The confusing Minisette - What is it?
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- čas přidán 30. 03. 2022
- Exploring the confusing and complicated history of Radio Shack's long-running series of Minisette recorders, featuring a review and test of the Realistic Minisette 10 from 1981.
Thumbnail image modified from a photo by James Case, licensed via Creative Commons
Peter Nero commercial from • Radio Shack Commercial...
Sanyo demo tape played in hi-fi stereo: • Sanyo demo tape: Symph...
#cassetteculture #radioshack #vintage - Věda a technologie
Yeah, I was a teen working at Radio Shack during the mid-late 80's. Had customers walk in to buy tapes for these odd ball tape recorders and yes, confusion galore. Also, on inventory count sheets and dark and spooky shelves in the back.
We once had a Radio Shack in a mini shopping mall that's been there since the 60's. I remember going there in the mid 70's and bought a Radio Shack Archer radio to put on my bike. Well that radio been long gone.. I stopped there in early 2000 and got to know the new woman manager at that store. We talked about the cool bike radios Radio Shack made as I had the red one with AM/FM stations.. She said there are 2 boxes in the backroom shelf as they look like they been there forever. She brought them to me. One was the same I had as a 10 year old kid. The other one she says appears to be 90's a yellow one also with AM/FM.. I asked her how much? she said just take them as we have no inventory control being they are now obsolete. I still have them and the original boxes 20 years later.
@@sting64az That's amazing and super sweet of the manager! :)
@@sting64az nice
Last time I was in a radio shack was also in the little shopping mall in my small town around 2001 or so. It was next to the little three screen cinema that we would go to on Friday nights when our parents would drop us off to see a movie with friends. I loved going in there and looking at the RC cars and mess with the keyboards. I remember seeing some of the first cellphones in my life back in the mid-late 90s. Loved Radio Shack!
6:58 there's something almost surreal about seeing an old radio-shack radio cackle out news that's only a few days old over a 4/3 video that looks like it was recorded over 30 years ago
30 years ago you would have watched with a CRT TV in much poorer quality.
@@becconvideo To be fair the comment just says it looks like it had been recorded over 30 years ago, don't we watch content from any era on our modern displays? Also, it would not have looked much worse on an old CRT, unless you mean being broadcasted over the air and received with weak signal or sth like that.
@@BilisNegra actually this was the case for us in the 80ies: we in Saxony watched West German TV from Torfhaus some 180km away with a big 11 element Yagi antenna on the roof in PAL and somtimes the local East TV with a lot of reflection interference ("Ghost Images") in Secam in much poorer image quality. Meanwhile - appart from the Government TV channels - cable and satellite TV in Germany is either paid in HDTV or "free" in really poor quality - I suppose worse than in the 80ies. We're probably spoilt by big screen computer monitors and TV with full HD programs.
And watching the whole thing on a mobile device with thousands of times the power of a Cray supercomputer.
Heh heh, nice to see a puro pfp out in the wild
Gotta love that soft look and the trails of a tube camera. Brings back memories.
Great camera, everything looks so Realistic.
I wonder why...
😂 👏 I love it. That pun was Optimus, er, optimal!
Freaks on CZcams!
Ha. Ha. Ha.
It's in the free batteries 🤗
With that camera, for a moment it feels like watching a video from the 80s.
Now there are many plugins and effects to emulate the image of these retro devices (such as VHS for example), but I have not yet seen any plugin that emulates the light comets produced by tube cameras. The closest thing I came to finding was an image delay effect, as if you had been anesthetized.
I realise it's a pain in the butt, but I'd love to see more videos made with old-timey video cameras.
CZcams is crap, why you need that? why so many crap online?
You need content too? Try to post all crap you can find?
@@lucasrem D H
I love the sound of classical music through a cheap radio or cassette. Brings me so much nostalgia
I love that you did this with that camera. I love the 80s-90's feel. Keep it up haha
Another enjoyable video on the features of vintage "stereo" equipment. Thanks VW. 😎👍
Nice touch recording it on a camera from the period! Loved it.
I dig the tube camera, it perfectly matches the cozy feel of this channel
Wow I just learned something from this video!
Back in 1991, when I was 6 years old, my grandfather bought me as a gift a Sony CFS-201 radio cassette recorder in Laredo, TX. All of the tape players I had seen up to that time would have "FFWD" and "REW" for fast-forward and rewind, but my Sony had "CUE" and "REVIEW" instead. While English not being my native language (and no one else's because we're Mexican), I knew a word or two back then, but I never understood why it said CUE and REVIEW instead of the usual. I was like "WTF does CUE mean?" (and I still don't know, I guess it's a short for "queue").
