Tuesday - September 20, 2005 . Added the CCU to my [1955 Blonder-Tongue Oserver] vidicon camera head today. My earliest example of vacuum tube video technology. A rare bird indeed! Anybody got the manuals for this guy? Also added a very rare [Magnavox Chromavuew 400] hand held color camera. Early 70s vintage, possibly the first of its kind. Single tube, striped filter, color process using a huge one inch vidicon. Sunday - September 18, 2005 . The job search continues, but still loving the time off. Added another VCR to the museum today. Thanks to Michael Duncan, we now have a brand spanking new [Panasonic NV-5125 EIAJ-2 Cartridge recorder] on display. Thank's Michael! Tuesday - August 23, 2005 . Still searching for a job, but loving the time off. Great news! Thanks to my newest friend, Joel Potrykus, I now have finally obtained a replacement JFD model 700 video recorder. Readers familiar with my site know this is / was my first video tape recorder. [Read mor about the first one here] and [more about my new one here]. The JFD 700 is a genreal purpose monochrome recorder/player in the EIAJ format. Manufactured for JFD by Japanese Victor Corp (JVC) in approximately 1971. The current machine is in slightly rusty, but complete, condition and an excellent candidate for restoration. Stay tuned for that. In between job searching, I may get some time to devote to this. At least the enthusiasm is there for a change. Tuesday - July 26, 2005 . Been busy looking for a new job. Another victim of cut backs. The unemployment agency of California could teach the KGB a thing or two about totalitarian control. I believe they have designed the system to be intentionally error prone, banking on the applicant to make an error, so they don't have to pay out the benefits the ex-employee has earned through their honest efforts. Add to that that they have added mandatory retraining and FORCED on line employment services and you get an idea of the lack of freedom permeating the United States today. Face it, California is now the WORST police state on the planet. You need a permit just to fart here.... GRRRR. Other than that, things are great. I have been actually making more money on the side, selling vintage video related items through Ebay and direct contacts, then when I was working. Please note that almost anything in the Labguy's World collection is FOR SALE. No realistic offer will be rejected. I will attempt to mark the already sold items so we don't waste any time haggling for them. The sold items will be indictaed on the [VTR Museum] and [Camera Museum] pages respectively. Check there to be sure an item may be available. I will mark the items that are not for sale also. I am in the process of reducing the size of the collection in order to lower the long term cost of storage space which runs me over $300 a month right now. That's probably more than some of you pay for housing rent. Sunday - June 19, 2005 . Added a new VTR to the museum today. Click here [Ikegami / GBC ITC-321 VTR]. This model and brand is new one for me. More documentation required. Monday - June 06, 2005 . Added the following Panasonic literature the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page tonight: [HCV-19 Color Console TV / VTR], [NV-8080 Portable VTR], [NV-8100(D) BW VTR], [NV-8100A(D) BW VTR], [HCV-19 Tape-A-Vision VTRs], [VTR & CCTV Products], [VY-906 VTR Signal Distributor]. Friday - June 03, 2005 . Added the following literature tonight: JVC [1975 CCTV PRODUCTS CATALOG], [KV-350 VTR ADVERTISING FLYER], [KV-360 VTR ADVERTISING FLYER], [FV-15000 COLOR VTP ADVERTISING FLYER], [FV-3500 COLOR VTR ADVERTISING FLYER], [PV-4500 PORTABLE VTR ADVERTISING FLYER]. Also added these Akai advertising flyers: [VT-100 PORTABLE VTR ADVERTISING FLYER], and another [VT-100 PORTABLE VTR ADVERTISING FLYER]! While I was at it, the following Sanyo sales flyers got scanned and posted. [SANYO V-CORD II SYSTEM], [SANYO VTC-7100X PORTABLE VCR], [SANYO VTC-8200 TWO HOUR VCR]. These documents can also be found on the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page. All document scans are available for purchase. Write for details. More literature coming! Check back often! Thursday - June 02, 2005 . Added the following literature tonight: Akai [VTS-150 Operators Manual], Akai [VTS-150 Advertising flyer], Akai [VTS-110 Operators Manual], Akai [VT-120 Advertising Flyer], Akai [VT-700 Operator's Manual]. These documents can also be found on the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page. Enjoy. More scans coming soon. Wednesday - May 18, 2005 . Added two Akai 1976 advertising brochures detailing the features of the Akai portable color video systems. [1976 Akai Advertising Brochure#1] [1976 Akai Advertising Brochure#2] Monday - May 16, 2005 . Two new old VTRs added to the museum tonight. [Philips LDL-1002] [Singer PR-1] Monday - May 02, 2005 . I've been recovering from pneumonia, brought on by the shameless mixing of over 100,000 people from all corners of the Earth meeting in Las Vegas at the NAB. Is it actually wise to mix that many diverse people all together in one place? I'd