Tape Decks and Recorders
This German made Phono Trix recorder has capstan drive.
Long before Philips came out with a dictating machine cartridge which became popular as the Cassette, RCA had these cartridges.
The Craig 212 and the Concord F-20 were used many times on Mission: Impossible.
Interesting note - when Jim Phelps found the F-20, the switch was in the Play mode, but it wasn't running. When he switched it into Stop, then Rewind, it would run.
Mine worked just like it should, and it never smoked.
The Akai 4000 was a good general purpose 3-head deck.
This Akai X-200D was a very good machine. It has 3 speeds, auto-reverse, and cross-field bias.
Most decks apply the bias to the record head. This type of deck applied only audio to the recording head. Another head was placed on the opposite side of the tape, and applied the bias to the tape directly.
These standard test tapes were used to check the alignment and overall performance of tape decks.
This old Webcor wire recorder was made by Webster-Chicago.
Wire was a good enough recording medium, but handling that much fine steel wire was rather inconvenient.
There were cassettes before the days of tape. This cartridge held two reels of wire and a recording head.
Camera-shy:
Pioneer T-8800
Crescent recorder
RCA Cartridge recorders
Akai CS-34D
Teac A-20 (I still have the corrugated plastic box from 1971)
Museum page