I used to repeat songs in my tapes like crazy. One day, out of boredom I discovered that that this recorder would let me rewind the tape while it was playing it. I loved this, because I could go back to the start of my favorite song instead of guesstimating where it was like in other machines. My parents would tell me to stop doing that if I wanted the machine to last, but I didn't care and kept doing it. However, deep in my heart I thought it was a design flaw which let me do that, and I was aware that eventually I would kill the mechanism.
But thanks to the brochure at 4:03, I know understand that it wasn't a design flaw, an actual feature instead! Now I know that when I see a tape machine that has CUE and REVIEW on their buttons, it means it works like my CFS-201
Cue it is own word. As in a cue in a theater script. In this case it refers to fast-forwarding while being able to hear what's on the tape. Nothing to do with queue.
@@vwestlife And "review" is the same concept in reverse, Natch! (kind of audio version of "BetaScan"), Lol
13:20 what a clever usage of the tape length! an all around solid player from the 80s!
Brilliant entertaining video as ever, memories of the Tandy catalogue here in the UK!! I thought the collection of small cassette recorders all being "minisette" was confusing, then calling that compact but fairly conventional radio cassette the same just took the biscuit!!
Confusing, but this was entertaining. This was when Radio Shack had a lot of models of everything and this describes the situation well. I always had their catalog handy and knew their product line pretty well but I didn't know about the weird size cassettes. I still have a small RS recorder that uses standard cassettes and it still works. The most expensive thing we ever got from Radio Shack was a full size reel-to-reel deck that had a built-in amp and wing speakers. We got it to make tapes to send to my brother in Viet Nam so this model was for sale during the late 60s. It worked great and we gave it to my brother when he got out of the Army.
I forgot how good even low end cassette recorders were back in the early 80's. Sad to see the rubbish they make now and sounds so bad!
Yeah. Digital is so AWFUL. Wish we could go back to the glory days of Dolby Noise Reduction and quality degradation with each play.
@@orangejjay I think they mean the sound quality of modern casette decks as compared to ones manufactured in the 80s, not modern digital audio in comparison to tape audio
@@orangejjay, aw, you're so snarky, you'll get a gold star for that one, for sure.
@@orangejjay The OP never mentioned "digital" VS "analog", He basically was stating that CASSETTE RECORDERS made in the '80s were better than CASSETTE RECORDERS made today.
@@TheNugettinage Yep! and it goes beyond the audio quality. Mechanically, a 1980s "bargain" cassette mechanism is better than a "good" one made now!
Love the Batman slap! Very timely catch! Love all your old tech videos! Taking me back...
Your editing, choice of clips, and the sheer dumbassery from RadioShack has me in tears of laughter. Amazing.
Roflmao
That tape player has some pretty good sound, even the lows are reproduced well.
So, the thing to do, if one still could, would be to walk into RadioShack and ask for a Minisette.
That sleep timer implementation is very clever. I am actually a little surprised they didn't include a clock, though a digital one probably wouldn't have been cheap enough yet.
Most likely they'll still bring you one in the box after digging through their wearhouse... ;)
RadioShack went bankrupt many years ago
I worked at Radio Shack back then, it was fun. "Minisette" basically referred to most of the portable battery devices, as opposed to component sized cassette decks that went with your house stereo system.
When you told the confusing history i was busting out laughing by the end . radio shack and their antics lol. Neat little radio cassette player. Or minisette lol
The sleep timer is a neat idea! fist time I ever hear about this. Unfortunately I would wake up to the loud click when the tape ends :p
-No, you wouldn't! :) -You can't say for sure unless you tried. And we, Humans, extremely adaptable species... ;)
Love the camera choice
Thanks for reviewing Radio Shack's cassette tape recorders. I bought a microcassette tape recorder, for $99.99. I remember it well, it was all metal and sounded amazingly well you could even recorded in stereo and it had two speeds. It's the best they ever built. For a long-lasting well built solid metal case microcassette recorder. It's the only one that was ever worth buying. Today you're lucky if you can even get a radio that picks up FM stereo, and even if you do it will sound terrible. The one you featured is actually pretty dagon good. Thanks for the video.
