was surprised how many French tourists and French-style bakeries there were. Nearly as many French as there were Americans.
Barclay was the label that the Sex Pistols were released on in France , at one time when Anarchy in the U.K. was in demand but withdrawn in the U.K. Barclay filled the demand by exporting lots of 12” and 7” for sale in U.K. record shops ....same logo too.
Barclay was a major record company in the 1950s to 1980s. Big in popular music, but also in other styles. It had been founded by the rather flamboyant Eddie Barclay, who was the first to produce microgroove records in France, about 1950.
Barclay had a UK imprint that released stuff here through the seventies, although it was mostly if not all French material. Charles Aznavour's big UK hit She was on the UK Barclay.
I had a Hip Pocket player when I was around nine, one that came with five records that were kept on a spindle in the lid. I can only remember two of them - "Light My Fire" and "Break On Through" By the Doors, and "I think We're Alone Now" (can't remember the other side, maybe "Crimson And Clover") by Tommy James etc. This is a nice whack of nostalgia for me.
the history you go into as well as the demo of the tech is just brilliant, so entertaining, can't believe i've only recently found your channel, thanks so much for all your work, really enjoyed it. :-)
4:10 - I think on some players it will autostop. In ones, wich use photo-resistors to determin where is runout groove. We had one like this back in USSR, model was called "Электроника ЭП-017", "Electronica EP (stands for Electric Player)-017". Ofc this will work only if tonearm able gain enouth speed on runout groove of this small record to trigger the circuit. (Turntable autostops when it sees fast ehouth change in resistance of photo-resistor, wich means that shield attached to tonearm moves faster than it would move in actual groove with sound. Well, I'm not really good at explaining stuff...)
Interesting vid as always, if it's one thing these have taught me is that if anyone comes up with the idea of a 'mini' player and a 'mini' format to go with it then don't back it with any money. Probably why the MP3 player was such a hit - all player but you didn't need to cart around a case of disks or cassettes or cartridges to play on the thing!
@@negirno no, because the mp3s would also be smaller (lower bitrate) you could certainly put 10-20 songs on 32 mb in the late nineties , often more. Songs would be in 128 kbit/s or less, not the 320 kb/s we got used to later.
Nothing but respect for a man who not only showcases top-shelf antiquated audio tech, but uses a Bad Religion 45 for comparison! ☕ Patreon support incredibly well invested. Cheers, sir.
How cool would it be to have a _rotary dial_ videophone? Especially if it was sitting on your desk right next to a Panasonic Phonosphere or Welltron 2001?
Why would he get a commission? The video did create interest for the old format, but creating and bringing a product to the market is a lot of work and also a lot of risk, even for a product as shite as the RSD3.
Here is my guess.. 1: The pocket disc was probably around the time of preparation to expand to Detroit.. Had also contracted the known label in France and contracted the planet in Japan to prepare to send units to France.. 2: The sample players probably included labels designed by the French Recording labels.. The master disc probably didn't included any label designs or anything.. 3: Because of the joint project in preparation to ship to France and the Set up costs for the vending machine probably forced pocket Disc to simply tell the Japanese factory to do their own labels.. Hemce the device being in French and records being Gold and in Japanese.. 4: Then the disastrous merger resulted in the French product launch being canceled and the units never getting shipped...
Philco Hipster.Great idea.Too bad mergers global problems.It may reemerge in India or Africa.I learned the Buddy tribe in Ethiopia rewards the big fatty of community to rule role.Guys in gym had LOL over tech and culture norms,trends.Thanks for interesting product information.Interesting channel.
Your endeavour made you the most popular collector of media....I doubt if there is any vast collection in the world. And the person like you is a blessing to us who like music and technical history so much. Your knowledge is amazing. The way you make your videos is unparalleled. Complete, carefully researched and so well documented that they can easily equip an institution. Please make a video on earliest cylinder grama phone . Salute and thank you.
I have no idea how I missed this video, but I'm here now, so that's all that matters....and, as usual, totally interesting. This is one of a very few channels that never disappoints me.
I love how old-school advertising for youths always had such a condescending tone. The people writing the advertising material hadn't yet learned how to convincingly speak to the people they were trying to reach (hint: it was well-applied memes) so it always came off like "I know all these buzzwords, but just to make sure you do I'm going to use them in the most broadly applicable contexts and assume you know why that's awesome. Anyway, you want one, don't you? All your friends have one."
Barclay was a giant French label by Eddie Barclay. It featured music from some of the greatest French artists of the 20th century, including Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel and Leo Ferre. Quebecois artist Jean Pierre Ferland, Claude Dubois, and Jacques Michelle also had their records released by Barclay. I have many LPs in my collection, and they were generally top quality.