call it a biological warfare experiment! Yeah, this disease has left me grumpy.... Good news! I've added the long awaited [Apeco Teletape] video recorder to the museum tonight! This is really a remarketed Shibaden 700, sold under the Apeco trademark. Pretty nifty. Check it out. That's all the strength I have left for today. Back to my sick bed now... Saturday - April 16, 2005 . Found information for a very rare Akai VX-1200 longitudinal video recorder. Were any of these ever sold? Anyone know where I can get one? Also posted the advertising flyers for both the Akai VT100 portable VTR and the X-500 combination VTR & stereo recorder. The X-500 is identical to the Roberts 1000. [VX-1200] [VT-100] [X--500VT] Enjoy! There's far more to come. Sunday - April 03, 2005 . Have not had a lot of time to do updates lately. Just got the chance to add a rare-ish [Sony CV-2100] to the VTR Museum. Thanks go out to James Degideo for providing an excellent deal on this deck. There are now a grand total of one hundred and one video recorders shown in my museum. Enjoy! Wednesday - March 23, 2005 . Labguy's World just obtained its first quadruplex machine. A mostly complete Ampex AVR-2. Compact by the standard of the day, this is one of the few quads that I can consider for my needs. It will also play a wide range of quadruplex formats. But the strangest stroke of luck is that this is the very machine I worked on at CMC Technologies in 1980. The [AMPEX AVR-2] is displayed on the [VTR MUSEUM] page. Sunday - March 13, 2005 . Scanned a huge lot of late 1960s Shibaden sales brochures and a couple of VTR operator's manuals this evening. These include: [FP-100], [FP-107-1A], [FP-108], [HV-14], [HV-50], [HV-70F], [SV-510U], [SV-700UC], [SV-700UD], [SV-800UC], [TU-19UL], [TU-23UL], [VM-901], [VM-903] & [VMF-104]. As well as the Operator's Manuals for the Shibaden [SV-700U] and [SV-800U] VTRs. All of these documents will eventually be linked to all other pertinent pages, but for now are accessible through the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page, under the Shibaden heading. Monday - March 07, 2005 . Finished up the [Arvin Catalog] page this evening. Then added photos of my latest find. A 1969 [Shibaden HV-50] hand held video camera in remarkable condition! Sweet! Wednesday - March 02, 2005 . Posted photos and comments on a rare [Sony AVC-3000] vidicon camera last evening. It looks like an AVC-3200 sans viewfinder, external drives or anything fancier than an on/off switch. Coming soon: an even more rare Magnavox (Philips) Chromavue color camera from around 1975. A two piece job like the Sony [DXC-1600]. Stay tuned. Will be posting photos of the [Wesgrove video] head soon. Probably tomorrow night. Too much happening today and this evening to get to do site updates. :-( Started work on [Arvin VTR] catalog page as well , last evening. This was a home machine using the Newell I principal. It is still WIP. (Work In Progress) Was interrupted by a rude invitation to go to a computer geek gathering with friends from Cisco systems. That was a hard decision to make. Not! Monday - February 28, 2005 . Got a new old video camera today. A somewhat rare [Apeco model 1] vidicon camera. It is in grimy good shape. All there except for a few feet of the AC cord that was chopped off. I see no reason it would not operate were I inclined to plug it in and give it a go. More information about Apeco (ah-pee-ko NOT ape-ko!) video equipment desired. Sunday - February 27, 2005 . More scanning today. Added seven more entries to the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page. This includes four General Electric video tape recording system advertising flyers from 1967, three Sony videocorder operators manuals and one Sony Videocorder advertising flyer. All of the GE flyers start with the same two pages. These two pages are really the front cover of the file folder and the cover letter that arrived with them. The flyers cover the GE line of Sony CV-2000 VTRs that they marketed for a while. [GE Flyer #1], [GE Flyer #2], [GE Flyer #3], [GE Flyer #4]. Flyer #4 is most interesting because it is for the GE 2-30 one inch VTR, that is really a Sony EV-200 derivative with GE badging. Very nicely styled too, I might add. The system shown in Flyer #1 is very sexy as well. The three Sony manuals include the 1969 [AV-5000] Color Videocorder, 1967 [DVK-2400] portable record only VTR, and 1967 [VCK-2400] portapack companion vidicon camera. The advertising flyer is for the 1977 [BVH-1000] 1" high band videocorder. This model was the last before the Type C broadcast VTR standard was established. In fact, the BVH-1000 and Ampex VPR-1 were so closely related, that Sony and Ampex were able to overcome the slight difference and convert both machines to Type C format after they were introduced. As a result, virtually no pre Type C machines exist today. Finally, I've added a new model to the [Hitachi Catalog] page. The new model is an [SV-513C] EIAJ compatible Time Lapse video recorder. There is no particular order to the items I add to the site. A great deal of my research material