Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[BargeOn]

My turntable circa 77 was a B&O. Reasonably certain that was a Yamaha amp/preamp and gosh I can't recall the speaker make but they were held to be very good. The joke I heard since is BOSE stand for Buy Other Stereo Equipment.

First I've seen one of those in years. Loved mine
A friend had a prototype BOSE, before their first production model. It was the BOSE-O.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Did some turntables have a stobe function? Some neuron got tickled there.

Well how about some Matt "Guitar" Murphy, Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Koko Taylor here on Blues Monday?

​

Using those turntable strobes set me down a path of owning Peterson strobe tuners.

This song shows me why there are bands with the name Wang Dang Doodle. For a tiny woman, Koko Taylor could really belt out the blues.

 

[BargeOn]

Quick audio story. Back in the 80s when I had the B&O and made cassette tapes for the car, I was making a jazz mix and was just down to the last critical minutes of a C-60 when our cat, Djuna, jumped up on the table (the cover was down). The needle didn't skip but it sent a tremor through Weather Report's "Procession". I was furious but didn't have patience to re do the whole side. So I kept the tape and played it that way.

The cat lived for for years but finally went to cat heaven, leaving us her audio foot print. And the kicker is that I copied that tape to CD and then to a thumb drive and still play it, waiting for Djuna's appearance.

 

[GwenOnBass]

B&O was always the cat’s meow of visual design.

Today they have levitating turntables [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Always said (to none who cared) if B&O was the design firm for that new Personal Computer, there would be no Apple. That timeline didn't happen where I am, apparently?

Quick audio story. Back in the 80s when I had the B&O and made cassette tapes for the car, I was making a jazz mix and was just down to the last critical minutes of a C-60 when our cat, Djuna, jumped up on the table (the cover was down). The needle didn't skip but it sent a tremor through Weather Report's "Procession". I was furious but didn't have patience to re do the whole side. So I kept the tape and played it that way.

The cat lived for for years but finally went to cat heaven, leaving us her audio foot print. And the kicker is that I copied that tape to CD and then to a thumb drive and still play it, waiting for Djuna's appearance.

Cats will do that to you.

 

[Passinwind]

We had four of them, along with a pair of the 12" version, too. Can never have too much of a good thing, ya' know!

We'd occasionally throw a pair mounted in wedges into the work van at one sound contracting outfit I worked for. We had a warehouse full of Altecom and Crown gear and it all had to be tested one a month under the service agreement we had with a pretty well known military contractor. Might as well enjoy the ride...

 

[Jeff Scott]

Did some turntables have a stobe function? Some neuron got tickled there.

NC on the neurons.

My turntable that I got in 1979 (still have it) is a Sony PS-X50 with a GAS Sleeping Beauty MC cartridge. It has a strobe, on the underside of the platter, that is visible through a window on the control panel.

 

[Passinwind]

Did some turntables have a strobe function? Some neuron got tickled there.

Lots of them did.

My 70s stereo included a Philips turntable, Tandberg cassette deck, Crown amp, and Ohm speakers. Had a few Marantz and Fisher receivers too. But I often had roomies with nice systems and moved around a ton, so none of it hung around for very long. I gave away my whole LP collection to a local community radio station in the early 80s and never bought another one.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Yah I definitely had more than a yard of LPs. Those opera box sets take up a lot of room. Spent a lot of time on the typewriter as JSB's Well Tempered Clavier played. That was a lot of records to go through all the keys. But that was also a lot of typewriter paper.

Paper by the ream for a typewriter - even an electric typewriter - seems a bit unremarkable in these modern days where everybody and their dog has access to a 4 colour printer. Banging out copy on a deadline with a real typewriter is a different deal. Doing university papers with footnotes and citations on a typewriter is another completely different deal.

Also a very different deal is the quality of paper - typewriter paper? does anyone even say that any more? - has gone way down. The high rag content paper I bought by the ream for a couple bucks to last an entire semester is practically unobtanium today.

