WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.276 Hello and welcome to No Effort November, 00:00:03.276 --> 00:00:08.889 a series of videos for the month of November where no effort is made. 00:00:08.889 --> 00:00:12.455 Have you heard of these newfangled compact cassettes? 00:00:12.455 --> 00:00:19.765 Everybody's got them these days and tons of new music is being released on these little things all the time! 00:00:19.765 --> 00:00:24.419 But what if all you've got is an 8-track player? 00:00:24.419 --> 00:00:30.081 Well, have no fear of being left behind because Kraco's got you covered with this. 00:00:30.081 --> 00:00:33.034 Just pop the tape you'd like to play into this thing, 00:00:33.034 --> 00:00:36.438 then shove it into your 8-track player and blammo! 00:00:36.438 --> 00:00:39.867 You're listening to the latest hits like one of the cool kids. 00:00:39.867 --> 00:00:46.813 I love a good adapter and this may be my very favorite one because it's delightfully clever. 00:00:46.813 --> 00:00:52.989 It uses one of the weirdest and arguably worst features of the 8-track cartridge format 00:00:52.989 --> 00:00:58.414 to create a surprisingly competent cassette player which passes the signals on the cassette tape 00:00:58.414 --> 00:01:04.016 directly into the playback heads of an 8-track player so you can listen to the cassette. 00:01:04.016 --> 00:01:06.803 I don't remember when I first learned about these things, 00:01:06.803 --> 00:01:13.036 but back in the day I was given an old Zenith console radio set with a record changer, AM/FM tuner, 00:01:13.036 --> 00:01:15.440 and of course an 8-track player. 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:22.448 And probably while perusing eBay for 8-track-related nonsense to play in that thing, I found one of these for sale. 00:01:22.448 --> 00:01:26.815 This is not the one I had back then - it broke and I threw it away. 00:01:26.815 --> 00:01:28.967 But I've tracked down another one for this video. 00:01:28.967 --> 00:01:30.568 And this is that! 00:01:30.568 --> 00:01:36.994 To explain what's so clever about this, first we need to look at the 8-track cartridge and its design. 00:01:36.994 --> 00:01:41.426 The 8-track was the first majorly successful consumer tape cartridge. 00:01:41.426 --> 00:01:45.374 It was based on an endless loop cartridge format developed for radio, 00:01:45.374 --> 00:01:50.561 but for success in the consumer market, it was cost cut to oblivion. 00:01:50.561 --> 00:01:52.156 A design of Richard Krauss, 00:01:52.240 --> 00:01:59.520 the Stereo 8 cartridge hit the scene in 1964 and it used conventional 1/4 inch magnetic tape. 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:03.809 But it split the fundamental elements of a magnetic tape transport 00:02:03.809 --> 00:02:08.109 between the playback device and the cartridge itself. 00:02:08.109 --> 00:02:13.671 See, magnetic tape is really just a thin plastic film covered in powdered rust. 00:02:13.671 --> 00:02:18.526 When you drag that rusty tape  past a tiny electromagnet called a tape head, 00:02:18.526 --> 00:02:24.113 you can store information on that tape by magnetizing the rust particles. 00:02:24.113 --> 00:02:29.645 A sound signal which is fed to the head modulates the strength of the magnetic field it produces. 00:02:29.645 --> 00:02:38.731 And since the tape is moving past as this happens, the powdered rust becomes magnetized in the same pattern as the original signal. 00:02:38.731 --> 00:02:44.044 In other words, a recording of that signal is now present on the tape. 00:02:44.044 --> 00:02:48.380 And when you move this newly magnetized tape past the head again, 00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:51.658 but this time without sending signals into the head, 00:02:51.658 --> 00:02:57.028 the varying magnetization on the tape will create an electrical signal inside the tape head 00:02:57.028 --> 00:03:02.675 which can be sent to an amplifier to recover the  original signal and thus the sound. 00:03:02.675 --> 00:03:05.975 That's the basics of recording audio onto magnetic tape. 00:03:05.975 --> 00:03:13.206 But to do it well, you need a mechanism which can smoothly pull the tape past the head at a very steady speed. 00:03:13.206 --> 00:03:16.629 That's accomplished with a capstan and pinch roller. 