exists as piles of documents roughly in the order received. But mostly randomly (not) sorted. Sometimes a choice item is selected because it is not represented anywhere on the site up to this point. Or if a new item answers any long standing questions. Extremely rare material gets highest priority of all. Saturday - February 26, 2005 . Scanning of mountains of documents continues in no particular order. Scanned some rare Diamond Power product flyers and created a new [Diamond Power] catalog page. Diamond Power supplied equipment to power plants in the U.S. and abroad throughout the 1960s. More information about this company, and specifically its CCTV products, would be greatly appreciated. Added the operator's manual for the [Bell & Howell 2965] portapack VTR and camera on the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page. Also added a new [Bell & Howell] catalog page. On the extinct documents page, I also added an [Ampex Video Accessories] sales flyer circa 1968 and the operator's manual for the [Ampex VR-7100]. While I was at it, there were a couple of appropriate photos that need to be added to the [Ampex Catalog] page. A new entry for the VR-6000 and an updated photo of the [VR-8000]. Did I forget to mention the update to the [Grundig entry] on the catalog page? Just found the [Grundig Videorecorders] sales brochure from 1971. This series of VTRs is similar, and probably identical, to my [Siemens SIRECORD XH] one inch medical VTR. Thursday - February 24, 2005 . The scanning continues. Had some scanner problems but they are fixed now. The Poniatoff photo is much better now. Also added a few photos from the [Joseph Roizen] archive to the [Charley Anderson] and [Alex Maxey] pages as well. See early Ampex prototype VTRs. Wednesday - February 23, 2005 . Did some work on the [Joseph Roizen] page tonight. Added a fine photo of Alexander M. Poniatoff that had been presented to Joe as a gift in 1968. Check back occasionally as I filling some more of the blanks from this remarkable man's archives. Tuesday - February 22, 2005 . Having my scanner back on line has been great! Tonight I have added, in no particular order, a batch of Ampex VTR sales flyer pages. They are for the [VPR-4500], [VR-5100], [VR-5103], [VPR-5200], [VPR-5800], [VPR-7900], and [VR-7400]. One inch, pre Type A videotape recorders all. All of these beauties are normally indexed on the [EXTINCT DOCUMENTATION] page or appropriate museum and catalog pages. While I was at it, I rebuilt the structure of the extinct documentation page and organized the entries by manufacturer. The page starts with the batch of Labguy's World legacy pages. These are pages that used to be linked to the front page, but it no longer make sense to place them there. Also had time to clean up the [Chester Newell] page and add a few more interesting images and tid-bits of information. What a remarkable man, man! During the image searches for the Newell page, I stumbled across a slight distraction. But, it was so good I had to add it to the [IKEGAMI CATALOG] page. See the late 60's, [odd-ball 2/3 inch tape, model TRV-301], video recorder for the European market. I wonder if any of these were imported to the good ol' US of A? Feel free to donate one to Labguy's World if you have it. Labguy always says, "Thank you" and puts your name on his ultra prestigious contributor's list. Last, but not least, I cleaned up the [Sharp XC-2000] color studio camera page and added a "glamour shot" of this sexy camera. Enjoy! Sunday - February 20, 2005 . My scanner has been "off-line" for a while. I just reinstalled it and added several new documents this evening. First is the user manual for the Cartrivision [Instant Replay] video camera. Second is a wonderful advertising brochure for the [Sharp XC-2000] "Century III" color studio camera, model year unknown. I sure would like to have one of those! Next we have an excellent sales brochure for the [Ampex / Nagra VPR-5], one inch type C, portable broadcast VTR. A true work of art! Collect one if you can. Next to be added were two Sanyo time lapse VTR's. They are Sanyo models [VTR-1350] and [VTR-1375]. Both are four speed models that differ in their time lapse speeds. Last, but not least, two ad flyers for the Toshiba/Ampex (Toamco) [Instavideo] portapack VTR and camera. A system that was fully engineered, but never introduced. This baby was EIAJ compatible, self threading and had stereo sound tracks!!! Talk about wasting your time and money! Only one other EIAJ VTR had stereo sound tracks. That was the [Ampex VR-420]. I have one of those in my collection. Anyone know what became of the Instavideo portapack prototypes? I believe that three were actually built. More info would be appreciated. All of these new entries were added to the [Extinct Documentation] page and their respectively appropriate pages. Thursday - February 10, 2005 . Added another VTR and another video camera to the Museum pages tonight. Also updated and added some more information to the Chester Newell page. First is a [GYYR Time Lapse VTR]. Really a modified JVC KV-360, this is an interesting