Which reminds me it's time to change out my pen. It feels like autumn. Or is beginning to feel like autumn. An entire page of orange ink is a bit much for the eyes to take. A good brown ink, on the other hand. Here right now with a nearly empty bottle of the venerable Sheaffer Blue and a bottle of J. Herbin Bleu Pervenche. That's a bit too bright for autumn, methinks. And my best sterling pen ....

 

[beans-on-toast]

No carbon paper?

 

[GwenOnBass]

A lot of correction fluid. That predates fancy electric typewriters with correction ribbon. There were also correction strips you held as you re-struck the letter to white it out.

In J school [last century] there wasn't time for correction fluid. Only the first error-free story turned in gets the grade, everyone else fails until the next one. Manual typewriters. El cheapo paper. And some knowledge of the editor's markup skills. Because back then the copy is dropped down a slot to the compositors. They drive the Linotypes.

And this day over coffee worked out a distinction between hot type and cold type. For me the distinction is metal vs. camera-ready. Coffee friend has actually set type from an actual type case - metal type but pre-made and ready to be hand-set. That is cold type to him. Hot type to him comes off the Linotype. So I withdrew "cold type" as a distinction to settle for "electronic type".

 

[beans-on-toast]

A lot of correction fluid.

Invalid Link Removed

 

[GwenOnBass]

Invalid Link Removed

Wow.

There went the last brain cell.

 

[Stumbo]

...Doing university papers with footnotes and citations on a typewriter is another completely different deal...

Hey, I did a whole bunch of that. lol. No liquid paper, just white strips.

I had what I call, the original rust-colored one-speed beach cruiser to careen around a huge campus on. Found it in the weeds, fixed it up at a local bike shop with front/rear generator lights, front basket and rear shelf.

I'd visit the library, look through archives, having to change topics more than once because critical papers had already been checked out. Paying 5 cents(US) for each page photo copied, Xeroxed if you will. Then, with my copies and a stack of 10 or so books piled high in my bike basket, slowly pedaled home.

I hand wrote the rough drafts and typed (on my trusty portable SCM Corona) the final draft. Couldn't do without the correcting strips that you put on the paper and retyped the mistake and it "covered" it in white. I mean, you could still see the imprint on the paper of the mistake but is was way better than starting the paper over. I wasn't that accurate of a typist.

The apartment we lived in had an extra-large closet which I converted to my study. It had a power socket so I could close the door and create my own little world. It seemed to be a positive thing because one my research papers made to the department office to be used as an example for other students.

 

[GonePlaid]

B&O was always the cat’s meow of visual design.

Today they have levitating turntables [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

That's scary.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Even our primary school library used index cards and the Dewey decimal system.

And reminded of a story told by a coffee friend. As an English teacher, he and others began to notice one book in the school library was being checked out with far more - shall we say apparent academic interest - than normally observed in those kids. A bit of investigation revealed the book to be the mechanism for the purchase and delivery of a certain plant material often enjoyed by a certain segment of the student body (and, likely, a certain segment of the staff).

Those crazy 70s.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Wow.

There went the last brain cell.

I imagine that they huffed a lot of liquid paper fumes at home. On the plus side, her son was indulged and got to be an actor/musician of note.

 

[GwenOnBass]

B&O was always the cat’s meow of visual design.

Today they have levitating turntables [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Would totally own this if I were going to do the vinyl thing again.

Used to be our parents bought their stereo in the furniture store. Here's a hutch that you can use to play music! And it may see family duty at the holidays.

 

[beans-on-toast]

As long as the dog doesn’t think that the platter is a flying frisbee and runs off with it.

 

[Jeff Scott]

No carbon paper?

They guy who started the photo business I was at hoarded ALL of it many years ago.

 

[beans-on-toast]

They guy who started the photo business I was at hoarded ALL of it many years ago.

That’s a big carbon footprint!

I wish that I would have hoarded new instruments and amps in the 50’s and 60’s. I also would have bought a case of VF14 tubes for Neumann microphones.

Come to think of it, there a lot of real estate that’s worth a lot now. Should have also bought Apple and Microsoft stock when it was first issued.