Those light trails effect on a Saticon Image Sensor Tube camera looks very amazing, A very nice 1980s video vibes... (00:09)
I have somewhere an old I think it was Hitachi brand B&W security type camera from the 80's and it had a Vidicon tube in it. Im sure it was like 600 line resolution from memory.
@@steviebboy69 Hitachi? That's interesting...
@@ItsRyukin I cant remember the model number without getting it out, but it had a metal case and had a screw in lens.
@@steviebboy69 Hmm. A screw in lens... It's like... SLRs, kind of camera stuff.
But what the type of a screw in lens? Is it a M42 mount?
@@ItsRyukin I think from memory it was C mount, I used to use this on the Amiga with the Digiview thing and the red green blue colour wheel.
Wow, I was looking forward to this video when you teased the camera you said you filmed it with on social media. The pleasant fuzziness of the video quality definitely makes me feel like I'm watching this on an old Windows desktop as a kid. Just need the beige CRT 💙
The fonts for the "New for 71" and "New for 77" in the Radio Shack catalogs are so amazingly 70s...
Anytime I see anything Radio Shack I immediately want it.
I worked for TV shop part time when I was 14 years of age which was a ‘Tandy Authorised Dealer’……..the delights of thumbing through a Tandy Catalogue circa 1989 :-))…Tandy did this amazing record cleaner in a aerosol can!
Very interesting! Now I know where my Minissete-9 fits into the scheme of things. They really changed the form factor and capability set from the 9 to the 10.
Loving the picture out of that camera.
Regardin' the Sanyo demo tape, there's a good chance that the deck, itself, had been OEM'd by them (like a of RS gear from the 80s). The tape reminds me of the Hooked on Classics series.
I can't believe they missed the opportunity to call the micro a nano. I did enjoy the new camera - will it be a permanent fixture or is this just a one-off?
It's almost like they had the Minisette trademark lying around and wanted to make the most of it 😂
I think I had that tape-player/radio demonstrated at the second half of this. Had to be 4th through 6th grades before I got a stereo boombox as a gift. Not sure if I gave it away or it got broken or what, as that was back in the late 1980's. Being able to record off the radio was fun, because the Dr. Dimento Show came on at night during the weekend with all the goofy novelty or parody songs. So I had a modest tape collection of those for amusement, in addition to stuff I made up and recorded.
Clever, electromechanical sleep timer. I recall seeing that at the store back in the day and asking the salesperson how that would work, as it didn’t have a clock, or any indication of preset electronically set times. He showed me, and I thought, oh that’s not a bad idea.
I had a rebadged version of the Radio Shack Minisette Recorder shown in your video thumbnail picture, called the últra 6282 Radio Cassette Recorder (1983) in black. Absolutely LOVED it and it was also the best computer data device for loading and saving I ever owned, and I had specially designed ones for the task that were rubbish compared with this little deck.
Thank you for shedding light on the much-ignored Minisette. I love them- they’re sturdy and were built like tanks. My favorite is the Minisette from 1977/78. The ‘77 Minisette was DC bias, and the ‘78 Minisette was made AC bias, but they look IDENTICAL. Belts are a snap to change, and they restore nicely and pretty quickly. They’re fun to play with/use, and are very loud and high-quality sounding. Great job!
Anyone who's been around long enough knows it's all just a series of tubes anyways. 😂
Cool to learn why those old TV shows have light trails from bright lights (reflections, candles, etc.). And using a cassette as a sleep timer instead of an ordinary digital or rotary timer is... well, better than no sleep timer at all. Clever idea regardless.
I prefer you over Techmoan personally. Love how simple you are. Have a nice Thursday perfect time to watch it while I drink my coffee
I live in England myself so I'm more familiar with a lot of the items that Techmoan shows but I definitely appreciate the more eclectic nature of this channel too!
I know what you mean. I love the fact that this is just some guy in his workshop making videos for the love of it. No fancy setup or titles, or constant begging for patreon donations.
Man I love the video rec with that old camera! So cool Mr.W.
I had a Minisette 10 as a kid, took it everywhere! I used it 'till it died!
I actually got confused by this marketing myself. I bought a Miniset at a thrift shop thinking it was a mini or even micro cassette player. The unit was definitely small enough that I would believe it only played micro cassettes.
What I take from this is that more people need to record their CZcams videos 40-ish year old professional cameras. This was capital A Amazing.