I had a semi portable 45 player when I was a kid that I played all the time but I never knew these existed. This is the coolest thing I have seen all week. Great video.
Very good video. I grew up in the 60's-70's era in San Jose CA, and I've never seen these. You did a great job restoring this one. Kudos to you. I think this would have made millions, especially with the vending machine concept, if it was introduced in the 50's to early 60's. Unfortunately, cassette tapes started a big trend at the start of the 70's. So, this never had the time to really take off. I remember getting my first stereo system in around 1970. It had a radio, turn table and 8 track, and the 8 track was wasnt so popular by then. I was disappointed because it didn't have a cassette player. Lol. Thanks again for the great review.
I loved watching this video. Extremely detailed and fascinating! I have two pocket discs, only I'm unable to ascertain their whereabouts at this juncture. I did find six carboard cereal box records in my search. I'd enjoy watching a video on that.
Wow I remember seeing an ad for these on TV when I was a child and I asked my parents if I could have one for Christmas. Instead they gave me a regular record player and that started my life long love for 33 1/3 and 45 rpm records instead.
A magnificent video, a great bit of detective work all the way through, and a joy to be along for the ride. Can't go wrong with a combination like that. Excellent work!
Wow, what a well researched video! Excellent work Mat. The BarkleyToPhone sounded really good. "A sad end but thoroughly deserved" - another classic Mat comment!
@@davefink2326 - Really? Are you sure it was this particular one? I’ve searched all his videos and can’t find it. I recall he’s reviewed a couple of video phones, but not this one.
I got couple of old soviet discs, roughly the same size as hp's, but they're not flexible at all - probably thinner then standard vinyl, but not so much. One sided, one song, could be played on any record player. Don't know anything about them, but probably they are some kind of soviet russian variant of hp's/pd's may be?
Maybe the Barclaytophone was a pun crossing Magnetophone and Barclay, because the thing had a size of a regular portable Cassette player/recorder, and prolly intended to play only Barclay Music.
What better way to start the weekend than with a new Techmoan video? Nice video Matt! I like your research on these oddities. Nice player too. Always amazed how you seem to find these things!
The term "RUclipsr" due this man and injustice. He's a bonafide researcher. I really look forward to his videos, especially in these dark times. Thanks Mat!
I got excited for a minute when I saw this because I have wondered who manufactured the mini album I have of “If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears”, but it’s the full album on a hard 7” disc. Sound quality is mostly terrible, at least on a standard turntable. This was a fun rabbit hole to go down, though, regardless. Thanks, Techmoan.
I remember when I was a child, a good friend of mine had a 35 The Monkees promo disc. The size of the record amazed me and the back of the cover had info about the upcoming TV show. He didn't have a player to listen to but we imagined it could play music with the right hardware.
Yeah Hewlett-Packard but they would sell like their printers at a cheap price and rob you when NEED ink. B just like the Polaroid, cameras were relatively cheap but they too would rob you charging $10 for a 10 pack and that's cheap back in the 60s... these little disks they sell cheaply but the player is more expensive even though this one's a bargain at $13 with 50 records that's a good deal. At 69 years old this gadget slipped out of my memory if I ever seen it at all back then. boy they look and sound cheesy. Thanks for these great reviews of pass Technologies
To answer your question about Barcalytophone records, I once had an almost same unit (same colors, same size), but without Barclay label. It however combined a radio inside, in addition to the same record player mechanism. There was a small Barclay record inside and the titles were sung by Dalida. It is now on display at the Phono Museum in Paris.
Oh look, another weird format I would have never normally cared about in life, but techmoan is doing a video on it. I have to watch! Seriously man, you make pretty much anything interesting. That takes talent. Don't stop. ❤️
When I was a kid my godfather gave me a Clown toy/puppet which could play these format records (the disc was inserted on the back), it had also one blank/ transparent disc which you could record in the same Clown Puppet (it had a microphone on the hand). Too bad i no longer own that toy, nor remember which company made it.
HI, In the early 70's I work for a discount department story called "Two Guys" in the east coast of the USA - we were on the of the distributors of the Hip Pocket records because they didn't sell we would up destroying most of them. However they also had a Children's line of discs and I have any of them anymore and I don't remember who supplied the material but I think they sold for 39 cents.
"Hope you've enjoyed following me on this journey" - I nearly always do; you have an interesting presentation style, and you're relaxed, and British, and (I think) match my own level of interest/technical knowledge/competence. Thanks for the origin of the name Barclay; I knew the label - and particularly that logo - but not why it was called that. I knew it particularly from Mireille Mathieu (Mimi), whose early output was much on that label, though I hadn't encountered any of the tiny discs. (Come to think of it, she would go well with the concept - though powerful, she is tiny - only about 5'!)