artifact. Next is a [Dummy Surveillance Camera] made from surplus outer casings for the Craig 6102 vidicon camera. Though still obviously phony, this is one is one of the better attempts to bullsh*t intruders. Last but not least, at the request of Chester Newell's widow, I have begun filling in the blanks on this [Remarkably Prolific Engineer]'s life. Thanks go out to Marcel Snijders for providing a huge amount of research information about Mr. Newell. Coming soon! An interview with an engineer from Wesgrove, the British makers of a longitudinal VTR in 1963! Also an actual set of Wesgrove video record and play heads for Labguy's museum collection! This, along with a Sony PV-100 video head I just obtained, will most likely lead to a new page devoted to the manufacture and use of video tape recording heads. If you have a Wesgrove or Telcan VTR or their literature, talk to me! I need at least on of these to fill in gaps in the collection. Enjoy! Tuesday - February 01, 2005 . The [Joseph Roizen] page has a lot more content. Thanks go out to Dick Shoup for the photo contribution. Joe was such a remarkable person, this page is in danger of becoming quite huge! Read about how Joe touched my life as well. Monday - January 24, 2005 . The [Kurt Machein] page is easier to read tonight. The transcription of the original scans is complete. On the VTR Museum page, I combined the Machtronics and MVR entries into one. Both companies were founded by Kurt Machein. He is credited with manufacturing and shipping the first portable video tape recorder. He then went on to develop the slow motion, instant replay machine as well. Good reading. Thursday - January 20, 2005 . It isn't pretty, but I have added a little bit more structure to the [PEOPLE IN VTR HISTORY] page. Not a lot of content yet. There is a gigantic volume of information I have to scan and transcribe. Probably hundreds of hours of working my spare time. Yeah right! What's that? However, there is one new innovation (for me) on that page. I segmented the photo of the original Ampex VTR engineers into seven sections. Then I made each individual section clickable. Even the VTR. Each one will tell the VTR story from that angle... of course, when it is finally finished. Probably sometime after the birth of Captain Kirk at the rate I'm going! <grin> ATTENTION MOZILLA FIREFOX 1.0 USERS: I notice that the alternate text does not appear when the cursor is placed over a screen object. This appears to be a program bug of this particular browser. It works fine in Netscape 4.77 and in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. So, Firefox users, when the cursor turns into a pointing finger, then there is a an underlying hyper link and that object is clickable. Tuesday - January 18, 2005 . If anyone knows of a job opening for a video equipment design engineer / super duper tech, in the San Jose CA / San Francisco bay area, contact me immediately for a copy of my resume. I have over 25 continuous years of experience in this field and I am looking for an upward career move and attendant salary increase. I am also open to adjacent possibilities, like technical writer or lab manager. If, on the other hand, you are Bill Gates, Paul Allen or another philanthropist, and like my web site, feel free to offer me a full time plan as the director of the Museum of Obsolete Video Recording Technology. I come fully equipped with a full toy box . . . I can also empty the trash or fill your limo with gas. (oline!) Thursday - January 13, 2005 . Added two ex-Soviet Union Video equipment operator's manuals to the [Documentation Index] tonight. The first is a 1981[Electronica H-801 Portable Video Camera] and the second is the [Electronika 502 Video Tape Recorder]. These items are the first of many from my newest contributor, Konstantin Mozgalev. Thank you, Konstantin! Also started a new page devoted to the people who contributed to, and advanced the state of the art of, video recording technology. Some names you may know. I hope I can surprise some of you. This is just started and will be under construction for some time to come. I call it my [VTR PEOPLE] page. Added [Bang & Olufsen] to the [VTR Catalog] pages tonight. Been meaning to do this for a while now. See the Beocord-4000, a European reel to reel VTR. It is actually the Shibaden SV-700E. Tuesday - January 11, 2005 . Added the [1963 Machtronics MVR-11] one inch VTR and the [1966 MVR Corporation MVR-100] magnetic video disc recorder to the [VTR museum] pages tonight. Enjoy! Sunday - January 9, 2005 . The site rebuild continues with the inevitable cleanup of broken links, wrong fonts sizes, etc. Tons of very painful detail oriented work. Today, in a severe five hour stretch, I have painstakingly hand edited 310 HTML files! New footers for every page. I have this anal attitude that all the pages should operate consistently. The visitor should appreciate this without actually having to be aware of it. My eyes hurt. . . . I have also added a new VTR to the museum. The Concord VTR-450. Identical to the Panasonic NV-3080, both decks are EIAJ compatible, record only