I don't know if I should admit this or not, but I am one of the guys responsible for bringing this to market. It was a tremendous experience and wonderful to hear that so many people enjoyed it back in the day!
A buddy of mine had two of these setup back in the day, and we'd do laser shows on his ceiling. Really wish I could find something like it nowadays, since it was more "organic" then the digital, pre-programmed lasers of today.
I know this is an old comment but, In defense of this "laser" show device, the packaging states that it's a laser "effect." It never says that it is an actual laser.
"The perfect gift meaning never buy it for yourself buy it for someone else ". God if that doesn't round up the entire Sharper Image catalog in one statement.
With that said, I bet that is what this one was, a gift. Because if someone had actually bought it, they would have at least opened it, unlike this one.
Sharper Image, Brookstone, the Flight Mall catalog... the kind of gifts that scream "I barely know you and don't really care if you enjoy this thing or not, but I'm giving it to you anyway so everybody will be forced to acknowledge me as a rich, generous hipster with money to throw away on shiny gadgets."
@@Linkale_ The use of a speaker voice coil/motor assembly to move the mirror is actually low-key genius though. No need for any kind of digital electronics, it's an all-analogue signal path. Just filter the incoming signal appropriately and pump it into the voice coil... instant squiggles! In terms of being able to build the thing down to a cheap price, it's pretty clever.
Those patterns really give you the 80's feeling. And to be honest, I love the simplicity in it, creating a chaotic pattern with essentially a light, a coloured disc, a simple coil and a mirror. But I would not have paid 200$ for it...
This is the sort of thing that would get snapped up if they started making them again, albeit maybe a bit smaller with a built-in mic and an LED. For $29.99.
I absolutely agree. Putting that black body light through a colour gel gets nicer colours than RGB, I feel. And (maybe ironically) I feel that's good everything to do with not being monochromatic, like actual laser light. I haven't looked this up but I've got to imagine there is instead a Gaussian distribution centred around the target wavelength instead. Blue isn't such a dark blue yet still registers as "pure blue" to us, and it's really hard to get that kind of yellow out of RGB lights. Screens show it reasonably well, but in terms of getting an LED to to it, it will often look washed out. Philips Hue bulbs are a little better at it (and amber) but still not quite there, and they also engineered their coloured elements to have a slightly wider emission spectrum - and mix in the warm white diode a little bit for those colours. Also retro French cars from back when they had to have yellow gels on their headlamps by regulation. The same applies with older fairy lights, as much as colour changing fairy lights are fun I do miss those incandescents showing through coloured glass. Specifically a set from my very early childhood where the glass envelope was actually coloured glass (not a gel lining them) and in the shape of flowers. I seem to remember a Christmas box incident breaking half of the coloured glass flowers, but I suppose there's a chance they're actually in a box somewhere halfway across the country. They weren't just four-colour strings either, there was pink and purple and orange and stuff, too. Just the glass-making on that must've been pretty intense, I wonder how much they cost initially. Anyway, ramble over..
They did sell them in the UK. I got swept up in the hype and bought one.... Ultra disappointment. I actually showed it recently (but didn't plug it in) on my live stream called "The shrimps and bananas live stream." at 18:54 in. It really was hugely expensive for what was inside.
Ah, the 80s, when writing 'Laser' (or 'Turbo') on something made it instantly cooler by a factor of 10. Actually, given the simplicity of this thing, the effect is quite impressive. The price on the other hand... If this was sold in gadget shops for under a tenner, I could imagine there still being a market for it. If nothing else, cats would love them!
In middle school our science teacher used to do an activity he called the “poor man’s laser show” where he had glued a small mirror to the speaker cone of a large speaker across the room and would aim a laser at it while playing music. It had almost the same exact effect as this device for obvious reasons, just much cheaper lol.
My dad did this with two speakers so that one axes would be for left and the other for the right. He used an old HeNe laser from a xerox copier. I still have that laser and it still works although the tube does have a slight leak and the gitter is turning white.
when i was younger and first getting in to lasers i had mounted a blue, red and green Solidstate diode lasers to my computer desk and aimed them at wine glass's sitting on my subwoofer and home living room speakers. the sound would vibrate the water in the glasses and make crazy patterns all over the room not just on the celling if you got the beam angle just so it hits the edge of the water. i also had a 405nm laser shining through the glasses with florescent die in the water so they would glow pink and you could see the beam path. i wish i had a video of it. i should recreate the project!. that was my first "laser projector" was too poor to buy glavo scanners when i was 19 and just getting started in life, spent all my money on weed and music festivals haha.
If you have a little experience doing diy projects, you can make something similar yourself using mirrors and cheap speakers and real lasers. Look on instructables
@@rich1051414 I have seen a slightly better version Instead of pointing a mirror glued to a speaker covered in a rubber glove (which I have made, and it's impressive for how simple it is) , it uses amplifier output to drive small dc motors with mirrors attached to the shaft that are re-centered by a rubber band.
So, I gotta say, I was groovin' to the music selection and got my dance on, AND I honestly enjoyed the visual effect..... But for $199 US 1980s DOLLARS, I thought to myself, " I'd rather just go to the local rollerskate park and get the same light show FX while getting some fun in, for a measly $3.50 US 1980s DOLLARS." Oh, and get a hot dog and a Coke for another $1.75 US 1980s DOLLARS. But hey, THESE products are why I subscribe @Techmoan. Thank you for showing this piece of.. Well... Basic 1980s tech for us to enjoy!
The design is really brilliant. It does its job pretty well, the only really expensive part of it would have been the light engine, and even that shouldn't have been too much. The transducer hooked up to the mirror is a stroke of genius. It *really is* reacting to the music, on a purely analog circuit that must have cost pennies to put together. Seriously, maybe a couple of bucks in parts for everything but the bulb and the optics on the focusing tube, which I'd imagine were still more on the order of tens than hundreds of dollars. The markup on it is nuts, but I'm impressed by how cheaply put together it is while still doing the job.
