This is fabulous, Rob. Thanks for uploading it for all to enjoy. Paul was indeed the Father of Broadcast Automation. He and his pal Earl created wonderful products that were ahead of their time.
I was out of the picture by the time the 900's came. But I disassembled old 1200's in our garage and loved the 800. The most fun I had was watching the Random Access Spot Locator. Not sure how many of those ever sold. As much as my father didn't love audio tape in cartridges the cart carousel was a much better way to handle commercials.
Great for us tech-heads to see the technology, but no wonder radio got boring for the listeners. Not just because of the technology but because of the sort of people who would use it.
Considering all the time and labor and programming involved, I think it would just be easier to have a experience jock paid well. It would probably cost less this mirage. At the touch of a button. There are so many ways this thing could fail.
The 1200 system was never successful. The model 800 which followed (no accident that it was a lower number) was a workhorse that was easy to program and *did* save stations money. But the on-air product was pretty damn lifeless. A poorly paid, inexperienced jock would have been better. (Hey, I can say this. Paul Schafer was my dad and we were best friends.)
But if it was only that simple and operated a smoothly as he describes it. It might do that when you first put it in for a week or two and it was always fun to watch the tapes run by themselves and see the cards fire back and forth. But it never seemed to run very long
![[TAS] SNES Castlevania: Dracula X "best ending" by McBobX in 13:48.34](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rcPR8p8WJ_I/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SNES Castlevania: Dracula X "best ending" by McBobX in 13:48.34](/img/tr.png)
This is fabulous, Rob. Thanks for uploading it for all to enjoy. Paul was indeed the Father of Broadcast Automation. He and his pal Earl created wonderful products that were ahead of their time.
Thank you so much for sharing!
Interestingly, these days, commercial radio plays a string of commercials between snippets of music.
Had a 903E custom made by Earl himself when he was with Century 21. Great guy and great engineer.
I was out of the picture by the time the 900's came. But I disassembled old 1200's in our garage and loved the 800. The most fun I had was watching the Random Access Spot Locator. Not sure how many of those ever sold. As much as my father didn't love audio tape in cartridges the cart carousel was a much better way to handle commercials.
Thanks for sharing the video. I worked with a number of systems over 40 years but the 800s, along with the Spot Locators are my favorite too.
There wasn't enough dead roll going into the spot resulting in the wow
My favorite automation unit of all.
No radio station I ever worked at ever had this rig.
From this one Device came what America now knows as a Cookie cutter Computer Generated Format in Radio
Great for us tech-heads to see the technology, but no wonder radio got boring for the listeners. Not just because of the technology but because of the sort of people who would use it.
He sounds voice-tracked. YIKES!!! More personality when he was live.
Dang…I knew I should’ve taken notes! Sylvia is beyond my pay grade.
Not to worry. The 1200 (Sylvia) didn't work very well. It's no accident that the next model was the 800. It worked VERY well.
Wow what great automation for the time!
Considering all the time and labor and programming involved, I think it would just be easier to have a experience jock paid well. It would probably cost less this mirage.
At the touch of a button.
There are so many ways this thing could fail.
The 1200 system was never successful. The model 800 which followed (no accident that it was a lower number) was a workhorse that was easy to program and *did* save stations money. But the on-air product was pretty damn lifeless. A poorly paid, inexperienced jock would have been better. (Hey, I can say this. Paul Schafer was my dad and we were best friends.)
the beginning of voice overs
But if it was only that simple and operated a smoothly as he describes it. It might do that when you first put it in for a week or two and it was always fun to watch the tapes run by themselves and see the cards fire back and forth. But it never seemed to run very long
A Gates Deluxe stereo console?
Gates duallux