portapacks. [CONCORD VTR-450] . WARNING! Old pages are going to be deleted from the site tonight. Check your links! It is always best to only link the front page of any site. That link would be: <http://www.labguysworld.com/> for this site. This <WhatsNew.htm> page would be safe to link also. The pages in question will be pages beginning with: . MusuemXXX.htm . Except Museum017.htm and Museum018.htm. But the last two will be changing name in the near future. Do not link them. . These pages were the structure of the older, less efficient Museum Pages. I rebuilt the site to now only provide one display object per page. The old pages were very top heavy with partially related items and were a drag for visitors who use dial up internet access. The new pages will make your life easier. Enjoy! Thursday - January 6, 2005 . You could not possibly miss the changes on the site tonight. Labguy's World has been restructured to make the information here easier to access. The article files that used to be on the front page, have been moved to the [Documentation Index]. The original [VTR MUSEUM] page still exists, but is no longer linked to any active page. That page, and all of its previous sub pages will go away in the near future. If you know you have links to my sub pages, correct them now. It is always best to link any site by its front page. That is the only page that is guaranteed to not go away. For this site, you should always link to: <http://www.labguysworld.com/>. Got some new equipment today. Just in, the Bauer VTR-1004 from Bruno Merlier in France. Thanks Bruno!! And a very nice condition Sony AVC-3260 small studio camera. This was the most advanced model of the line. Articles coming soon. Tuesday - January 4, 2005 . Got a great head start on the new [Documentation Photo Index] page tonight. I managed to index 32 documents so far. In the past, these documents have been scattered all over the site. This page gives an alternative to searching, and quite likely missing, the very thing you seek. On the acquisition front, there are a couple of new VTR's in the mail. A rare [1963 Machtronics MVR-11] one inch VTR and a second, and fully operational, [Bauer VTR-1004] B/W Euro reel to reel portapack and camera. My first Bauer had broken video heads. Look for an off topic mid 1980's Hitachi FP-10, three tube color ENG camera coming soon. Saturday - January 1, 2005 . First day of the year and something new to post. New addition on the Catalog Pages today. A rare 1963 Machtronics MVR-11, one inch VTR. More info coming soon. Friday - December 31, 2004 . HAPPY NEW YEAR! Many wishes for a healthy and profitable year to all my site's visitors! I have been busy rebuilding the VTR Museum Index page. I felt that the old page dumps you into over-filled pages of random VTRs. The new format has a "page per machine" arrangement with a photo index to make it much easier to find a particular brand or model. The smaller pages should load dramatically faster for you dial up users as well. The new page is still under construction, but you can preview it here: [Museum Photo Index] I would love to get feedback on what you think of the new site build. If it is very positive, I will apply this same method to the video camera pages as well as the other misc. support equipment pages. I never realized how huge this site has grown! I even resorted to creating proper "thumb nail" images designed to load faster. Compared to loading an 800X600 picture and scaling it into 320X240. It still took a long time to load because the source image was huge. These new thumb nails average 5k to 9K in size compared to 60K to 350K for the larger images. With the exception of the index page, the newer pages also contain less image files and should load that much faster as well. Wednesday - December 22, 2004 . Added three more video cameras to the [B/W Camera Museum Page]. Two are all vacuum tube models manufactured by Dage in the early 1950s. The third is a mid to late 60s futuristic looking solid state vidicon camera. Check them out. They are the first three entries on the index page. COMING SOON: A cornucopia of ex Soviet Union / Russian video tape recorders provided by my newest friend, Konstantin Mosgalev. Konstantin has provided much literature and photos of several small format VTRs, including one made by Electronika that looks an awful lot like a Sony AV-3400! The Russians also made machines that are compatible with the Philips VCR format. Excellent material and excellent products! Stay tuned! Sunday - December 19, 2004 . We have some nice updates on the [Actual Videos] page today. I have added three new video files documenting the development and operation of the Cartrivision VCR and its early development. These videos were graciously provided by Luke Perry and Peter Berg. Luke is web master of [Cartrivision: A unique way of looking at things]. Peter Berg was an employee of Cartrivision and headed up the project development department. More videos about Cartrivision will be posted in coming weeks as I learn how to use my Adobe Premier. Stay tuned! [HOME] Last updated: January 06, 2005 |