When they came out with the improved version I bought one of these at half price (99.99). To this day I love it. Put on some wild music and move it away from the wall and it will put on a wall size show. I also had a lot fun running a synth keyboard through it. After an hour everyone is ready for something else and the bulb cools down then. The improved one had TWO lasers going at the same time.
Me and my dad were out thrifting a couple years ago and we happened upon one of these out of its box for $6 or so. We almost didn't get it cause at first I thought it was a VHS rewinder, but we got it and tried it out at home. For $6 it was a good bit of fun, but I couldn't imagine paying $200 for something so spastic, especially in 80s dollars
The effect is actually way nicer than I expected! I mean if it would be brighter, I'd even say it's more beautiful than real laser... The light, color and color change are really soft, which is pretty pleasing
Kind of my first thought, too, when it first started up. "Huh. Not a laser of course, but not terrible either..." Of course, knowing it was a Sharper Image product, I immediately knew it would be massively overpriced for what it was, and even thought $200 at first guess, then said, "Nah... even they wouldn't do that... maybe $50 - $60..." Shows what your teacher always told you about taking tests was right: Always go with your first answer. :-)
I would NEVER pay full retail for something like this, but I have to say, I am actually pretty impressed with the cleverness of the engineering at play here. Yeah, it's ridiculously simple on the inside, but that's all it takes to have the desired effect, and creating the illusion of a laser light show, but without a ton of expensive and potentially unreliable stepper motors and controller boards is a fantastic little feat. For the the 1980s, this is a great solution - with A LOT of markup.
I thought so too...if it was like 49.99 it would have been well worth it back then...like the other comment a couple of them running at once with other visual effects would have been passable.
It's s decent enough idea, but the price is totally unreasonable. This is "$29.95 + S&H, buy NOW and we'll include a second one at no charge" TV infomercial grade product..
I used to have one of these, it was my first ever 'projector' type light for the discos that a mate and I used to do at school. We would project it at the crowd, because with a tiny bit of smoke, the beam effect was very good.
Here's a simple work-around using more modern and less expensive gear. Paint the dome of a bass speaker with shiny nail polish. Then play some music through it while pointing a laser pointer at the dome. Endless fun!
@@tactileslut I'm betting it was also because the color wheel would melt off with the heat of the bulb. Funny enough, this could've been a sturdy product if they had used quality materials, like glass instead of celluloid or actual glue instead of earwax.
im 2 years too late but leaving this here for the time capsule. i bought this from spencer gifts. i think it was 99 dollars in 1988! i used it at a talent show with the music group i was in. people were amazed at what they saw projected behind us! i STILL have mine to this day and it STILL HAS THE SAME BULB in it from 1988! it still works! i even bought a spare bulb form the company and its still in the packaging unopened form 1988 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EDIT -- im at 13 minutes into the video and im still certain i spent 99 dollars for it there. its possible it was on a sale or discontinued. later they did come out with a model that had two smaller units on one base - it was not as nice as this one. i will also say that when people came over they were impressed at this and it was really mesmerizing to watch in a darken room . i just fired mine up after all this time and its still working.
Don’t know why, but those colours just kept reminding me of the Google logo. I was half expecting it to start morphing into the “G” logo like something you might see in an advert.
I remember seeing those set up at parties and such. It was a very cool thing back around 90. I used to think it had some sort of logic inside, not just a rubber band, but know I know
This LASER FX (FX) has pretty good light effects (FX) on it, reminds me some kind of laser effects (FX) despite that being a mirror attached to a speaker to produce that effects (FX)
Omg. I had this. Loved it. Smoke in the room and you can see the beam shoot through the air. You have to remember if you wanted a laser projector it would have cost you upwards of 2000$ in 1988. This gave my 14 year old self a reason to have a lot of girls over in a dark room. I was a stud back then. Ugh I miss those days.....
@@mgabrysSF lol. I presume that's a joke. But just in case you're genuinely confused, our generation used the word "stud" for what this generation calls a "chad"
@@mgabrysSF I would walk by them in the store and they would beep so hard the batteries would run out. Now.... I'm just telling lots of dad jokes... Sigh....
@@vwestlife the perfect marketing ploy to dupe the average customer. "This new CD Digital Audio must need new speakers that can handle digital sound" I wonder how many people junked excellent old speakers for some department store digital ready trash. When their old ones would have worked just fine.
Back when standard definition (480) was the norm, 720p and 1080p were actually "high", so calling something HD was actually a selling point over other devices that weren't HD. These days, HD is basically the new standard def.
As a concept i actually really like the idea of the transducer/mirror combo. No chance of delay, missed or late beat so it gives a very accurate visualization of the music in a way. Kind of want to make my own little army of them but using RGB LEDs instead of the color wheel!
Tony Foster Anyone who actually saw the movie know there's very little resemblance between this and HAL9000 . If it was thinner with less texture, it might look like a small version of the monolith, which was originally supposed to be 1x4x9 scaled to any size from a few meters to miles.
I had, and still have, this. Pretty awesome back then, and we spent many a night watching this to Pink Floyd. Simple concept, but with the right music, it's incredible.
Well, for something that probably had a manufacturing cost of about the price of a meal at a decent restaurant, it's not that bad. It's grossly over-priced, of course, but it works pretty well.
But advertising as "LASER" all over the place when it's not is fraudulent, and if people knew that they probably wouldn't have accepted the inflated price. As a cheap gimmick at say 19.95 it would have been OK.
@@xaverlustig3581 To be fair, at the time even a boring red laser pointer would have been about $300, so I doubt ANYONE would have expected an actual laser in there at even that price.