“Who would buy a record player that only had one record for it?”
You techmoan you are the answer to your own question
I've spent 15 years waiting for a sony pnumatic tape player . Got one ,misplaced the tapes 😐
Edit umatic lol
Cost me a fiver ,hope i wasnt ripped orf 😁
😄
@@clottedcreamtea8695 U-matic. I'm after one a machine too as I have some tapes.
@@wisteela Low band or High Band?
I remember seeing a fair bit of them on eBay not too long ago.
... and questions remain
For what it's worth, the gold disc is
"Ii ja nai no shiawase naraba" sung by Naomi Sagara.. first released in July 1969.
Written by Tokiko Iwatani and Taku Izumi.
Popular song with lots of other later covers done on it.
B-side
"Sekai wa futari no tame ni"
Also by Naomi Sagara
A 1967 release. Big million seller.
Singer sound is a bit unique.. she has a bit of boyish vocal sound...deeper than most Japan female singers. And a bit of history. But was very popular.
I was wondering about this. Thanks for the information!
Ah yes. I knew it. It was on the tip of my tongue. :)
ruclips.net/video/rh5OGQebTmM/видео.html Sounds a little like Akiko Wada.
She retired from the music industry after being outed as homosexual by a former partner in 1980. A shame.
@J500 L6000 Yeah, I replied to the parent comment. Sorry!
I've never been so interested in something that literally means nothing to me
welcome to the world of techmoan.
Welcome to vintage consumer electronics and audio :D this man is the reason I want an "all format" hifi. I'm talkin tape, CD, record, 8 track, ELCASSETTE FOR FUCK SAKE... this man is a sait and wellspring of information but if you have a collectors mind, turn heel and run before he reels you into this mess
Eddie Barclay is a household name in France. He used to marry about once a year with a new seemingly identical 20~ish Slavic beauty when he was well into his 80s himself.
He's also famed as the importer of the stereo long-play record format from the US (fr: "microsillon" , en: "microgroove"), for which he secured exclusive rights to the tooling, creating the basis of his music empire when the "yéyé" wave took the charts by storm in the 60s, singing popular translated covers of classic English rock'n'roll.
Hell, Daniele his 6th wife was a real keeper, but it seems Tiara (No.9) won the pot as his last wife.
Oh the French!.
Barbe bleue
@@jubuttib all of them actually are more like german or french.
So weird, here in brasil we had an nearly identical musical phenomenon called "iê iê" which started with translated covers as well.
Personally, I love how the advertising focused on the portability, specifically the number of records that could be carried in a pocket. It's the same sort of claim that drove early MP3 player marketing. An interesting evolutionary dead-end in man's quest to carry his music with him.
An interesting mystery - I once had a solid state disc cutter/player from the late 50's with the same form factor as this Barclaytophone.
Pity you haven't still got it. You could have done a video, maybe even a collaboration. 😊
Didn't TM do an episode on something like that, a 'talking telegram' meant to be recorded then mailed?
Hey Fran love your videos!!
@@TreyWait He did one on the SCM "Mail Call", That was a magnetic tape unit using a cartridge format based on "PlayTape".
Hey... It's Fran again! One of my other fav RUclipsrs! Nice to see you here 😊
Wish you still had that machine too.
Eddie Barclay was kind of a legend here in France, musician, he founded this label, white suits, jet setter, the king of St Tropez etc...
nice
@@CaesarBest Not my think to be clear, he was charismatic at least!
"Et une nouvelle femme chaque année," my grandfather once told me with such admiration...
Sounds like the Pitbill of his time ... Mr. Tout-le-monde. 😀
France isn't real, shame really
It's a bit unfortunate that the Barcalytophone didn't feature a transparent lid or show the spinning disc during playback.
The golden record would look pretty neat while spinning!
Apparently a well know washing machine manufacturer once released a front loading washing machine with a door that didn't have a window in it. I understand that it was a failure as people like to have the option of watching their clothes as they are being watched.
@@alexistarr Well except for Americans with their top-loading washing machines ;-)
@@Crispy_Bee Fair point. Though with a top loader you can just open the door mid cycle if you're concerned about the progress of your wash. Since there's no chance of a flood there's no need for an interlock mechanism to prevent you doing this.
@@alexistarr why does anyone need to watch their laundry? They're on timers anyways. I always thought of front loading washers as more of a convenience thing, and the clear door part just a novelty.