00:03:16.629 --> 00:03:21.823 The metal capstan is spun by a motor at a constant and precise RPM, 00:03:21.823 --> 00:03:26.723 and the rubber pinch roller jams itself up against the spinning capstan. 00:03:26.723 --> 00:03:32.858 Stick some tape between the two spinny bits, and it's going to be pulled along at a steady speed. 00:03:32.858 --> 00:03:38.929 If you give the capstan a bit of heft with the help of a flywheel, you can make this happen incredibly smoothly, 00:03:38.929 --> 00:03:42.480 which is good for keeping the audio  signals from sounding warbly and weird. 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:47.067 In a reel-to-reel tape recorder, you have a supply reel of tape, 00:03:47.067 --> 00:03:50.525 the tape transport with the tape heads, capstan, and pinch roller, 00:03:50.525 --> 00:03:56.526 and then you have a take-up reel, which uh takes up the tape after it's gone through the transport. 00:03:56.526 --> 00:04:01.052 But this whole contraption is pretty bulky and inconvenient. 00:04:01.052 --> 00:04:09.807 Now, you could put the two reels into some sort of box and then create a tape transport which interacts with that box... 00:04:09.807 --> 00:04:11.844 which is what a cassette is. 00:04:11.844 --> 00:04:18.354 But those tape transports are somewhat mechanically intricate, which makes them fairly expensive to produce. 00:04:18.354 --> 00:04:22.329 I mean, you gotta have parts that move the pinch roller into the capstan, 00:04:22.329 --> 00:04:26.434 you gotta have some way to move the tape in both directions so you can rewind it... 00:04:26.434 --> 00:04:28.595 I mean, it's just a whole ordeal. 00:04:28.595 --> 00:04:31.267 The 8-track format, on the other hand, 00:04:31.267 --> 00:04:38.064 took everything out of the tape transport except for the spinning capstan and the playback heads. 00:04:38.064 --> 00:04:44.474 The pinch roller became part of the cartridge itself with the tape riding along its outer circumference. 00:04:44.474 --> 00:04:48.429 And with the help of this notch here and a little spring tension, 00:04:48.429 --> 00:04:55.902 the 8-track player simply jams the cartridge and thus the pinch roller right into the capstan inside the machine. 00:04:55.902 --> 00:05:01.478 Since the tape is now sandwiched between  the capstan and the pinch roller inside the cartridge, 00:05:01.478 --> 00:05:06.549 this simple arrangement was all that  was needed for nice and smooth tape movement. 00:05:06.549 --> 00:05:13.897 And to make it even simpler, 8-tracks contain  a tape loop rather than two separate reels of tape. 00:05:13.897 --> 00:05:18.743 Tape is pulled from the center of that loop, travels up and over the top of the cartridge, 00:05:18.743 --> 00:05:23.929 then back down the pinch roller before finally ending up at the edge of the loop. 00:05:23.929 --> 00:05:29.213 This somewhat odd arrangement forces the tape to sort of slide past  itself, 00:05:29.213 --> 00:05:34.170 but since the tape is pulled out from the center of the loop where the diameter is smallest, 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:37.335 the tape is naturally kept in tension. 00:05:37.335 --> 00:05:44.844 The... rather large catch is that this form of loop prevents the tape from being moved backwards. 00:05:44.844 --> 00:05:47.705 No rewinding is possible with an 8-track: 00:05:47.705 --> 00:05:51.531 you just have to keep going forward until you're back at the start of the loop. 00:05:51.531 --> 00:05:54.282 No rewinding is possible with an  8-track: 00:05:54.282 --> 00:05:57.885 you just have to keep going forward until you're back at the start of the loop. 00:05:57.885 --> 00:06:01.261 That's not the end of the world, though, thanks to the format's party trick 00:06:01.261 --> 00:06:04.842 (which also explains why it's called the 8-track). 00:06:04.842 --> 00:06:09.922 The tape holds eight parallel audio tracks recorded across its width. 00:06:09.922 --> 00:06:13.956 They're interleaved as four programs of stereo sound, 00:06:13.956 --> 00:06:19.369 and the 8-track player used a mechanism which would physically move the playback heads 00:06:19.369 --> 00:06:23.033 to realign them with each of the four programs. 