@@xaverlustig3581 For one it tells you there's no laser only a bulb and it gives off a laser effect hence the 'Laser FX' name. There's nothing fraudulent about it.
@@fordtechchris : Actually, I think an RGB led would be better. Use each color for a frequency range, and run the signal through an automatic gain control circuit.
Great video. I always remember seeing these in the little catalogues that fell out the Sunday paper. Not sure if they still do those catalogues. For a very simple and pardon the language, slightly crappy design, it looks really good. Not sure how long I’d want to watch one for though before I got bored. The box looks like the couple have sat down for the evening to watch it! Thanks answering our curiosity!
danehb89 LOL this made me crack up, is the type of thing that I would have done but my mom being smart enough wouldn’t have bought it anyways, and then would have been like “aren’t you glad we didn’t get you the laser, the sega is $10 less” and then never get me the Sega either and tell me to go play in the park. No regrets though, I had an amazing childhood at the park.
Check out the wicked lasers laser cube. It’s like this but way way better. It uses actual lasers and can do so much more than this thing. Although it can be dangerous as the laser diodes inside are capable of being throttled up to instant eye damage levels. You can use it as a laser turret that can automatically track and shoot things. Like you can line up balloons and have it automatically pop them all. Or set fire to and blind intruders lmao It can be used for pretty light shows to go with music though rather safely when it’s not on death ray mode. It can like draw pictures and stuff with persistence of vision or you can use it for sort of random audio visualization effects like this thing does. Although it’s quite a bit more expensive then this thing would have been. It’s not ridiculously expensive, but it’s also not like, essentially a cheap toy.
Probably a standard 8/16mm projector lamp, around 50W in output Smooth reflective surface designed to collimate the light output into a beam with only a single condenser lens in front of the light. Easy enough to replace with a more modern LED single die 5/10W star LED, and with a big block of finned aluminium ( probably an older Intel Pentium processor heatsink, as those are rectangular) to cool it, and an appropriate driver block, and then use the stock Intel cooler fan to keep the LED cool. Just have to buy a stock 12V input 5/10W single chip driver, and upgrade the board bridge rectifier with new diodes, to replace the wimpy 1N4001 diodes there. Best would be a 5A package one with appropriate lead bending, to fit the board spacing. Easy enough to do, most expensive part will be the Cree LED on the star board.
@@Techmoan Yeah, but what sort of bulb will it look like? They say it's some sort of special bulb so understandably people are interested in seeing how special it it :-)
@3rdalbum After using the word LASER for something that doesn't have a LASER in it - and all the other made up Hollywood FX hype - who would believe their 'Special Bulb' claims... Looks like a normal Halogen bulb to me. imgur.com/a/jbtFcOa
Sharper Image was a pricey catalog / store. I remember these things. Super cool FX with laser-like patterns. I could totally see this being popular at parties, outside, laying in bed, kicked back in your recliner or sofa to chill while watching your favorite tunes. A nice way to unwind after working.
You could well be right, but I'd bet more on a figure 8. The time constant on those two mirror supports will be different, since one has two pegs supporting it and the other has one.
@@TheBodgybrothers Sine wave would not just produce a vertical line. Due to the off axis driving with only one hookup to the rubber band the x axis motion is driven by the phase delay vs the y axis. This would be dependent on the mirrors inertia as well as it's moment at any time so the music that made it move would affect the way it veers off to one side. This would all make it tend to run around in a circle in the same direction though and frequency of the sine wave would have a huge impact on the y to x ratio. Thus... It would be a very interesting thing to see.
As always a wonderful video about a product I always wanted back then. As always a video about something I knew about and wanted or sometimes about product i didn’t know about and would have wanted. You always manage to find better and better items.
2:38 i'm still trying to see how this technology was how the lighting effects in movies like Star Wars and Star Trek were done. Lighting driven by a speaker coil, really?
Richard Bevan Driving mechanisms with speaker coils was very efficient high tech at that time, though not with actual audio waves. For example, some CD players used a speaker coil to precisely point the actual laser at the track.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that they'd used something exactly like this in Star Trek. A the very least, they definitely got a lot of mileage out of shining lights through moving colored plastics.
Flashing Images! I certainly hope so. You see, I have the rare medical condition that when watching videos if there are no flashing images, I tend to fall asleep.
Hey cool, I fall asleep during videos with or without flashing images; I also sleep through the Sunday morning sermons at Church; and through my spouse's lectures on putting my dirty dishes in the washer. ZZZZzzzzzzzz
@Techmoan Thanks FINALLY I can put my misgivings to bed over "missing out" on buying one of these 30 years ago.... not knowing has been eating me up inside.. ;) And as always thanks for another interesting and enjoyable video. Brgds
I like how funny the last handful of videos have been, with all the wise cracks and banter thrown out throughout, it feels like you're getting a lot more comfortable with what you're doing. I mean, you've had the muppets at the end of the videos for ages now and you've always been slightly playful with the audience but I can definitely feel you loosening up
I had 1 of these given to me back in the mid 90’s & being a raver I absolutely loved it! This is the first time I’ve seen 1 in over 20 years mind! The effect was always a bit of fun listening to happy hardcore but best in a smoke filled room, smoke machine obviously! I would actually love 1 of these today as it is a little trip back to a mad time of my life! I don’t think the person that give it to me realised they where so expensive though! Mine was a UK spec 1 with UK power & plug. So many happy memories!😂 The sound you demonstrates at the end was always part of the fun of the thing for me also.😁👍🏻
My brother bought the second generation of this. We used it allot! I had a pretty cool light and sound show in the basement. I quite like that device, my parents probably still have it haha. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Everything from Sharper Image was over priced junk so the insides turned out to be no surprise. Still, the effect is better than I would have expected. I got something similar from radio shack back in the day that was worse than that.
