Site Introduction

For my own part I have found these various devices interesting and have tried here to illustrate
them both in terms of words and pictures that a non-specialists person with similar inclinations
might also find interesting. This is I suppose because we all like to share our enthusiasms with
hopefully appreciative others. There also seems to be very little in-depth information about this
recently old technology on the web (or indeed anywhere else for that matter), so I am trying to
redress the balance a little bit. It would have been nice to wrap things all up in a book to make a
little money, but who am I kidding? (a CD version of the site can be supplied at a modest cost.)

The more knowledgeable visitor will I trust excuse any minor errors or misconceptions.

While never having been a club person, or indeed thought of myself as an 'anorak' (who does?), I
do though incline towards technical things and items that might need a little specialist knowledge
to be able to appreciate properly. Over the years, as with most people, I have worked my way
through various interests and hobbies and I suppose I am at heart just a frustrated engineer. But
never having had the will-power until later in life to study for a degree, I found myself mostly
chained to the un-rewarding, poorly paid and frustrating tedium of an office desk. I was though a
'tape-op' in a second rate recording studio for a short while long ago, but soon got bored with
making tea and clearing up after the clients, and indeed they got bored with me (I did enjoy the
bacon sandwiches though). Time passed and with some irony the ongoing 'Digital Revolution'
was eventually to present me with a number of happy opportunities to get my hands on some
newly discarded items that I could only have once dreamt about. My only slight problem is that
of a continuing sense of chagrin that so few 'normal' people seem to appreciate these old bits of
machinery (er, fine engineering) that I find are much to my taste.

I continue therefore, to ponder why a moderately sane (?) person such as myself would wish to
provide a home for such useless junk, particularly as I also have a taste for much of the new (and
still often unless) junk as well. But of course everything becomes junk in varying lengths of time.
I am also slightly troubled by the realization that most of the items on this site, of which many are
still working or have been 'lovingly restored', in reality have a very uncertain future. How long
can a private un-sponsored web site last? How long will I be able to spare the space or continue
my interest (or to be able) to keep most of this stuff? And most importantly;

Why are there no 'real' museums or even wealthy individuals 'out there' willing to preserve and
display these fine examples of skill and ingenuity?

Oh well until The Science Museum gives me a call to become curator of 'Media Technology' I
suppose private collections and the few web sites such as this will have to do some of their
work for them.

It also occurs to me that those of us who appreciate this type fine old technology are probably
rather different animals to the usual analy retentive collector of 'stuff', as I can see very little
worth in many of the so called collectibles that are 'rare and sought after' these days. I am
thinking here of things such as old dolls, postage stamps, teddy bears, tin-plate toys, bits of
china, and other sorts of tat. Actually I am often rendered speechless while some self-assured TV
pundit extolls the virtues (and monetary value) of some crummy bent tin toy, which was cheap
and fairly naf when new, and is now just rusty scrap. But there again some people do collect and
value rusty scrap, or phone cards and who knows what else. Just look on any Internet auction site
and marvel at the prices that to my mind rather misguided people are willing to pay for such
things. But what about those items that did once represent very real intellectual, engineering and
technological achievement? Are they not worth some appreciation at all for what they once
represented? Sadly apparently not. The herd instinct of which one aspect we call 'fashion' has no
respect for true and deep creativity and those with disposable incomes have little empathy for
things of an engineering nature, and so most of the intelligent but unseen cog wheels of our
modern society are just dumped in land fill at the end of their working lives.

But perhaps this is all of no importance anyway, and I probably need to get out more...

However, if you have got this far please do enjoy some of the eclectic stuff I have got here. And
also possibly reflect that these quaint bits of bygone technology represent a time before the PC,
when machines made of metal were engineered to do specific things, and didn't need a nasty
qwerty keyboard to make them work.

Gino Mancini May 2005

Commander Rupert T. Gould wrote in the preface to his great work: The Marine Chronometer its
history and development;

'There is I believe an Arab saying, which runs -

"Because I have been athirst, I have dug a well, that others may drink"

So welcome my little web site in which you will find information about a few items of obsolete
technology that I have enjoyed and found interesting over the years. But what is the significance of
all this stuff you might ask, and who actually cares about a load of old television and audio junk
anyway? Well I suppose a few of us do with perhaps the possible excuse that many of the quaint
and aged machines on this site did once actually represent some of the most advanced and clever
technology on the planet. We might also like to remind ourselves that there was sophisticated
technology built and used successfully long before the current fashion for 'digital' everything.

I read on another web site a while back that they (an educational establishment I think) had an old
television camera that was once considered 'good'. This was written with a sense of toleration,
inferring that (yawn) only the latest technology was of any use. Ha! I found myself thinking 'well
sunshine all and every one of your new wizzy toys will very soon be just as obsolete and as
amusing as my old shiny toys are'!

The sublime Ampex / Nagra VPR-5 video tape recorder does of course take up much of the space
on this site and has its own section here. But over the last few of years I have happily 'bolted on'
various other items. There is an equipment gallery, a portable audio recorder area and a site Annex
as well. There are also a few ramblings about Ampex as well as a section about the Decca
Recording Company's digital audio mastering system.