@@startedtech From my personal point of view their's always that nagging doubt that something will go wrong mid cycle, being able to see what's going on in my washing machine drum is reassuring. Having said that my 10 year old washing machine is vastly more reliable than the Windows 10 update process....
Here is an excerpt from a paper in ''Le Monde", dated January 25, 1968. Translated with deepl.
At the same time, Barclay in particular is working to launch new formats. Two months ago, the first 33-rpm mini-discs with a diameter of 12 centimetres and six titles appeared, and the company's researchers have just developed a 5 or 6 centimetre diameter micro-disc with two titles, which will allow the use of tiny electrophones. These discs, which would sell for less than two francs, should appear on the market next summer when the American company working with Barclay on this project will have produced the pocket-sized "mange disque" ("record eater") !
C.B.S., for its part, is trying to impose the Gemini single, which has only two tracks and is already in the process of replacing the four-track single in many foreign countries.
End of quote. Let me add that Eddie Barclay was extremely famous in France, not only as a producer but also for his numerous (consecutive) young wives and parties in Saint Tropez.
And his white clothes!
Hmmm,...and we thought The Jackson 5 having a 45 that you could get on the back of a cardboard box of Alpha Bits cereal was a cool novelty.
Nice channel icon, I like that.
My mother had one of those, I believe it was the Monkees though. Blew my mind as a kid.
We had a 45 of the Jackson 5 singing "ABC, 123" that we got with a bowl of cereal. I forget the cereal though. Maybe it was Alpha Bits, as it goes with the song--or the song with the cereal...
Technically Any Breakfast Cereal works for the song ABC
@@video99couk Thank you 😊
Yes, Barclay was a french label, but their releases were popular in Japan. They had a japanese division. I got a japanese 7" record with Barclay label (and one with Carrere too).
Techmoan, the Columbo of tech history.
Just one more thing...
How much does Technoman pay for his shoes?
more like kirk, going where no men was gone before.
"Sir. Sir, ... I'm terribly sorry to bother you, just one more question..."
It's not often you see a single creator produce content that is so well rounded and enjoyable to watch. I barely care about music (formats), yet I enjoyed this wideo immensely.
It amazes me that so much is forgotten so quickly, this stuff is all within my lifetime.
It used to be that if you weren't in the right place, at the right time, you simply would miss stuff and often not even be aware of it afterwards. Internet truly is a marvel.
As someone born in the 80s, I think the move towards digitization has aided in keeping stuff from my youth alive in the consciousness for a lot longer. You can't download a vinyl record with all the scratches and pops as it was but you can save a ROM from the NES and find varying ways to play it nowadays without much difficulty. I'll never really have the experience of putting a needle on a record player in my nostalgia banks but I can revisit music from when I was 8 or 9 simply by tracking down a CD and throwing it in my PC (which still has a BD-R drive). I find going back to stuff from when I was a kid requires less specialized hardware than maybe something my dad would have to resort to in order to do the same.
Think about the generations that never knew...
What a bonkers story from the format wars! As someone who was into music and computers in the 80's, I thought I had seen them all, but no. Excellent work sir.
Bravo Mat, a fascinating & well-developed deep dive into a forgotten & mysterious format! I love these types of videos, it’s like “Forensic Files” but about stuff you’d actually enjoy 😄
Thanks for the Magical Mystery Tour through some history of small-format records.
I'm not surprised by your small problem with battery sizes, I've seen that before with really old equipment, The exact dimensions of the cells has changed over the years, as has the formulation. It looks like you were trying to use carbon "dry cells" as well as the alkaline ones, I recall when nickel-cadmium rechargeable ones were ever so slightly larger in diameter then the carbon-zinc or alkalines.
Most people don't realize that a "cell" is a single unit, while a "battery" is technically a group of cells inside a single case, so AA, AAA, C and D sizes are cells, while a 9-volt is a battery. How many people wonder about "A" and "B" batteries? I recall needing 22.5-volt batteries that were the size of a 9-volt but instead of the snap connections they had a bump contact on each end.
As a kid back in the 1960s I had some battery operated toy slot cars, Ideal Toys' Motorific series that used two AA cells in each car. When they came out with smaller "Mini-Motorific" they switched to using "N" cells instead, which (according to Wikipedia) have a length of 30.2 mm and a diameter of 12.0 mm (approximately three-fifths the length of a AA battery). At the time they were a very odd size, and the only place we could get them was Sears, Roebuck & Co. (probably where we bought the Mini-Motorific sets!).
10:05 “nothing, not a sausage”. Being British this makes perfect sense to me, but to our international friends who may have spent years studying English, I guess this sounds a bit odd.. oh how we love the English language.