![ATEEZ(에이티즈) - [GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2] Preview](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X4PfgRPBUVo/mqdefault.jpg)
*HERE IS A PICTURE OF THE BULB*
*imgur.com/a/jbtFcOa*
Finally! Now I can rest easy.
Thank you, i was really wondering how it looks.
just a halogen isn't it? I thought it might have at least a projector bulb, but I guess they're more than $20 a pair
Techmoan - Thank you.
Replace it with an LED so it can be left on 24/7
I don't know if I should admit this or not, but I am one of the guys responsible for bringing this to market. It was a tremendous experience and wonderful to hear that so many people enjoyed it back in the day!
It was amazing in its day. I bought one many many years ago thinking it was an actual laser. Thanks for introducing it to us.
@@Jonnybravo6742I’d keep it as a fun memory, in reality it shows it’s age but back in the day they were amazing.
I had this and the second gen one it was fun
A buddy of mine had two of these setup back in the day, and we'd do laser shows on his ceiling. Really wish I could find something like it nowadays, since it was more "organic" then the digital, pre-programmed lasers of today.
LASER SHOW WITH LASERS*
*Not a laser
Sounds like a Krusty the Clown product
I know this is an old comment but, In defense of this "laser" show device, the packaging states that it's a laser "effect." It never says that it is an actual laser.
"The perfect gift meaning never buy it for yourself buy it for someone else ". God if that doesn't round up the entire Sharper Image catalog in one statement.
Lol, well said
With that said, I bet that is what this one was, a gift. Because if someone had actually bought it, they would have at least opened it, unlike this one.
Sharper Image, Brookstone, the Flight Mall catalog... the kind of gifts that scream "I barely know you and don't really care if you enjoy this thing or not, but I'm giving it to you anyway so everybody will be forced to acknowledge me as a rich, generous hipster with money to throw away on shiny gadgets."
Very true
Hey, if you were a gadget minded kid in the 90's you would have LOVED almost anything from those catalogs! Hell even this thing!
Back in the late 80’s I’d have been really impressed by that. I would have been about 8 though
Haha same. Remember the screen savers from windows 95/98 that was similar. Lol great times. Better times actually.
The final result is actually pretty cool looking. It'd be neat to see several of these going at once.
Surprisingly effective taking into consideration how poorly made it is on the inside xD
@@Linkale_ The use of a speaker voice coil/motor assembly to move the mirror is actually low-key genius though.
No need for any kind of digital electronics, it's an all-analogue signal path. Just filter the incoming signal appropriately and pump it into the voice coil... instant squiggles!
In terms of being able to build the thing down to a cheap price, it's pretty clever.
I'm sure a chinese company could knock a new version of this out for $2
At least one each for the left/right channel.
@@trailersic checking wish.com right now, lol
Those patterns really give you the 80's feeling. And to be honest, I love the simplicity in it, creating a chaotic pattern with essentially a light, a coloured disc, a simple coil and a mirror.
But I would not have paid 200$ for it...
yeah, maybe like $25 - $30 max.
The patterns have a nice 80's aesthetic to them.
I'm pretty sure I saw that type of pattern in multiple video clips in early mTV...
@@MoraFermi The intro of saved by the bell might spring to mind,i think it had squigly lines in that intro haha :D
@@MoraFermi 80's interior decoration comes to mind too.
@@MoraFermi Yep, lightpainting was big then
Yeah I love it.
This is the sort of thing that would get snapped up if they started making them again, albeit maybe a bit smaller with a built-in mic and an LED. For $29.99.
With LED lights being a big thing right now especially LED strips I think it would fit perfectly and it would sell like hotcakes.
It's actually pretty ingenious, and effective.
That is actually a WAY better effect than I expected from a light bulb based machine from the 80's.
Even the colour filters have a very distinct pleasing 80's vibe.
I absolutely agree. Putting that black body light through a colour gel gets nicer colours than RGB, I feel. And (maybe ironically) I feel that's good everything to do with not being monochromatic, like actual laser light. I haven't looked this up but I've got to imagine there is instead a Gaussian distribution centred around the target wavelength instead. Blue isn't such a dark blue yet still registers as "pure blue" to us, and it's really hard to get that kind of yellow out of RGB lights. Screens show it reasonably well, but in terms of getting an LED to to it, it will often look washed out. Philips Hue bulbs are a little better at it (and amber) but still not quite there, and they also engineered their coloured elements to have a slightly wider emission spectrum - and mix in the warm white diode a little bit for those colours. Also retro French cars from back when they had to have yellow gels on their headlamps by regulation. The same applies with older fairy lights, as much as colour changing fairy lights are fun I do miss those incandescents showing through coloured glass. Specifically a set from my very early childhood where the glass envelope was actually coloured glass (not a gel lining them) and in the shape of flowers. I seem to remember a Christmas box incident breaking half of the coloured glass flowers, but I suppose there's a chance they're actually in a box somewhere halfway across the country. They weren't just four-colour strings either, there was pink and purple and orange and stuff, too. Just the glass-making on that must've been pretty intense, I wonder how much they cost initially. Anyway, ramble over..
They did sell them in the UK. I got swept up in the hype and bought one.... Ultra disappointment. I actually showed it recently (but didn't plug it in) on my live stream called "The shrimps and bananas live stream." at 18:54 in. It really was hugely expensive for what was inside.
Thanks, Big Clive.
Love your channel!
different strokes for different folks. everyone who saw this when i got it back in 1988 was amazed at it. i even used it in a talent show.
@@craigjensen6853 pics or it didn't happen !! :p
Ah, the 80s, when writing 'Laser' (or 'Turbo') on something made it instantly cooler by a factor of 10.
Actually, given the simplicity of this thing, the effect is quite impressive. The price on the other hand... If this was sold in gadget shops for under a tenner, I could imagine there still being a market for it.
If nothing else, cats would love them!
