OT/Old Recordings/Shameless Plug

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Thu Sep 5 11:09:00 2002

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Smith" <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 9:23 AM
Subject: Re: OT/Old Recordings/Shameless Plug


> > TBC's used to cost a packet, (the one we had was worth around $20kAU at
> > late 70's prices and was the size of a big desktop pc.)
>
> Oooh, that's a small, cheap TBC! :-)

$20k was fairly cheap, add a Sony 1830 or 2310 Umatic VCR and you could play
to air for less than $30k. The next cheapest thing started around $60k plus
all the extra\
stuff, (like 3 phase and and air compressor).

> Ours took up the better part
> of a 19-inch rack, and was priced commensurately. And that was in
> 1982, although the unit was probably 2-3 years old at the time. I'd
> be surprised if there really was a TBC with a full frame buffer the
> size of a big PC before 1980;

I would agree. IIRC, this unit had either a 3 or 5 line buffer. Not much,
but enough
to (mostly) sort out helical skew.

> the necessary memory alone would have been
> bigger than a PC, not to mention the logic and the analog signal
> processing.

This was about IBM AT size but about 12" high. ISTR it had a rack mounting
kit, but we just stood it on the bench
next to the vcrs. It was absolutely chocka with ttl and cmos logic and got
bloody hot.
About a 4 hour job to give it a full alignment. Looking back, it was a
piece of shit, but it was very handy
at the time, as the only other play to air stuff we had was 2" quad. (RCA
TR60's, and later, a TCR100)
We used the helicals for commercials and the like, especially at our Broken
Hill station, which was way too
budget strapped to afford a 'real' vtr.

Cheers

Geoff in Oz
>
>
Received on Thu Sep 05 2002 - 11:09:00 BST