00:06:23.033 --> 00:06:26.220 This extra complexity belied some of the cost savings, 00:06:26.220 --> 00:06:35.538 but it meant that a hypothetical album with 12 songs on it would be recorded onto an 8-track as four loops with three songs each. 00:06:35.538 --> 00:06:40.129 And with a button on the 8-track player which lets you step through the four programs, 00:06:40.129 --> 00:06:44.731 you could kind of skip around and get to a specific song. 00:06:44.731 --> 00:06:47.320 [Music plays] 00:06:47.764 --> 00:06:51.050 [song playing abruptly changes] 00:06:55.240 --> 00:07:00.810 [another change - each change occurred mid-song] 00:07:00.810 --> 00:07:07.354 And while it was physically impossible for the tape to move backwards without the loop getting very badly undone, 00:07:07.354 --> 00:07:15.164 many players such as this offered a fast forward option to make queuing up a specific song at least a little bit easier. 00:07:15.513 --> 00:07:17.817 [very high-pitched squeaky fast music plays] 00:07:18.134 --> 00:07:24.140 And of course, 8-track players could also step to the next program automatically. 00:07:24.140 --> 00:07:29.322 This was accomplished with a piece of foil on the splice point of the tape loop. 00:07:29.322 --> 00:07:36.710 Electrical contacts inside the 8-track player were pressed against the tape and they had a modest voltage placed across them. 00:07:36.710 --> 00:07:39.678 When the foil splice bridged those two contacts, 00:07:39.678 --> 00:07:46.181 that voltage was fed to a small solenoid that pulls down on this lever which steps the heads to the next program 00:07:46.181 --> 00:07:49.549 with the help of this spinning cam thing. 00:07:49.549 --> 00:07:51.545 This was a pretty clever trick, 00:07:51.545 --> 00:08:00.436 but splitting up a loop of tape into four programs  with the exact same length made programming rather difficult. 00:08:00.436 --> 00:08:06.465 So albums released on 8-track would tend to have the songs in a different order than the LP release 00:08:06.465 --> 00:08:10.342 or they might have weirdly long gaps between certain songs. 00:08:10.342 --> 00:08:16.508 Or - much worse - they might actually split a track across two programs 00:08:16.508 --> 00:08:23.844 which leads to a small gap in the sound in the middle of a song in addition to some audible clicks and pops. 00:08:23.844 --> 00:08:25.588 Not ideal. 00:08:25.588 --> 00:08:28.466 However, the format was stupid simple. 00:08:28.466 --> 00:08:32.534 Just shove the thing in and it starts playing without a fuss. 00:08:32.534 --> 00:08:35.703 And for its time, they were quite robust. 00:08:35.703 --> 00:08:39.854 Tape doesn't care about vibrations like conventional records do. 00:08:39.854 --> 00:08:43.527 And that made tape formats a great choice for cars. 00:08:43.527 --> 00:08:47.275 In fact, that's where 8-tracks first became popular. 00:08:47.275 --> 00:08:51.949 These days, 8-tracks are generally not well appreciated. 00:08:51.949 --> 00:08:57.113 For one, many of them now have issues with degradation of the pinch roller or the foam pads 00:08:57.113 --> 00:08:59.626 which keep the tape pressed up against the heads. 00:08:59.626 --> 00:09:04.094 And so they often need repair - just ask Techmoan. 00:09:04.094 --> 00:09:06.931 And they were never made all that well. 00:09:06.931 --> 00:09:13.167 I tried to demonstrate how they handled albums which split tracks across the program change with this cartridge, 00:09:13.167 --> 00:09:17.430 but the moment the splice made its way through the pinch roller and capstan... 00:09:17.430 --> 00:09:19.354 the tape broke. 00:09:19.354 --> 00:09:22.382 It broke! Right on camera. 00:09:22.382 --> 00:09:28.684 Even if they weren't prone to these issues with their rather restrictive playback limitations, 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.025 they're a little annoying to use. 00:09:31.025 --> 00:09:34.805 However, 8-tracks sound better than you might realize 00:09:34.805 --> 00:09:39.390 in large part because the tape travels at 3 and 3/4 inches per second, 00:09:39.390 --> 00:09:42.774 twice the linear speed of a compact cassette. 00:09:42.774 --> 00:09:47.680 And that allows it to record higher  frequency sound signals, which increases fidelity. 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:54.267 It's definitely not great by today's standards,  but it's not really all that bad. 00:09:54.267 --> 00:10:00.797 Here are a few examples - and I'll note that this is by no means a good 8-track player. 