wowbobwow

wowbobwow OP t1_jeckok5 wrote

Reply to comment by Sunstang in Nearly 30 years after playing one at a classmates house and thinking "OMG, I NEED THIS," I've got a Sega Saturn in my living room by wowbobwow

(borrowing my reply to another similar question below)

It's a Sony BETACAM SP deck. The name "BetaCam" makes it sound like the old consumer-level BetaMax stuff, but this is a professional-grade videotape deck of the type that most TV shows were played back from for broadcast during the pre-high-def era. My wife worked in TV production back in the 90's, so we picked this deck (and the Sony display) up from a small production company - I use the display for retro gaming, and she'll use the BETACAM deck to digitize her old work. Win/Win!

24

wowbobwow OP t1_jeck4rn wrote

Reply to comment by WayyyCleverer in Nearly 30 years after playing one at a classmates house and thinking "OMG, I NEED THIS," I've got a Sega Saturn in my living room by wowbobwow

It's a Sony BETACAM SP deck. The name "BetaCam" makes it sound like the old consumer-level BetaMax stuff, but this is a professional-grade videotape deck of the type that most TV shows were played back from for broadcast during the pre-high-def era. My wife worked in TV production back in the 90's, so we picked this deck (and the Sony display) up from a small production company - I use the display for retro gaming, and she'll use the BETACAM deck to digitize her old work. Win/Win!

7

wowbobwow OP t1_jecjwdz wrote

Reply to comment by Tencho2010 in Nearly 30 years after playing one at a classmates house and thinking "OMG, I NEED THIS," I've got a Sega Saturn in my living room by wowbobwow

Good eye! It's a Sony PVM 20M2U which formerly lived in the edit bay of a small TV commercial production company in central California. When they dumped all their pre-High Def gear, I bought it and made it a centerpiece of my retro gaming setup at home. Amazing display!

61

wowbobwow OP t1_jech0v5 wrote

Reply to Nearly 30 years after playing one at a classmates house and thinking "OMG, I NEED THIS," I've got a Sega Saturn in my living room by wowbobwow

I was a 90's kid with no money, so I mostly got to experience the 3D game revolution vicariously through my classmates. One of them was the first kid in my town to get a Sega Saturn, and she was kind enough to let me play it a few times after school. Needless to say, my mind was totally blown. It took nearly 30 years, but I'm excited to report that I finally have one of my own now!

I'm excited to dive into the library for this amazing machine - what games would you guys suggest I seek out?

52

wowbobwow OP t1_j2ee40i wrote

Reply to CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER (Beige 1990's Apple edition) by wowbobwow

Pictured from top-to-bottom:

Top: "Apple Keyboard" - aka the Apple Standard Keyboard. This was the smaller / lower-priced optional keyboard released in 1987 at the same time as the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II. Note the large weird key above the number row - that's the Power key, which could power on (or put to sleep) Macs from this era, a very handy feature which I wish still existed! You may notice that the "P" key is crooked - I recently found this keyboard under an e-waste pile, and it seems that this one key got crunched, so I'm going to take it all apart and see if I can repair the ALPS keyswitch (or just replace it).

Middle: "Apple Extended Keyboard" - aka the AEK. This was the bigger / higher-priced optional keyboard released in 1987 at the same time as the Macintosh SE and Macintosh II. Note that the Power key is still present, but has been relocated to the top-right spot. Originally priced at $229 in 1987 dollars, which equates to over $600 today!

Bottom: "Apple Extended Keyboard II" - aka the AEKII. The AEKII was Apple's final mechanical keyboard, before they fully converted to less complex / less expensive "rubber dome" mechanisms. The AEKII is (in my semi-humble opinion) the finest mechanical keyboard ever made by a major brand. It feels incredible to type on, makes a pleasing (but not overly-loud!) click-clack sound, and lacks the brutal aesthetics found in comparable IBM keyboards from the 80's and 90's. I've been buying AEKII's whenever I've seen them pop up over the years (e-waste places, yard sales, etc.), and with some ADB-to-USB adapters, I now have a literal lifetime supply of these and use them regularly with both vintage and modern computers. Highly recommended!