I confused an American with the phrases ‘Chuffed to bits’ and ‘I could murder a fag’. With the later he thought it was homophobic, rather than just being desperate for a cigarette! 🚬
@@AtheistOrphan We in the States used to use the term "fag" for cigarettes way back when. Obviously no more.
@@johnstone7697 - I never knew that!
@@johnstone7697 Likewise even into at least the 1960s, American writers were still using the word "gay" as an adjective roughly synonymous with "happy" or "joyful".
Strange how, almost the instant a word becomes even faintly associated with homosexuality, suddenly that becomes the _only_ meaning.
not even a bean
Me: There can't possibly be any formats left to cover...
Techmoan: Hey look at this weird format I found
Oh there's plenty more, I've one one on Stenocassette and various professional audio formats, then when it comes to video formats it just explodes into dozens of weird and wonderful formats and sub-formats.
@@video99couk And if one were to ever somehow run out of physical formats, the continuing explosion of _software_ formats would still leave plenty of material to work with.
By now I suspect an enterprising content creator could make a pretty good run just describing audio and video _container_ formats; never mind the actual encodings. Particularly if one were to detail embeddable formats - that is, containers that one can stuff into _other_ containers - well. That rabbit hole has no bottom. And the overlap with _image_ formats . . .!
Since I've been following Techmoan, I have come to realize that I haven't even scratched the surface of various recording and/or playback formats. He makes 'my' experiences with vinyl, cassettes, reel-to-reel, and digital seem like child's play. LOL!
@@Azlehria I think that's more a subject for Technology Connections. He dives into the physics and programming part too. All different types of digital containers are just theoretical, there's nothing to physically hold.
@@erwintimmerman6466 Oh, I wasn't trying to suggest that Mat should cover them! I get the impression that software in its own right isn't very interesting to him, and file formats can be terribly boring even when you _do_ enjoy the details.
Although if he did decide to branch out in that direction I certainly wouldn't complain.
I wouldn't say file container formats are _just_ theoretical, though, since there are certainly concrete implementations. Music is hardly tangible, after all, and that's not a pure-theory field by any measure.
"Okay, so you don't want to buy smaller records for listening, but how about wearing them in your ears?"
I don't know why, but I just _love_ this desperation.
Thank the gods for you and LGR buying all of this vintage tech and showing it off. It keeps me from wanting to buy it myself and just filling up my closets.
To be honest: I never heared of any these disks before. But I have to confess that for the most part I find the story behind these odd formats alot more interesting than the format itself.
Thank you for sharing your findings with us. I really enjoy your videos.
I absolutely love the rabbit hole episodes!
Oh and the Japanese/French connection stems from Japan falling in love with foreign films where the main characters end up in Paris as part of the romance segments. There are so many french names places in Japan because of this love of Paris in film.
On a sad note, there is an actual thing called Syndrome de Paris, where Japanese tourists return from Paris all traumatised from how Paris is very far from the romantic portrayal in film.
I went to Japan two years ago and I was surprised how many French tourists and French-style bakeries there were. Nearly as many French as there were Americans.
Great detective work on a format I never new existed!
Barclay was the label that the Sex Pistols were released on in France , at one time when Anarchy in the U.K. was in demand but withdrawn in the U.K. Barclay filled the demand by exporting lots of 12” and 7” for sale in U.K. record shops ....same logo too.
Barclay was a major record company in the 1950s to 1980s. Big in popular music, but also in other styles. It had been founded by the rather flamboyant Eddie Barclay, who was the first to produce microgroove records in France, about 1950.
And Les Poppys.
The record label is still around (as a Universal sub-label). I'm only familiar with it, as Izia's two latest albums where released there.
Barclay had a UK imprint that released stuff here through the seventies, although it was mostly if not all French material. Charles Aznavour's big UK hit She was on the UK Barclay.
My copy was on Glitterbest. Was that earlier or later than Barclay?
These investigations into meandering mysteries are precisely the sort of thing I subscribed for. This was so interesting and made for a great video.
Congratz on 1 mil subs keep up the great work!
I had a Hip Pocket player when I was around nine, one that came with five records that were kept on a spindle in the lid. I can only remember two of them - "Light My Fire" and "Break On Through" By the Doors, and "I think We're Alone Now" (can't remember the other side, maybe "Crimson And Clover") by Tommy James etc. This is a nice whack of nostalgia for me.
"my name is techmoan, sherlock techmoan" ; )
Techmoan Holms
the history you go into as well as the demo of the tech is just brilliant, so entertaining, can't believe i've only recently found your channel, thanks so much for all your work, really enjoyed it. :-)
4:10 - I think on some players it will autostop. In ones, wich use photo-resistors to determin where is runout groove. We had one like this back in USSR, model was called "Электроника ЭП-017", "Electronica EP (stands for Electric Player)-017". Ofc this will work only if tonearm able gain enouth speed on runout groove of this small record to trigger the circuit.