00:10:00.797 --> 00:10:04.466 It's pretty basic and it has that delightfully 1970s 00:10:04.466 --> 00:10:07.730 "we are really trying to make this look like a digital device with seven segment displays, 00:10:07.730 --> 00:10:11.754 but this is really a piece of plastic in front of four incandescent light bulbs" aesthetic. 00:10:11.754 --> 00:10:15.203 But hopefully it gives  you a sense of what the format was capable of. 00:10:17.234 --> 00:10:21.126 [STAR WARS] 00:10:23.729 --> 00:10:27.491 [a much quieter and more obscure part of the soundtrack] 00:10:28.080 --> 00:10:29.712 [Get Together by The Youngbloods] 00:10:29.712 --> 00:10:33.013 [ope, now it's some instrumental thing] 00:10:34.092 --> 00:10:37.726 [The chorus of Aretha Franklin's I Say A Little Prayer] 00:10:37.726 --> 00:10:41.824 [You Don't Have To Say You Love Me] 00:10:41.824 --> 00:10:44.618 [instrumental section of Get Together] 00:10:46.065 --> 00:10:51.436 [and now it's the Mills Brothers] 00:10:54.039 --> 00:11:02.020 [and now some quieter classical music which reveals quite a lot of tape hiss] 00:11:02.020 --> 00:11:08.670 Now, if you're wondering why there's so much noise, part of that is this 8- track player's kind of terrible preamp, 00:11:08.670 --> 00:11:13.146 but also the track width is identical to a compact cassette. 00:11:13.146 --> 00:11:20.268 And since eight tracks peaked before tape formulations got very good and noise reduction technologies like Dolby B took hold, 00:11:20.268 --> 00:11:23.474 they tend to have more tape noise than you'd want. 00:11:23.474 --> 00:11:27.648 Not exactly high fidelity, but far from terrible. 00:11:27.648 --> 00:11:32.399 Still, by the late 1970s,  the format was starting to fall out of fashion. 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:38.001 For one, the cartridges were quite chonky and took up a good deal of space. 00:11:38.001 --> 00:11:42.557 The compact cassette was quite a lot smaller and thinner. 00:11:42.557 --> 00:11:47.546 And here's a fun twist: this is actually an older format than the 8-track. 00:11:47.546 --> 00:11:49.505 This came out in 1963 00:11:49.505 --> 00:11:52.066 and this came out in 1964. 00:11:52.066 --> 00:11:55.245 You might think it odd that the 8-track even happened then, 00:11:55.245 --> 00:12:02.765 but the compact cassette's very slow 1 and 7/8 inches per second tape speed initially gave it quite poor fidelity 00:12:02.765 --> 00:12:05.333 which made it awful for music. 00:12:05.333 --> 00:12:10.475 At first, this was mainly sold as a format for dictation  machines and similar applications. 00:12:10.475 --> 00:12:16.417 But before long, with the benefit of innovations in tape  formulations and improved recording and playback heads, 00:12:16.417 --> 00:12:19.614 cassettes could sound just as good as an 8-track 00:12:19.614 --> 00:12:24.170 and indeed much better once features like Dolby noise reduction became standard. 00:12:24.170 --> 00:12:27.858 And all without any of the 8-track's weirdness. 00:12:27.858 --> 00:12:35.793 But there were plenty of people out there who had,  say, a car with a perfectly good 8-track player in there. 00:12:35.793 --> 00:12:43.868 As new music releases on 8-tracks started to dwindle, those folks would be left behind unless they upgraded their radios. 00:12:43.868 --> 00:12:51.185 That was annoying, especially since the radio part still worked fine for traffic reports and Casey Kasem's Top 40. 00:12:51.185 --> 00:12:58.328 Rudolf Van Kreuningen simply would not stand for this reality and so he designed this thing. 00:12:58.328 --> 00:13:02.735 Now, I will note that this is not the first product which worked like this. 00:13:02.735 --> 00:13:09.430 Tom T. Tsuji patented a similar device in 1969, and there were several designs over the years. 00:13:09.430 --> 00:13:12.741 However, this one features plenty of refinements 00:13:12.741 --> 00:13:18.971 and its clever arrangement of parts makes it much less bulky than those other designs. 00:13:18.971 --> 00:13:21.566 Here's what's so clever about these things: 00:13:21.566 --> 00:13:25.456 Since 8-track players all have that spinning capstan, 00:13:25.456 --> 00:13:30.140 if you can transfer that rotational movement into a drivetrain of some kind, 00:13:30.140 --> 00:13:36.039 you could use the motor of an 8-track player to actually drive a cassette transport. 00:13:36.039 --> 00:13:38.452 And that's exactly what this does. 00:13:38.452 --> 00:13:44.553 What was a pinch roller in an actual 8-track became a drive wheel in this adapter. 