Don't forget "2000" and "mega"
@@bouwmr Ah 2000, the future already seems so far in the past nowadays....
SNUIF searching using these words I found the “Fransen Mega Turbo 2000 Hairdryer”. Unfortunately it doesn’t have laser in its name.
@@bouwmr ..and a neon coloured logo with pinstripes
With Chrysler doubling down with their Turbo Lazer sports coupe.
In middle school our science teacher used to do an activity he called the “poor man’s laser show” where he had glued a small mirror to the speaker cone of a large speaker across the room and would aim a laser at it while playing music. It had almost the same exact effect as this device for obvious reasons, just much cheaper lol.
My dad did this with two speakers so that one axes would be for left and the other for the right. He used an old HeNe laser from a xerox copier. I still have that laser and it still works although the tube does have a slight leak and the gitter is turning white.
And unlike this thing, it actually had a legit laser involved, lol.
My parents had this I think
when i was younger and first getting in to lasers i had mounted a blue, red and green Solidstate diode lasers to my computer desk and aimed them at wine glass's sitting on my subwoofer and home living room speakers. the sound would vibrate the water in the glasses and make crazy patterns all over the room not just on the celling if you got the beam angle just so it hits the edge of the water. i also had a 405nm laser shining through the glasses with florescent die in the water so they would glow pink and you could see the beam path. i wish i had a video of it. i should recreate the project!. that was my first "laser projector" was too poor to buy glavo scanners when i was 19 and just getting started in life, spent all my money on weed and music festivals haha.
At first I was like "what a pile of 80s plastic junk" then I see it working "it's sooooo 80s, I want one"
If you have a little experience doing diy projects, you can make something similar yourself using mirrors and cheap speakers and real lasers. Look on instructables
@@Mr371312 Really easy diy project, no electronics knowledge needed, just an old speaker and a couple laser pointers, and a bit of arts and crafts.
Steve Mould shows a simple version. ruclips.net/video/C-V1uXeyGmg/видео.html
@@desmo750f1 Great share
@@rich1051414 I have seen a slightly better version Instead of pointing a mirror glued to a speaker covered in a rubber glove (which I have made, and it's impressive for how simple it is) , it uses amplifier output to drive small dc motors with mirrors attached to the shaft that are re-centered by a rubber band.
So, I gotta say, I was groovin' to the music selection and got my dance on, AND I honestly enjoyed the visual effect..... But for $199 US 1980s DOLLARS, I thought to myself, " I'd rather just go to the local rollerskate park and get the same light show FX while getting some fun in, for a measly $3.50 US 1980s DOLLARS."
Oh, and get a hot dog and a Coke for another $1.75 US 1980s DOLLARS.
But hey, THESE products are why I subscribe @Techmoan. Thank you for showing this piece of.. Well... Basic 1980s tech for us to enjoy!
The design is really brilliant. It does its job pretty well, the only really expensive part of it would have been the light engine, and even that shouldn't have been too much. The transducer hooked up to the mirror is a stroke of genius. It *really is* reacting to the music, on a purely analog circuit that must have cost pennies to put together. Seriously, maybe a couple of bucks in parts for everything but the bulb and the optics on the focusing tube, which I'd imagine were still more on the order of tens than hundreds of dollars. The markup on it is nuts, but I'm impressed by how cheaply put together it is while still doing the job.
I miss the skating tink
Or rink
You know the great thing about time machines is that when you're done you can go back in time and return for a full refund.
Is it really worth it after you factor in 2 x 1.21GW loads of plutonium, though?
New in box - Might be worth a lot wight now :-)
@@tarstarkusz "Why all the bitching?" About a time machine? Sorry man, that's gonna be a wooosh.
@@tarstarkusz I gotchu fam but the comment you replied to was about a time machine.
Well done my friend.
When they came out with the improved version I bought one of these at half price (99.99). To this day I love it. Put on some wild music and move it away from the wall and it will put on a wall size show. I also had a lot fun running a synth keyboard through it. After an hour everyone is ready for something else and the bulb cools down then. The improved one had TWO lasers going at the same time.
The improved one was called Laser FX2
Me and my dad were out thrifting a couple years ago and we happened upon one of these out of its box for $6 or so.
We almost didn't get it cause at first I thought it was a VHS rewinder, but we got it and tried it out at home.
For $6 it was a good bit of fun, but I couldn't imagine paying $200 for something so spastic, especially in 80s dollars
Every time I see/hear the word "thrifting" I can't help but to think of Clint Basinger of *LGR.*
@@Christopher-N of course, LGR is the man
I wasn't expecting much, but it actually surprised me. I was 16 in 1988, and my nerdy self probably would've loved this back then!
The effect is actually way nicer than I expected! I mean if it would be brighter, I'd even say it's more beautiful than real laser...
The light, color and color change are really soft, which is pretty pleasing
This could be a decent little gadget for the right price.
Yeah, for $15-20 it would be pretty cool
Kind of my first thought, too, when it first started up. "Huh. Not a laser of course, but not terrible either..." Of course, knowing it was a Sharper Image product, I immediately knew it would be massively overpriced for what it was, and even thought $200 at first guess, then said, "Nah... even they wouldn't do that... maybe $50 - $60..."
Shows what your teacher always told you about taking tests was right: Always go with your first answer. :-)
Right!.......if it was cheap enough, it'd be a fun thing to have on a small stage.
I would NEVER pay full retail for something like this, but I have to say, I am actually pretty impressed with the cleverness of the engineering at play here. Yeah, it's ridiculously simple on the inside, but that's all it takes to have the desired effect, and creating the illusion of a laser light show, but without a ton of expensive and potentially unreliable stepper motors and controller boards is a fantastic little feat.
For the the 1980s, this is a great solution - with A LOT of markup.
That kind of looks alright actually, for something that doesn’t have a real laser in it. Put some Vangelis or Jean-Michel Jarre on!