(Turntable autostops when it sees fast ehouth change in resistance of photo-resistor, wich means that shield attached to tonearm moves faster than it would move in actual groove with sound. Well, I'm not really good at explaining stuff...)
I could watch this bloke's videos all day.
Interesting vid as always, if it's one thing these have taught me is that if anyone comes up with the idea of a 'mini' player and a 'mini' format to go with it then don't back it with any money. Probably why the MP3 player was such a hit - all player but you didn't need to cart around a case of disks or cassettes or cartridges to play on the thing!
The first portable mp3 players had only 32 megabytes of storage, so you could only store three or maybe four songs on them.
@@negirno no, because the mp3s would also be smaller (lower bitrate) you could certainly put 10-20 songs on 32 mb in the late nineties , often more. Songs would be in 128 kbit/s or less, not the 320 kb/s we got used to later.
Nothing but respect for a man who not only showcases top-shelf antiquated audio tech, but uses a Bad Religion 45 for comparison! ☕ Patreon support incredibly well invested. Cheers, sir.
20:13 What is that phone?? Was that real? It looks like something from Get Smart
How cool would it be to have a _rotary dial_ videophone? Especially if it was sitting on your desk right next to a Panasonic Phonosphere or Welltron 2001?
Techmoan, you are one of the few that I wish I could "like" repeatedly. Thanks.
Man, that shade on Crosley. LOL.
Though, it sounds warranted. You should be given a commission from Crosley.
I’m sure it’s purely _a coincidence_ but I’ll be interested to see if a there’s a similar coincidental reintroduction of Pocket Flexi-discs in 2021.
Why would he get a commission? The video did create interest for the old format, but creating and bringing a product to the market is a lot of work and also a lot of risk, even for a product as shite as the RSD3.
@@graealex Hello, welcome to Earth! Here we have something called "humor." You might want to look it up.
As a Cincinnatian by birth, it pains me to see the crap that the current license-holders for the Crosley name put out.
Absorbing stuff as always. I love the way Techmoan finds these totally obscure stories and has the tenacity to follow them up in such detail.
Here is my guess..
1: The pocket disc was probably around the time of preparation to expand to Detroit.. Had also contracted the known label in France and contracted the planet in Japan to prepare to send units to France..
2: The sample players probably included labels designed by the French Recording labels.. The master disc probably didn't included any label designs or anything..
3: Because of the joint project in preparation to ship to France and the Set up costs for the vending machine probably forced pocket Disc to simply tell the Japanese factory to do their own labels..
Hemce the device being in French and records being Gold and in Japanese..
4: Then the disastrous merger resulted in the French product launch being canceled and the units never getting shipped...
I would think hip pocket records would have caught on more.Wonderful idea system.
Philco Hipster.Great idea.Too bad mergers global problems.It may reemerge in India or Africa.I learned the Buddy tribe in Ethiopia rewards the big fatty of community to rule role.Guys in gym had LOL over tech and culture norms,trends.Thanks for interesting product information.Interesting channel.
Your endeavour made you the most popular collector of media....I doubt if there is any vast collection in the world. And the person like you is a blessing to us who like music and technical history so much. Your knowledge is amazing. The way you make your videos is unparalleled. Complete, carefully researched and so well documented that they can easily equip an institution. Please make a video on earliest cylinder grama phone . Salute and thank you.
Good. I was literally just wondering what I'd do this morning since I can't sleep.
Know that feeling all too well. Hope you have a good day/night!
Same!
Same
lol just woke up from a 4 hour nap into 3am myself
Yoooo same here, 4:35 am right now couldn't sleep
I have no idea how I missed this video, but I'm here now, so that's all that matters....and, as usual, totally interesting. This is one of a very few channels that never disappoints me.
Well that was a journey.
I love how old-school advertising for youths always had such a condescending tone. The people writing the advertising material hadn't yet learned how to convincingly speak to the people they were trying to reach (hint: it was well-applied memes) so it always came off like "I know all these buzzwords, but just to make sure you do I'm going to use them in the most broadly applicable contexts and assume you know why that's awesome. Anyway, you want one, don't you? All your friends have one."
Barclay was a giant French label by Eddie Barclay. It featured music from some of the greatest French artists of the 20th century, including Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel and Leo Ferre. Quebecois artist Jean Pierre Ferland, Claude Dubois, and Jacques Michelle also had their records released by Barclay. I have many LPs in my collection, and they were generally top quality.