00:13:44.553 --> 00:13:47.775 And with the help of some belts and simple mechanical linkages, 00:13:47.775 --> 00:13:53.646 it can use the motor inside an 8-track player to run a simple cassette player. 00:13:53.646 --> 00:13:59.737 As luck would have it, the compact cassette and the 8-track cartridge have nearly identical widths. 00:13:59.737 --> 00:14:07.665 And with the cassette slotted in like this, the adapter is just a tiny bit longer than a standard 8-track cartridge. 00:14:07.665 --> 00:14:15.336 When this control lever is slid over to the play position, this idler wheel is jammed against the drive wheel. 00:14:15.336 --> 00:14:19.897 A flat belt made of some kind of cloth or paper to give it a grippy texture 00:14:19.897 --> 00:14:24.970 transfers that movement over to the pinch roller of the cassette transport. 00:14:24.970 --> 00:14:28.481 That is a little strange. 00:14:28.481 --> 00:14:34.239 Ideally, it should be driving the capstan and the pinch roller should simply spin freely. 00:14:34.239 --> 00:14:37.129 This design is exactly backwards, 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:42.960 probably because it wouldn't be possible to  spin the capstan fast enough if directly driven,   00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:47.840 but the capstan does at least have a substantial  flywheel to dampen vibrations and speed,   00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:50.175 so it works well enough. 00:14:50.175 --> 00:14:52.540 At least... when these were new. 00:14:52.540 --> 00:14:55.373 This one's playing pretty warbly these days, 00:14:55.373 --> 00:15:00.997 though it's clear it got lots of use based on the wear shown on the pinch roller and heads. 00:15:00.997 --> 00:15:03.777 Now, I was a little worried this would be the case. 00:15:03.777 --> 00:15:09.972 The original one I had had the same weird belt in it, and before long, it tore itself to shreds. 00:15:09.972 --> 00:15:14.638 I could never get it to work properly again, which is why I got rid of it. 00:15:14.638 --> 00:15:19.735 But through the magic of buying two of them, I was prepared for this eventuality. 00:15:19.735 --> 00:15:21.833 And this one's new in box! 00:15:21.833 --> 00:15:24.814 Look, it's perfect for use in home 8-track players, 00:15:24.814 --> 00:15:26.394 car 8-track players, 00:15:26.394 --> 00:15:28.405 and patent pending! 00:15:28.405 --> 00:15:33.627 This one is a later revision and production was moved from Japan to Korea. 00:15:33.627 --> 00:15:39.533 When I tried it out, it played fine for approximately two seconds and then started slowing down. 00:15:39.533 --> 00:15:41.681 And then came to a stop. 00:15:41.681 --> 00:15:45.020 [sigh] Guess I gotta crack this one open, too, then. 00:15:45.020 --> 00:15:47.731 And inside here, I found a surprise. 00:15:47.731 --> 00:15:53.265 This revision uses a standard rubber belt rather than... whatever that is. 00:15:53.265 --> 00:15:59.797 The original belt had simply stretched  just a little too much over the last 40 years or so and gave up. 00:15:59.797 --> 00:16:05.643 But after a quick run through my  bag o' belts, I found one that mostly works. 00:16:05.643 --> 00:16:08.758 It's not right, but it'll do well enough for this video. 00:16:08.758 --> 00:16:12.095 And after buttoning it back together, I gave it a test run. 00:16:12.095 --> 00:16:15.758 Great news, this one isn't warbly at all! 00:16:15.758 --> 00:16:18.509 Some less great news, 00:16:18.560 --> 00:16:23.845 it's running a little too slow and it's really  not able to keep a steady speed. 00:16:23.845 --> 00:16:43.440 I can't quite figure out why as everything in here seems to  spin freely, but well, let's give it a listen. 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:51.064 [various music samples, with surprisingly good quality!] 00:16:55.190 --> 00:16:59.288 [doin' some testing here] 00:17:06.874 --> 00:17:15.117 [a slow, poppy/jazzy theme reveals how the speed isn't quite steady, especially in the horns] 00:17:29.600 --> 00:17:36.758 [8-bit/electronic music again belies how the speed is drifting, but it sounds decent otherwise] 00:17:38.758 --> 00:17:45.801 [ooh it's particularly bad here] 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:52.023 Aside from its issues with speed, I find it remarkable how well this works. 