Fake_Blood or give the elastic bands a serious workout and play GOST or Perturbator.
I thought so too...if it was like 49.99 it would have been well worth it back then...like the other comment a couple of them running at once with other visual effects would have been passable.
@@808v1 : Sad thing is, it's price was cheaper than what a lot of light-show galvos cost today.
Yes jean-Michel jarre. No one I know has a clue about him. Rendezvous is one of my all time favorites.
It's s decent enough idea, but the price is totally unreasonable. This is "$29.95 + S&H, buy NOW and we'll include a second one at no charge" TV infomercial grade product..
That price and quality is right in line with most of Sharper Image's stuff.
I used to have one of these, it was my first ever 'projector' type light for the discos that a mate and I used to do at school.
We would project it at the crowd, because with a tiny bit of smoke, the beam effect was very good.
That sounds pretty cool!
I had one too!
That wouldn't have been a good idea with a real laser, which could be one of the reasons it didn't use one.
Here's a simple work-around using more modern and less expensive gear. Paint the dome of a bass speaker with shiny nail polish. Then play some music through it while pointing a laser pointer at the dome. Endless fun!
@@MrDuncl Solid state lasers weren't as good or cheap back then either.
I was thinking I actually quite like this effect, then I heard it the original cost of it and winced!
I think I still want one
And you are who it was advertised too. If you can find the info you could probably build one yourself.
Aahhh, the good ol' days when you just had to remove some screws on the back and the device was open :-) !
Oh so that's how they did starwars
@@ChaunceyGardener It was a huge blow to local orchestras when the imperial march could finally be played from recordings on the film itself.
So now I’m laughing like a moron in the bathroom...
And Chewie was a man in a bathroom rug
"Allow half an hour of non-use, after every hour of use"
That could be annoying to have to do, during an all night party!
That just means they want you to buy 3 or 4 of them and hook them up for down time. Great deal!! 8D
Maybe put a small fan aimed at the bulb?
@@tactileslut Actually it's there for a reason probably
@@tactileslut I'm betting it was also because the color wheel would melt off with the heat of the bulb.
Funny enough, this could've been a sturdy product if they had used quality materials, like glass instead of celluloid or actual glue instead of earwax.
Always remember to rave responsibly.
*Matt sends off registration card back to 1988*
*Chap at customer service reads about eBay, gets the idea to start the eBay company back in 1988*
That's how it happened…
im 2 years too late but leaving this here for the time capsule. i bought this from spencer gifts. i think it was 99 dollars in 1988! i used it at a talent show with the music group i was in. people were amazed at what they saw projected behind us! i STILL have mine to this day and it STILL HAS THE SAME BULB in it from 1988! it still works! i even bought a spare bulb form the company and its still in the packaging unopened form 1988 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EDIT -- im at 13 minutes into the video and im still certain i spent 99 dollars for it there. its possible it was on a sale or discontinued. later they did come out with a model that had two smaller units on one base - it was not as nice as this one. i will also say that when people came over they were impressed at this and it was really mesmerizing to watch in a darken room . i just fired mine up after all this time and its still working.
FWIW my cat was mesmerised. She's still blocking my view waiting for it to start again.
Give your car some catnip so he can enjoy the show to the next level 😂
I actually went into this with very low expectations, but it looks rather more effective than I was expecting.
Don’t know why, but those colours just kept reminding me of the Google logo.
I was half expecting it to start morphing into the “G” logo like something you might see in an advert.
I genuinely appreciate the way you said (FX) when reading that intro on the box. That alone made my day. 😆😆😆
50$ for a pair, and that would have been a hit.
I had one of those in the early 80s and I was absolutely over the moon with it.
Sharper Image: We separate fools from their money
You best not be talking smack about the Ionic Breeze Air Purifier or the Acoustic Wave Radio.
Radio Shack sold it.. not Sharper Image .
@@alptigin5438 Radios use "acoustic waves" now???? That sounds fancy, shut up and take my money!
Not seen one of them since a rather good house party in '91.
I remember seeing those set up at parties and such. It was a very cool thing back around 90. I used to think it had some sort of logic inside, not just a rubber band, but know I know
This LASER FX (FX) has pretty good light effects (FX) on it, reminds me some kind of laser effects (FX) despite that being a mirror attached to a speaker to produce that effects (FX)
Omg. I had this. Loved it. Smoke in the room and you can see the beam shoot through the air. You have to remember if you wanted a laser projector it would have cost you upwards of 2000$ in 1988. This gave my 14 year old self a reason to have a lot of girls over in a dark room. I was a stud back then. Ugh I miss those days.....
Chris Marshall I was also about to suggest that Matt did the same thing with the smoke
So all those stud finders at the hardware store were essentially a way for people to contact you I'm guessing?
@@mgabrysSF lol.
I presume that's a joke. But just in case you're genuinely confused, our generation used the word "stud" for what this generation calls a "chad"
@@mgabrysSF I would walk by them in the store and they would beep so hard the batteries would run out. Now.... I'm just telling lots of dad jokes... Sigh....
That was actually really good - would love to have seen you run some test tones through it too!
Man. I was looking forward to seeing a skit at the end where the puppets were getting down to the funky 80's beat.
This is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back! Great stuff -- delightful to see a jaundiced eye on some of these old things. Many thanks!
I agree, that was suprisingly effective. But that markup though!
Yeah that looks really amazing for how simple it is
Basically "Laser" was the "HD" of its day. LOL
"Turbo Laser" was "Ultra HD"
@@AfferbeckBeats Turbo was definitely it.
@@vwestlife the perfect marketing ploy to dupe the average customer. "This new CD Digital Audio must need new speakers that can handle digital sound" I wonder how many people junked excellent old speakers for some department store digital ready trash. When their old ones would have worked just fine.