I had a semi portable 45 player when I was a kid that I played all the time but I never knew these existed. This is the coolest thing I have seen all week. Great video.
Yes, who WOULD buy a record player that only plays one record ...? Nice videos Monsieur TechMoan
Very good video. I grew up in the 60's-70's era in San Jose CA, and I've never seen these. You did a great job restoring this one. Kudos to you. I think this would have made millions, especially with the vending machine concept, if it was introduced in the 50's to early 60's. Unfortunately, cassette tapes started a big trend at the start of the 70's. So, this never had the time to really take off. I remember getting my first stereo system in around 1970. It had a radio, turn table and 8 track, and the 8 track was wasnt so popular by then. I was disappointed because it didn't have a cassette player. Lol. Thanks again for the great review.
Somebody should edit together all of Mat’s “as always, thanks for watching”. I’d totally watch that.
I loved watching this video. Extremely detailed and fascinating! I have two pocket discs, only I'm unable to ascertain their whereabouts at this juncture. I did find six carboard cereal box records in my search. I'd enjoy watching a video on that.
Wow I remember seeing an ad for these on TV when I was a child and I asked my parents if I could have one for Christmas. Instead they gave me a regular record player and that started my life long love for 33 1/3 and 45 rpm records instead.
For some reason, this video really put a smile on my face. Just so quirky and cool. Thanks!
Only techmoan can turn 1960s mini records into a fascinating rabbit hole
That's why I like Matt, he gives you the most information that he can find.
3:00 Today, I learned Tiffany's "I Think We're Alone Now" is a cover. Thanks, Techmoan!
I found out just a few years ago that the video was only filmed about 45 minutes from where I live
Tiffany also did a cover of "I Saw Him Standing There," I think it was originally a Beatles song. The original was called "I Saw Her Standing There."
Imagine not knowing immediately it was a cover. I am old.
@@themoviedealers I didn't even know there was a cover until a few years ago
A magnificent video, a great bit of detective work all the way through, and a joy to be along for the ride. Can't go wrong with a combination like that. Excellent work!
I'll stick to my 78 earrings, thank you very much.
There´s no better tech researcher than YOU!!! Greetings from Argentina!!!
Wow, what a well researched video! Excellent work Mat. The BarkleyToPhone sounded really good. "A sad end but thoroughly deserved" - another classic Mat comment!
Thanx Matt to make me discover another audio format I've never heard about. Being french, I recognised the Barclay logo at first glance.
'I've never heard french used like this'.
reminds me of something my french teacher said about 50 years ago.
Our French teacher said something similar when we asked her to translate Plastic Bertrand’s Ca Plane Pour Moi.
@@lidbass ouhouhouhouuuuuuuu ça plane pour moi moi moi moi moi!
@@34.FB.34 Allez, and indeed oop!
@@lidbass Basically "Ça plane pour moi" was a cover of a punky song from the early Damned called "Jet Boy, Jet Girl", if memory serves.
@@julosx Love that song! I still play the 12” by Elton Montello.
The most interesting Channel I stumbled over here on RUclips. Love the way you create or tell the stories about the tech. Thank you!
Thanks Mat. Never had the chance to catch a video so hot off your press by seeing it within moments of being posted. Here in the states it's 5 Am.
I enjoyed this hugely.. I think it must be the combination of repair and detective work. Much appreciated.
Does anyone have any info on the video phone pictured at 20:12?
IIRC Matt reviewed it a coupla years ago.
@@davefink2326 - Really? Are you sure it was this particular one? I’ve searched all his videos and can’t find it. I recall he’s reviewed a couple of video phones, but not this one.
Techmoan does it again! Awesome stuff Mat. I love hearing about old formats .
I got couple of old soviet discs, roughly the same size as hp's, but they're not flexible at all - probably thinner then standard vinyl, but not so much. One sided, one song, could be played on any record player. Don't know anything about them, but probably they are some kind of soviet russian variant of hp's/pd's may be?
Yet another obscure format I've never heard of. Fascinating stuff. 👍🏻
Oh wow hitclips 30 years before hitclips
And this whole big mystery about who and when and where and how. Good times
Probably even sound better than hitclips.
@@davidmcgill1000 pull string dolls had better sound than hit clips
What a fascinating and intriguing video! TechMoan is the Sherlock Holmes of retro equipment! Well done!
Maybe the Barclaytophone was a pun crossing Magnetophone and Barclay, because the thing had a size of a regular portable Cassette player/recorder, and prolly intended to play only Barclay Music.
This has made my work from home night way more entertaining!
The name probably is a french wordplay with "magnetophone", which translates to cassette player and Barclay.