00:17:52.023 --> 00:17:54.510 It doesn't sound bad at all! 00:17:54.510 --> 00:18:01.481 Other than the high noise floor of this particular 8-track player, it sounds just as you would expect a cassette to. 00:18:01.481 --> 00:18:04.006 So, there's really nothing to complain about here! 00:18:04.006 --> 00:18:06.752 This is a very basic tape transport - 00:18:06.752 --> 00:18:11.722 it can only move the tape forward, which was common in some of the cheapest cassette players out there, 00:18:11.722 --> 00:18:15.458 but it does at least offer a fast forward option. 00:18:15.458 --> 00:18:23.237 Interestingly, the patent suggests a rewind option was in the cards, but that was apparently dropped before production. 00:18:23.237 --> 00:18:28.249 You could, of course, flip the tape over and select fast forward to rewind, 00:18:28.249 --> 00:18:32.481 which is what you'd have to do with a cheap car stereo anyway so, honestly, 00:18:32.481 --> 00:18:35.236 this is amazing for what it is. 00:18:35.236 --> 00:18:37.930 But here's the even amazinger part. 00:18:37.930 --> 00:18:44.093 You might have wondered how the heck it's getting the signals from the cassette tape into the 8-track player. 00:18:44.093 --> 00:18:46.464 If you've seen those cassette adapters before, 00:18:46.464 --> 00:18:52.643 you'll know that you can actually just run a sound signal through a second tape head acting as a transducer 00:18:52.643 --> 00:18:58.970 and then shove it into a cassette shell such that it'll point at the playback heads of a cassette player. 00:18:58.970 --> 00:19:05.167 The magnetic field produced by the transducer in the adapter will be coupled into the playback heads. 00:19:05.167 --> 00:19:10.232 That's essentially what's going on here, though the transducer is a little different. 00:19:10.232 --> 00:19:12.036 You'll see why shortly. 00:19:12.036 --> 00:19:13.778 But hold on. 00:19:13.778 --> 00:19:19.059 Those cassette adapters rely on the amplifier in your CD Walkman or whatever 00:19:19.059 --> 00:19:24.399 to produce the power required for coupling the signal into the cassette player's heads. 00:19:24.399 --> 00:19:30.720 There's no way an actual tape head detecting the tiny variations in flux on an actual tape 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:34.340 can produce enough power for that coupling to work. 00:19:34.340 --> 00:19:36.166 And indeed, 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:37.593 that wouldn't work. 00:19:37.593 --> 00:19:46.709 So, the adapter contains an amplifier which boosts the strength of the signal coming from the play head before sending it to the  transducer. 00:19:46.709 --> 00:19:50.717 While that amplifier could be powered by some sort of battery, 00:19:50.717 --> 00:19:55.604 you could instead get a little power from the circuit inside the 8-track player 00:19:55.604 --> 00:20:00.092 which detects the foil strip to advance it to the next program. 00:20:00.092 --> 00:20:03.948 That's why the adapter has these spring-loaded metal fingers. 00:20:03.948 --> 00:20:11.381 These will come into contact with the contacts inside the 8-track player and scavenge a tiny bit of current from them 00:20:11.381 --> 00:20:14.634 which is delivered to a small amplifier board. 00:20:14.634 --> 00:20:18.406 And that meant this thing could work without any batteries. 00:20:18.406 --> 00:20:20.600 I love this solution! 00:20:20.600 --> 00:20:28.405 Why bother with a battery when every 8-track player out there has a couple of electrical contacts that are always powered? 00:20:28.405 --> 00:20:32.151 So long as the amplifier circuit consumes a small enough amount of current 00:20:32.151 --> 00:20:38.652 that there's no risk of the step solenoid engaging the advance mechanism, you can just use that. 00:20:38.652 --> 00:20:42.235 And it's not like this introduced any risk to the 8-track mechanism: 00:20:42.235 --> 00:20:47.983 If somehow one of these feelers managed to short the contacts together when inserting the adapter, 00:20:47.983 --> 00:20:51.399 all that would happen is the advanced solenoid would fire. 00:20:51.399 --> 00:20:55.311 I suppose it's possible that if alignment went very wrong, 00:20:55.311 --> 00:21:00.540 these could keep those contacts bridged together and thus the solenoid would become locked on. 00:21:00.540 --> 00:21:05.448 But the way that these pivot away from each other makes that seem really unlikely. 