6

wowbobwow OP t1_ivhk1re wrote

Reply to TIL that the band The Hondells had a top-ten hit with their 1964 cover of The Beach Boy's song "Little Honda," except "The Hondells" didn't actually exist by wowbobwow

I dropped some donations at a local thrift shop today and (of course) popped inside to see what I might find. While I didn't take any new treasures home, this album cover gave me a good laugh: has there ever been a more thematically-specific band than The Hondells??

When I got home I did a little research and was even more amused by what I learned: “The Hondells" were a band that didn't exist - the songs were recorded by a revolving collection of studio musicians lead by producer and California surf-rock pioneer Gary Usher. The Hondells had a legit hit song with “Little Honda,” which was co-written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love from The Beach Boys (which is pretty obvious if you listen to it!), and then went on to record this whole album of Honda-themed odes to the SoCal motorcycle scene.

Bonus fact not found in the above-linked Wikipedia article: amusingly, because the actual music was all recorded by various working session musicians, during the handful of TV performances by “The Hondells,” the band was played by random guys who happened to be hanging around the studio at the time. They were all given a little time to learn enough of the lyrics to semi-convincingly lip-sync the songs while pretending to play their instruments. Good times!

21

wowbobwow OP t1_iuf1qjx wrote

Reply to comment by zerofuxgivn420 in TIL When soul legend Wilson Picket recorded his iconic version of "Mustang Sally," he & his band rushed to hear the playback. The tape machine broke, cutting the tape into 30-40 tiny pieces. The engineer Tom Dowd carefully spliced them all back together, & that's the famous album version by wowbobwow

That’s amazing!! I can only imagine the stories he could’ve told…

4

wowbobwow OP t1_iuer4of wrote

Reply to comment by mqudsi in TIL When soul legend Wilson Picket recorded his iconic version of "Mustang Sally," he & his band rushed to hear the playback. The tape machine broke, cutting the tape into 30-40 tiny pieces. The engineer Tom Dowd carefully spliced them all back together, & that's the famous album version by wowbobwow

I'm not a professional musician, but I can wager a couple guesses:

  • The Stax Records 'house style' at the time was to record every player on every track all at the same time in one big room (as opposed to the more modern approach of recording each part separately). This was a big factor in the spontaneous magic of so many Stax recordings, including occasional flubs and goofs that made it onto finished tracks, which were often recorded in just one or two takes. Doing it over again would've reduced that feeling
  • Wilson Pickett was a notoriously violent, short-tempered man, and was well known for beating the shit out of people who he thought were messing with him. Tom Dowd was probably wise to offer to fix the problem while everyone took a lunch break rather than telling Pickett, "oops, my bad, let's do that whole thing over again"
19

wowbobwow OP t1_iuebzfi wrote

Reply to TIL When soul legend Wilson Picket recorded his iconic version of "Mustang Sally," he & his band rushed to hear the playback. The tape machine broke, cutting the tape into 30-40 tiny pieces. The engineer Tom Dowd carefully spliced them all back together, & that's the famous album version by wowbobwow

Here's a link to the song, for anyone who isn't already humming it in their head. Pay close attention at ~2:22 - there's a moment where the drums seem to lose the beat for just a moment, and it's still unknown if that is a result of the damaged tape being spliced back together, or if the drummer just didn't quite nail the timing of a short fill.

Bonus TIL fact: Tom Dowd, the engineer for this recording, not only worked on recordings for a staggering number of artists (the list includes Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rod Stewart, The Allman Bros. Band, Cher, Booker T. and the MG's, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and more), but earlier in his career he worked on the infamous Manhattan Project, which lead to the development of the atomic bomb.

82