Back when standard definition (480) was the norm, 720p and 1080p were actually "high", so calling something HD was actually a selling point over other devices that weren't HD. These days, HD is basically the new standard def.
Lmao, just like when HD first came out and stores were trying to convince people that they needed a $199 HDMI cord to watch 1080p.
As a concept i actually really like the idea of the transducer/mirror combo. No chance of delay, missed or late beat so it gives a very accurate visualization of the music in a way. Kind of want to make my own little army of them but using RGB LEDs instead of the color wheel!
"I'm sorry Matthew, I'm afraid I can't do that"
He should have used the audio from the movie
@@ddrse "Yes, please do... hehehehe" -- Someone at MGM, probably
@@Fuzy2K good point he should use his own voice and make it even better. MGM is holding onto worthless assets
Tony Foster Anyone who actually saw the movie know there's very little resemblance between this and HAL9000 . If it was thinner with less texture, it might look like a small version of the monolith, which was originally supposed to be 1x4x9 scaled to any size from a few meters to miles.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Techmoan referred to HAL9000 so, so did I.... I've seen the movie - don't take things so serious
I had, and still have, this. Pretty awesome back then, and we spent many a night watching this to Pink Floyd. Simple concept, but with the right music, it's incredible.
Ha! I had a friend who was a mobile DJ in the late 80s, used one as part of his setup.
Awesome. I can always count on an interesting and informative video from you, Mat. Thank you so much.
Well, for something that probably had a manufacturing cost of about the price of a meal at a decent restaurant, it's not that bad. It's grossly over-priced, of course, but it works pretty well.
You just defined the entire product offering of Brookstone, Sharper Image and Skymall
But advertising as "LASER" all over the place when it's not is fraudulent, and if people knew that they probably wouldn't have accepted the inflated price. As a cheap gimmick at say 19.95 it would have been OK.
@@xaverlustig3581 To be fair, at the time even a boring red laser pointer would have been about $300, so I doubt ANYONE would have expected an actual laser in there at even that price.
nogosnoqt
Yeah, you could take your family to Sizzler, or get them a LaserFX! 😂🤣
@@xaverlustig3581 For one it tells you there's no laser only a bulb and it gives off a laser effect hence the 'Laser FX' name.
There's nothing fraudulent about it.
Techmoan: Surprisingly Effective.
this would've been a good episode to have the puppets on after it
It's actually cooler than I expected. As a kid in the 80s, I would've loved this! 😎
Kinda wanna make one to be honest. I actually like the whole rubber band with a mirror idea 😂
Would make a great diy project with 3d printer, etc. You could even use real lasers these days
There's a lot of DIY science fair demonstrations that use rubber balloons, small mirrors or foil and laser pointers to do this. It's really simple!
@@fordtechchris : Actually, I think an RGB led would be better. Use each color for a frequency range, and run the signal through an automatic gain control circuit.
I actually liked that it was multicoloured, it somehow even looked more 80's as a result!
Stick a dental mirror onto a speaker, shine a small 5mw laser at it as it plays music. There is your laser FX with real lasers!!!
Great video. I always remember seeing these in the little catalogues that fell out the Sunday paper. Not sure if they still do those catalogues. For a very simple and pardon the language, slightly crappy design, it looks really good. Not sure how long I’d want to watch one for though before I got bored. The box looks like the couple have sat down for the evening to watch it! Thanks answering our curiosity!
Imagine being a kid begging for this for Christmas, then the Sega comes out ten bucks less and there's no way you're getting one.
danehb89 LOL this made me crack up, is the type of thing that I would have done but my mom being smart enough wouldn’t have bought it anyways, and then would have been like “aren’t you glad we didn’t get you the laser, the sega is $10 less” and then never get me the Sega either and tell me to go play in the park. No regrets though, I had an amazing childhood at the park.
Is there a modern day version of this? I'd have a lot of fun with it.
Check out the wicked lasers laser cube. It’s like this but way way better.
It uses actual lasers and can do so much more than this thing.
Although it can be dangerous as the laser diodes inside are capable of being throttled up to instant eye damage levels. You can use it as a laser turret that can automatically track and shoot things. Like you can line up balloons and have it automatically pop them all. Or set fire to and blind intruders lmao
It can be used for pretty light shows to go with music though rather safely when it’s not on death ray mode. It can like draw pictures and stuff with persistence of vision or you can use it for sort of random audio visualization effects like this thing does.
Although it’s quite a bit more expensive then this thing would have been. It’s not ridiculously expensive, but it’s also not like, essentially a cheap toy.
I was hoping to see what was that 'special' light bulb.
Bigclive is coming
Probably a standard 8/16mm projector lamp, around 50W in output Smooth reflective surface designed to collimate the light output into a beam with only a single condenser lens in front of the light.
Easy enough to replace with a more modern LED single die 5/10W star LED, and with a big block of finned aluminium ( probably an older Intel Pentium processor heatsink, as those are rectangular) to cool it, and an appropriate driver block, and then use the stock Intel cooler fan to keep the LED cool. Just have to buy a stock 12V input 5/10W single chip driver, and upgrade the board bridge rectifier with new diodes, to replace the wimpy 1N4001 diodes there. Best would be a 5A package one with appropriate lead bending, to fit the board spacing. Easy enough to do, most expensive part will be the Cree LED on the star board.
I’m normally all for curiosity - but this interest has me stumped. Why would you want to see the projector bulb? It’s just going to look like a bulb.
@@Techmoan Yeah, but what sort of bulb will it look like? They say it's some sort of special bulb so understandably people are interested in seeing how special it it :-)
@3rdalbum After using the word LASER for something that doesn't have a LASER in it - and all the other made up Hollywood FX hype - who would believe their 'Special Bulb' claims...