00:21:05.448 --> 00:21:09.715 Now, something that I was hoping  the patent would answer, but sadly it didn't, 00:21:09.715 --> 00:21:14.338 was the range of voltages this thing's amplifier board can work with. 00:21:14.338 --> 00:21:21.269 I can't imagine every 8-track player design out there used the same voltage for the step solenoid circuit. 00:21:21.269 --> 00:21:26.687 For one thing, those in cars are definitely going to  have a DC voltage placed across them, 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:32.880 but those in the home, as far as I know, might  have an AC voltage across those contacts.   00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:39.280 As it turns out, this one does put DC voltage  across those contacts, 14 volts to be precise,   00:21:39.280 --> 00:21:42.738 but I can't imagine that was certain to be the case. 00:21:42.738 --> 00:21:45.723 The amplifier board does have a few zener diodes on there 00:21:45.723 --> 00:21:51.334 which are probably clamping the voltage down for the little amp chip in there in addition to providing rectification. 00:21:51.334 --> 00:21:54.346 And with so many capacitors on that board, 00:21:54.346 --> 00:21:59.814 I think it's likely some of them are smoothing out an AC input  to prevent audible buzzing. 00:21:59.814 --> 00:22:05.668 So, I suspect this was designed to work with pretty much any power supply it found. 00:22:05.668 --> 00:22:11.756 And though I only have a sample size of two, so far it's worked in every 8-track player I've tried it with! 00:22:11.756 --> 00:22:19.911 Regardless, while there might be some 8-track players out there which won't be able to use this thing, I still love the idea. 00:22:19.911 --> 00:22:23.246 It's taking the weird decisions of the 8-track 00:22:23.246 --> 00:22:28.864 (placing the pinch roller inside the cartridge and using that foil strip to advance the program) 00:22:28.864 --> 00:22:31.580 and putting them to an entirely new use. 00:22:31.580 --> 00:22:38.333 A use which just so happens to make an 8-track player capable of playing an entirely different format! 00:22:38.333 --> 00:22:44.592 And in doing so making them useful even when 8-track tapes stopped getting made. 00:22:44.592 --> 00:22:48.424 Oh, and remember that thing I mentioned about the transducer? 00:22:48.424 --> 00:22:53.698 So this is in fact a stereo coupler and the cassette player has stereo heads. 00:22:53.698 --> 00:22:57.792 So it reproduces stereo sound from a cassette just fine. 00:22:57.792 --> 00:23:03.254 But because on an 8-track the two channels  of a stereo program are interleaved on the tape 00:23:03.254 --> 00:23:06.420 and the play head physically moves up and down, 00:23:06.420 --> 00:23:12.014 the coupler needs to produce a detectable signal over a pretty wide range. 00:23:12.014 --> 00:23:18.984 I suppose it didn't strictly need to - they could have simply told users to set the 8-track player to a specific program, 00:23:18.984 --> 00:23:23.412 but this adapter works pretty well regardless of which one is selected. 00:23:23.412 --> 00:23:30.238 Actually, I was surprised to discover stereo separation is perfect no matter which program you're on. 00:23:30.238 --> 00:23:35.012 I fully expected programs one and four to exhibit a little bleed through 00:23:35.012 --> 00:23:40.798 since either the left or right channel head is close to the border between the two channels on the transducer. 00:23:40.798 --> 00:23:41.912 But nope! 00:23:41.912 --> 00:23:47.399 The middle programs do seem to sound a little better, but as far as getting good stereo separation 00:23:47.399 --> 00:23:50.282 it doesn't seem to matter which one you pick. 00:23:50.282 --> 00:23:52.486 Lastly - you know I had to - 00:23:52.486 --> 00:23:59.484 I wanted to see what would happen if I put my Bluetooth cassette adapter into this 8-track adapter. 00:23:59.484 --> 00:24:04.925 I had to fight with it a little bit as this roller thing was triggering the adapter's auto stop mechanism, 00:24:04.925 --> 00:24:06.656 but once I got it to cooperate... 