I would love to have such little radio to play my cassettes when I have to go to sleep. Such a neat machine, I enjoyed this video a lot! ♥
I rather prefer my cassettes in stereo instead. ☺
@@zsombor_99 Me too, but since it would be used most at bed time, that woudn't be a problem for me, and I like that radio a lot, it is cool ^^
They weren't very common, but radio-cassette alarm clocks did exist too
This reminds me of Sony's use of "Tapecorder" :)
So the minisette name is like the blanket name for cassette recorders and/or player radios for the RadioShack in-house name Realistic. This is like what Apple calls their displays the Retina display regardless of the display technology.
Retina means it's a high PPI LCD display, as opposed to the low res pre iphone 4 ones. Super Retina means it's a high PPI OLED display.
Radio Shack is like Apple. But instead of displays, its for Cassette-corders!
Dam...that works Great... I Love Radioshack Stuff. Sure miss them. :(
I had a "Minisette 10" in the "day", I can attest the little sucker DID have damn decent radio reception on both AM and FM. Due to all of the "system on a chip" radios made now, It's almost impossible to buy a radio with a good AM tuner. I use vintage radios for AM DXing.
**grabs a taperecorder** hold in I want to get this on tape for the record...
hold my beer
*connects RasPi composite out to VHS recorder to tape it off CZcams*
(tbh I won't do that on this video. But I do have all episodes of AVGN on VHS taped off CZcams. No kidding)
@@senilyDeluxe 🤣🤣🤣 can I hold SodaStream instead?
I loved watching a youtube video, recorded from OG hardware. This was awesome!
I don't think the term "original gangsta" was used back in those days to describe analog devices.
WBZ AM is a 50,000 clear channel station and at night can be heard out to the Midwest sometimes.
I miss going to Radio Shack.....especially in the 80's. You could buy capacitors, pots, resistors, IC chips, PCB etching kits, breadboards without having to order thru the mail.
saticon tube... impossible not to show candles and lightbulbs
Thanks for the video, Kevin.
This just feels right, mic quality, resolution. All of it. Gonna have to keep using an odd camera from time to time.
Very interesting video Kevin. Thank you.
The SD picture, was like watching pbs TV as a kid in the 80z
Nailed it!!! I was trying to think of how to put it but you got it!
I love you because you USE the things you find and review
Quite a decent small machine. Yes, they had way too many models it seemed
that demo tape is the coolest thing I've hear this week
I actually have a newer version of the Minisette-10. I'm not sure where I have it stored at the moment, one thing I will note is that I think mine uses the familiar Tanashin button layout (possibly a Tanashin mechanism,) where it appears the version you have does not. Several years ago, I saw a video on CZcams of someone repairing an identical radio, but it was branded JVC, and the inside was an absolute booger to work on. Mine was given as a gift to my grandfather by my aunt and uncle. It got quite a bit of use, it sat next to his arm chair in the living room, he used it for both cassettes and radio, my grandmother would use it and listen to her "Happy Organ" cassette while on the exercise bike. In the early 90s, when they moved, he bought a Magnavox all in one stereo as he wanted to switch to CDs, at that point, the little Realistic radio got put in the grand-kids playroom.
And even the 4:3 aspect ratio, a total joy to watch on ipad
this might be the best vwestlife video yet
My grandad had a lot of realistic branded electronics. I have his portable am/fm pocket radio from the 80s that still works great. After he passed we found his micro cassette recorder where he used to record his thoughts and musings on life. The one tape we found in it had him complaining about the contractors who were replacing the siding and garage door of his shop in the backyard. I remember him saying “What the hell are those people doing in my backyard?”
I have a couple of those rainbow mugs... Very period correct for use with this cassette recorder!
Tube cameras getting a lot of traction here on YT. The Maritime Girl showed off her Hitachi camcorder with Saticon tube pickup.a few das ago. I have a Minisette in my collection that I got new old stock from eBay. It doesn't have a radio though.
Also Cathode Ray Dude has quite a bit of standard def cameras (tube and not)
Ha, love seeing your Backtracks music library in the background... I worked for Digital Juice in the early 2000's.
I had one of those Minisette IV radio-recorders like the one in the commercial back in the late 70s, and I missed it dearly. So I searched for one online, so I could satisfy my nostalgic yearnings. But I changed my mind. Most of the ones for sale were not in working order, and the restored ones were too expensive. Remembering that we are now in the digital age killed my remaining enthusiasm.