Looks like a normal Halogen bulb to me. imgur.com/a/jbtFcOa
Sharper Image was a pricey catalog / store. I remember these things. Super cool FX with laser-like patterns. I could totally see this being popular at parties, outside, laying in bed, kicked back in your recliner or sofa to chill while watching your favorite tunes. A nice way to unwind after working.
Wanna see how this stuff react to sine wave and pink noise
Sine wave would just produce a vertical line.
You could well be right, but I'd bet more on a figure 8. The time constant on those two mirror supports will be different, since one has two pegs supporting it and the other has one.
I think techmoan can get a few more episodes out of this gem.
@@TheBodgybrothers Sine wave would not just produce a vertical line.
Due to the off axis driving with only one hookup to the rubber band the x axis motion is driven by the phase delay vs the y axis.
This would be dependent on the mirrors inertia as well as it's moment at any time so the music that made it move would affect the way it veers off to one side. This would all make it tend to run around in a circle in the same direction though and frequency of the sine wave would have a huge impact on the y to x ratio.
Thus... It would be a very interesting thing to see.
@@TheBodgybrothers if that were true, any sound would produce a vertical line.
Very 1980s style packaging and even the effect from the unit reminded me of some graphical TV effects of that era. Nice video!
Should make someone's day and send the warranty card anyways 😂😂😂
Dean J - I’m going to google that address.
CambridgeMart - Oh ok. Thanks.
As always a wonderful video about a product I always wanted back then. As always a video about something I knew about and wanted or sometimes about product i didn’t know about and would have wanted. You always manage to find better and better items.
2:38 i'm still trying to see how this technology was how the lighting effects in movies like Star Wars and Star Trek were done. Lighting driven by a speaker coil, really?
Yeah, I think we all knew that was just marketing wank. Lol
Techmoan was cracking me up as he was reading the box and repeated the "...effects (FX)..." part every time.
The crap they put on packaging sometimes.
How do you think they did the lightsaber fights? Laser FX™ of course!
Richard Bevan Driving mechanisms with speaker coils was very efficient high tech at that time, though not with actual audio waves. For example, some CD players used a speaker coil to precisely point the actual laser at the track.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that they'd used something exactly like this in Star Trek. A the very least, they definitely got a lot of mileage out of shining lights through moving colored plastics.
This is the prototypical content that I originally subscribed for 😁 I love this kind of stuff! Thank you
Used to lust after this in the Innovations catalogue.
I'm a big fan of oddities that are related to listening to music!!
This video really did it for me, thank you!
It’s totally worth it to stay up at 3 am as an American to watch techmoan
I wanted one of these when I was younger, I went with the Sonic and the Genesis. lol
Keep up the awesome work.
13:20 No way its too late!, Everything that works perfectly and quite entertaining people will never gets too old or late
Simple and effective device!
'PATENT PENDING' - It means 'keep at arms length'.
I like the design. It's very simple, yet it does the job very well. Smart!
Flashing Images! I certainly hope so. You see, I have the rare medical condition that when watching videos if there are no flashing images, I tend to fall asleep.
So narcolepsy
Hey cool, I fall asleep during videos with or without flashing images; I also sleep through the Sunday morning sermons at Church; and through my spouse's lectures on putting my dirty dishes in the washer. ZZZZzzzzzzzz
I've fallen asleep through many a Techmoan video, tbh. It's interesting and all but I still find myself drowsy
@Techmoan
Thanks FINALLY I can put my misgivings to bed over "missing out" on buying one of these 30 years ago.... not knowing has been eating me up inside.. ;)
And as always thanks for another interesting and enjoyable video.
Brgds
Could the bulb be swapped out for an LED?
Maybe a color-changing LED bulb?
Just put a laser pointer there or 2 of them in different colors and change the color wheel to a dispersion disk.
So glad I found your quality content,gadgets and tech,i love em! Looking forward going through your vids. Thank you for sharing all of this!👍😉
I have the double version of this. Mine has two “laser” panels. Mine also had rca inputs and outputs.
I like how funny the last handful of videos have been, with all the wise cracks and banter thrown out throughout, it feels like you're getting a lot more comfortable with what you're doing. I mean, you've had the muppets at the end of the videos for ages now and you've always been slightly playful with the audience but I can definitely feel you loosening up
"No", I thought. "Not interested". "Oh, I'll give it a go". Here I am 15 minutes later watching the credits.
Couldn’t resist - had to buy a couple of these to try out for myself!
The colours make it look like Google designed it.
I remember seeing these in Innovations magazine from back in the day when I was a kid, always wanted one out of my budget. 👍
With those specific colors it kind of looks like a Google advert.
This is actually more impressive than i thought it would be from the thumbnail. Pretty cool for '88 (the year i graduated from high school)!
Feeling much more comfortable knowing it's not laser.
I had 1 of these given to me back in the mid 90’s & being a raver I absolutely loved it! This is the first time I’ve seen 1 in over 20 years mind! The effect was always a bit of fun listening to happy hardcore but best in a smoke filled room, smoke machine obviously! I would actually love 1 of these today as it is a little trip back to a mad time of my life! I don’t think the person that give it to me realised they where so expensive though! Mine was a UK spec 1 with UK power & plug. So many happy memories!😂 The sound you demonstrates at the end was always part of the fun of the thing for me also.😁👍🏻
A drinking game using this video and the trigger words "laser" and "fx" would not end well
My brother bought the second generation of this. We used it allot! I had a pretty cool light and sound show in the basement. I quite like that device, my parents probably still have it haha. Thanks for the nostalgia!
Everything from Sharper Image was over priced junk so the insides turned out to be no surprise. Still, the effect is better than I would have expected. I got something similar from radio shack back in the day that was worse than that.
Your sense of humor is well grounded!
I could see them using these at underground raves back in the day.
I had it.. and LOVED it.. the mechanism was loud but it was amazing for the times.. in a smokey room it was stellar