I was looking for someone to bring this up! :)
The real name of a record player is électrophone so meh...
@@pablorai769
Slovak - Magnetofón
Czech - Magnetofon
佐良直美 - いいじゃないの幸せならば
Naomi Sagara - ii Ja Nai Shiawase Naraba / if your not happy its no good.
Great old Japanese Song, and great video as always : )
Last time i was this early, Pocket Records were still a thing
What better way to start the weekend than with a new Techmoan video? Nice video Matt! I like your research on these oddities. Nice player too. Always amazed how you seem to find these things!
Well that's my morning sorted.
Agreed! There’s an excellent start for a Saturday..... a nice scone, coffee and Techmoan 😊
Thank you very much. Your channel has become my weekend staple!
Is that as time travelling Mat on the right at 16:34?
or a doppelgänger? 🤔
Would you really be surprised if the guy had a flux capacitor tucked away somewhere?
The term "RUclipsr" due this man and injustice. He's a bonafide researcher. I really look forward to his videos, especially in these dark times. Thanks Mat!
20:13 I'd love to see a vid on this bad boy 60s videophone
I got excited for a minute when I saw this because I have wondered who manufactured the mini album I have of “If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears”, but it’s the full album on a hard 7” disc. Sound quality is mostly terrible, at least on a standard turntable.
This was a fun rabbit hole to go down, though, regardless. Thanks, Techmoan.
So. Guess who's ad popped up -
yup
Barclaycard
Nice little mysterious journey into the world of pocket discs... I really enjoyed it. Cool old tech.
The B for Barclay looks like The B in Buffy the vampire slayer.
Probably where they got it from.
U mean where she got it from?
I remember when I was a child, a good friend of mine had a 35 The Monkees promo disc. The size of the record amazed me and the back of the cover had info about the upcoming TV show. He didn't have a player to listen to but we imagined it could play music with the right hardware.
When you said HP, I thought of Hewlett Packard.
Yeah Hewlett-Packard but they would sell like their printers at a cheap price and rob you when NEED ink. B just like the Polaroid, cameras were relatively cheap but they too would rob you charging $10 for a 10 pack and that's cheap back in the
60s... these little disks they sell cheaply but the player is more expensive even though this one's a bargain at $13 with 50 records that's a good deal. At 69 years old this gadget slipped out of my memory if I ever seen it at all back then. boy they look and sound cheesy. Thanks for these great reviews of pass Technologies
I'm always on the lookout for a new TM review...Keep em coming buddy.
Best wishes as usual.
19:36 ah yes, "La meme collection", sounds like my type of playlist.
To answer your question about Barcalytophone records, I once had an almost same unit (same colors, same size), but without Barclay label. It however combined a radio inside, in addition to the same record player mechanism. There was a small Barclay record inside and the titles were sung by Dalida. It is now on display at the Phono Museum in Paris.
Better songs than HitClips offers XD
Better sound quality, too!
Oh look, another weird format I would have never normally cared about in life, but techmoan is doing a video on it. I have to watch!
Seriously man, you make pretty much anything interesting. That takes talent. Don't stop. ❤️
When I was a kid my godfather gave me a Clown toy/puppet which could play these format records (the disc was inserted on the back), it had also one blank/ transparent disc which you could record in the same Clown Puppet (it had a microphone on the hand). Too bad i no longer own that toy, nor remember which company made it.
A true, now i remember this too.
BIG MASSIVE CONGRATULATION on your 1 Million subscribers !!! Well deserved !!! Thanks Techmoan !!! \m/
Well, they say you can learn a lot more about failures then successes.
And all this stuff just shows that bringing out to many formats isn't helping.
HI,
In the early 70's I work for a discount department story called "Two Guys" in the east coast of the USA - we were on the of the distributors of the Hip Pocket records because they didn't sell we would up destroying most of them. However they also had a Children's line of discs and I have any of them anymore and I don't remember who supplied the material but I think they sold for 39 cents.
Why not think about a Vietnamese connection when printing in French for Asia?
A holiday in Cambodia...
I adore your content. It's pleasantly presented and contains no unflattering aftertaste.
Imagine a time when kids thought Neil Diamond was hip.
"Hope you've enjoyed following me on this journey" - I nearly always do; you have an interesting presentation style, and you're relaxed, and British, and (I think) match my own level of interest/technical knowledge/competence.
Thanks for the origin of the name Barclay; I knew the label - and particularly that logo - but not why it was called that. I knew it particularly from Mireille Mathieu (Mimi), whose early output was much on that label, though I hadn't encountered any of the tiny discs. (Come to think of it, she would go well with the concept - though powerful, she is tiny - only about 5'!)