The way bright objects on the camera leave trails is interesting. On Top of The Pops repeats quite often the camera catches a studio light which leaves a trail that stays there until the hastily switch cameras> I didn't know if the camera was damaged for good. I guess not.
p.s. That Sanyo demo tape sounds as if it was the inspiration for many 1980s Musical Keyboard Demo Tunes.
I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent here, but I've got that Realistic brand 'Minisette' II IC player.( 1:12 ) Needless to say I was confused, at first, as to what type of tape it actually played.
Surprisingly, it's still quite a capable dictophone! The built in microphone is miles ahead of anything I've seen in other personal cassette recorders, so even back in the day they didn't make them like they used to. Truly a remarkable little piece. The parts and belts are relatively easy to find these days, making repair an absolute breeze. I repaired mine as a complete beginner, so I'll take any one I can get. I'd recommend these til the cows come home! If you ever come across one of these things, do yourself a favor, bring it home and fix it up!
I'd love to see a review of these old players, truly interesting pieces.
Anyways that's my tidbit for you, great video! Nice call filming on tape, by the way!
this mini micro II wordmaze was not trolling customers, but boosting engagement with sales people. Once you had the wrong tape you could feel lured to purchase a second matching machine.
I'm like 99 percent sure the Radioshack's executives were very smart back then and made that evil confusing scheme purposefully... ;) -They had their reasons, obviously...
Wow i was TODAYS years old to find out that Pentax actually had a videocamera released in the 80s :O Man this thing would be perfect for shooting an episode of Dr Who.
Decent unit, great video. My only Realistic device is a 32-1100A stereo mixer. Works well, I'll be keeping it!
absolutely love the retro cam use. awesome.
Another fine video, sir.
Man! I have to say you did this video with that 1984 Pentax Camcorder using the 1981 Realistic Minisette! It's very uniquely interesting the sleep timer feature on the Minisette 1) uses 1 side of the tape for a timer and 2) makes others think you are playing from a radio broadcast you might have recorded, but really you are listening to the radio, how cool is that! This is stuff you don't see nowadays, 41 years later! Gosh, I miss the 80s. Great Minisette RadioShack History! 👍👍👍👍🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏🤏
You've made me wanna have one! Too bad we've never had a Radio Shack in Argentina! Wonderful radio!
Great video as usual. 😃
I love the saticon comet-tails, reminds me of Top of the Pops in the 70's
Television of my childhood was always this way.
Nice video man Always wondered about minisette brandings bless u
LOVE the camera you used to record with!!!!!
My mother drank many a cup of Joe out of that exact same rainbow coffee cup! Wow!
Thank you, Tubes.
I found the Minisette-10 at a local church thrift store about 10 years ago NOS in the box for $8.00 as they had about 10 boxes of these. It still plays great today with no static and I kept the original box stored away.
Love the videos.
That 45 minute sleep timer using the cassette... you drift off to sleep, then the click of it stopping wakes you up again!
Awesome video!
Seriously Radio Shack! What the hell man? That was confusing as all heck there. And ohhhh! at 3:22 Check out the Los Angeles Burbank Airport there in 1979! I immediately recognized it as I live -3 miles from it.
@albear972 yeah, the 80s were rad (I love the 80s since i was born in 2008)
I expect that poppy synth version of Mozart’s 40th symphony had Wolfgang rolling in his grave
If you attached his skeleton to a turbine, you could power a small country
If the tape came out in 1982, it was probably inspired by _Hooked On Classics_ which contained a section of Symphony no. 40. Anyway, it's not like Mozart didn't write about 10 million pieces that qualify as Classical Muzak. I doubt he'd care if someone gave any of his work a pop arrangement.
Anther mesmerizing video. I have a Minisette IV, VII & 12 that are still working with the original belts.
I really wanted the one in the thumbnail when I was 11 in 1977. Wow AM/FM radio, and a tape in such a compact design. I remember they used it on the Today Show a little later that year, and the song playing was Stevie Wonders Sir Duke. I was in to tech way back then.
Love the sleep timer technology at 12:43. That's awesome!
Great content. I just subscribed. Greetings from across the bridge in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
3:22 LOVE these old commericals from things long gone ... :-)
The sleep timer is really cool.
I just assumed "minisette" was Radio Shack's trademark for any miniature cassette recorder regardless of format. The Minisette line were all smaller than shoebox machines, even the ones with radios built in.
The 1983 Sony WA-55 was my baby. Stereo mic, FM/AM and the size of a medium sized paperback book. If only it had Dolby.