00:24:06.656 --> 00:24:08.822 [music plays] heck yes. 00:24:08.822 --> 00:24:11.244 This is a ridiculous signal chain: 00:24:11.244 --> 00:24:13.904 Bluetooth audio to a DAC in this thing, 00:24:13.904 --> 00:24:16.488 amplified and output to a cassette tape head 00:24:16.488 --> 00:24:19.076 and then coupled into a second cassette tape head 00:24:19.076 --> 00:24:21.986 after which it is amplified again in the adapter 00:24:21.986 --> 00:24:24.658 and sent through the 8-track adapter's transducer 00:24:24.658 --> 00:24:30.609 before finally getting into the 8-track player's heads where it's amplified again and sent out the line jacks. 00:24:30.609 --> 00:24:33.034 But hey, it works! 00:24:33.120 --> 00:24:38.400 And if you've got a classic car with an 8-track player which you want to keep completely stock,   00:24:38.400 --> 00:24:44.737 this is a viable, if quite weird, way to give it Bluetooth audio. 00:24:44.737 --> 00:24:52.559 I did discover though that for whatever reason, the signal is attenuated quite a lot when the control lever is fully engaged. 00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:55.049 This happens with both of these adapters. 00:24:55.049 --> 00:25:01.341 I'm not sure if it's an alignment issue or what, but between that and the fiddliness of the auto stop, 00:25:01.341 --> 00:25:05.794 if I were to actually use this as a convoluted Bluetooth adapter, 00:25:05.794 --> 00:25:09.240 I would probably find or make something of just the right size 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:14.073 which could be jammed in there to force the lever to stay in the middle position. 00:25:14.073 --> 00:25:21.995 And hey, using this cassette adapter it won't matter how warbly the belts in the cassette mechanism of the 8-track adapter are, 00:25:21.995 --> 00:25:23.803 so that's a plus. 00:25:23.803 --> 00:25:27.001 Heck, the belts could be broken and it would still work. 00:25:27.001 --> 00:25:32.375 Though, of course, uh there are more conventional 8-track adapter solutions out there, 00:25:32.375 --> 00:25:36.444 and realistically, you should just use one of those. 00:25:36.444 --> 00:25:41.700 But man, there's just something about this that tickles my brain like nothing else. 00:25:41.700 --> 00:25:44.446 It's just so clever! 00:25:44.446 --> 00:25:50.075 And even though there's really not much to it, it manages to work quite well. 00:25:50.075 --> 00:25:53.764 For your sake, I truly wish  these were working as they were new. 00:25:53.764 --> 00:25:56.179 It's a bummer that neither one of these is playing quite right, 00:25:56.179 --> 00:26:00.969 but I know they would have back in 1982 based on the one I had before. 00:26:00.969 --> 00:26:07.538 Oh, and I should note, specifically for cars, there were also 8-track adapters with an FM tuner. 00:26:07.538 --> 00:26:11.073 Plenty of cars with eight track players only had AM radios, 00:26:11.073 --> 00:26:14.816 but with one of those, you could bring your car into the future! 00:26:14.816 --> 00:26:17.447 At least... a bit. 00:26:18.272 --> 00:26:19.619 Oh, oops. Sorry. 00:26:20.825 --> 00:26:23.516 ♫ inconsistently smooth jazz ♫ 00:26:24.800 --> 00:26:27.604 Have no fear because Kraco's got you.... 00:26:27.604 --> 00:26:28.464 Oh. 00:26:29.067 --> 00:26:30.032 farts! 00:26:30.032 --> 00:26:33.349 ...with the tape riding along its outer circumference. 00:26:33.349 --> 00:26:34.866 I keep screwing this line up. 00:26:34.866 --> 00:26:38.499 ...travels up and over the pinch roller and then across the top of - 00:26:39.578 --> 00:26:42.556 Oh, I didn't fact check that. 00:26:42.556 --> 00:26:43.766 Hold on. 00:26:43.766 --> 00:26:45.656 Yep, that's backwaaards. 00:26:45.656 --> 00:26:48.342 What was a pinch roller ind an actual 8-track.... 00:26:50.278 --> 00:26:52.313 Did I say "ind an?" 00:26:52.313 --> 00:26:54.052 We'll restart. That'll fix it. 00:26:54.052 --> 00:26:56.681 ...and then shove it into a cashette sell. 00:26:56.966 --> 00:26:59.223 [dissapointed, but humorously] 00:26:59.763 --> 00:27:02.458 Well, sometimes roonerspisms happen. 00:27:02.458 --> 00:27:07.579 ...and if I put my Bluetooth cassette adapter into the 8-track adapter 00:27:07.579 --> 00:27:09.232 [plasticky struggling] 00:27:09.232 --> 00:27:09.959 it's not workin' 00:27:11.229 --> 00:27:16.180 ooh boy the end music is really making a rubber-band-like push and pull with the speed change. 00:27:16.180 --> 00:27:21.030 It's interesting how it's way more noticeable in some instruments than others. 00:27:21.030 --> 00:27:24.412 I guess you'd call that... 00:27:24.412 --> 00:27:27.379 wow factor.