The in-flight audio player 

I used to work for Panasonic in the 80s. Your pronunciation of Matsushita is just like the Japanese staff of the company pronounced it. Be proud of that! BTW: The heads on this deck where labeled "HPF" - "Hard Pressed Ferrite". Panasonic/Technics used these in a few high end decks and had a 10 year warranty on the heads. Shows that this device was built to last!

A guy at my school had parents who could source tapes from their onboard flights to play at school in the common area, so we got to see many films not even released on cinema in my country yet on tape, was awesome, I remember seeing the scrolling text mentioning it was a certain airline's property.

I’m intrigued by the footage of people swinging on chandeliers.

Techmoan: secretly building an A-320 piece by piece from parts on ebay...

Hi Techmoan. Probably other viewers allready tex this: this unit was replaced by a cd player in the same configuration, 3 cd's on each side, same maker, direct replacement. As an avionics thech for many years, working for airlines, as part of overnight service, I got to remove the outdated media and install the fresh one. And I got to do this (at diferent times in my career) on tapes as thesame machine as on your previous video, on this one, the cd player, also video on betamax, vhs and Hi8. After that, new systems with digital mass storage started to replace the anolog media, did not work on those, do not remember how the updates happened, then systems like DirecTV, now is all networks and updates by satellite. Two airlines I work for now are removing the video screens and offering wifi with content on the local server to enjoy on your own device, but you probably aredy know about that.

There is a simple reason for still using cassette tapes in an airplane in 2006 (and probably even later). Every device in an airplane has to be standardized and certified for every type and configuration of a specific airplane. That means that this audio player might have been certified for an Airbus A320 in the configuration flown by My Travel, but not certified for a slightly different Airbus A320 flown by a different airline. The process of standardizing and certifying equipment takes a long time and is quite expensive. Therefore airlines are often very hesitant and slow to adopt new technologies. That's also the reason why most airplanes that fly shorter routes don't have any entertaintment system nowadays, since most passengers already have a smartphone or tablet anyway.

1:47 . . . When Mat mentioned the 400 Hz AC power supply used on commercial airplanes... this is done to save weight by making transformers and motors significantly smaller and *_lighter_* than land-based 50 or 60 Hz devices for the same amount of inductive power transfer.

That was fun. As someone who worked on hundreds of inflight progs for BA and others, I never saw what actually was used on the aircraft itself. The airlines certainly saw these progs as important, especially when most aircraft didn't have video. So we had presenters like Humphrey Littleton (doing jazz and comedy), Benny Green, Frank Muir, various DJs, the team from R4 Kaleidoscope (Sheridan Morely, Nat Wheen, Paul Vaughan, etc - that was for Concord), and loads of guests. Price was never a problem. One programme, Radio Juice, which was for children, featured Andi Peters and Phil Cornwall playing a small white dog called Curly. The backstory was that they were in an old suitcase in the baggage hold. In addition to the music, we sent them on mad adventures adding an over-the-top assortment of sound effects. Mostly, the music was chart music from the time, since these were aimed at younger listeners (so, Spice Girls, etc). But Phil and I used to sneak in tracks from the Who and others to balance it out. BA were quite happy as their research showed them that a very large percentage of listeners were in business class - you didn't many kids in business class!

I vote VERY MUCH YES on the black box you have. That's a nice piece of kit to explore! The design and engineering of those is incredible.

In around 2004, I flew to Europe and accidentally forgot my headphones at home. The headphone jacks on the plane were a proprietary size, as were the free headphones, so I was stuck with the onboard audio. The vomitus emotion I feel to this day when I hear “Soak Up The Sun” or “Message in a Bottle” can confirm to you: it really was just the one program on repeat. 😢

I flew a 747 from Nashville to Honolulu in 1994. The “headphones” didn’t have speakers but still had the older tubes that plugged into holes in the armrest, like a toy stethoscope. There were a handful of ‘stations’ to choose from that had promotional breaks between the songs as if you were listening to a radio station (that needed promotion). The tape would loop in about 50 minutes which was bad for me because I was going out of my skull with boredom & restlessness & nicotine withdrawal. I don’t remember there being a movie on that flight but I slept through “Pelican Brief” on the way home.

I’ve lived in Rochdale all my 30 years and I never knew there was a travel company based at Sandbrook Park - the building they were in is now the HQ for Zen Internet - great video again Mat, tech and Rochdale history I’m all in 👍

When it comes to a certified aircraft you have to use a certified device which basically increases however much you think it costs by a factor of 10. In addition with few exceptions you will be stuck with that solution for the operational life of that aircraft, they tend to avoid updates because it requires an STC which basically means megabucks $$$$.

Does anybody remember pneumatic headphones on planes? (Music piped through air hoses) that pre-dates this machine by a couple decades

That certainly solves the mystery of the repeating Radio Disney playlist I vaguely remember being one of my options on a flight when I was younger. I never suspected a cassette player!

This reminds me of those two bloody mono jacks that some planes have, and the airline will fleece you for their double mono to single stereo adapter... 😡

As an AV Geek (the aviation kind) I have fond memories of traveling on planes and experiencing the innovation in the IFE space. 2006 was an era where first generation AVOD IFE systems were reaching market saturation - at least on long haul wide body planes. The transition to AVOD resulted in the use of digital storage media for both audio and video, which would have enabled the transition out of these audio tapes for the audio "radio" channels. And even then, these AVOD systems were so unreliable that old channel system with banks of tapes was kept as a backup.

I can't even begin to describe how happy I get when a new Techmoan video comes out.

We travelled on MyTravel 4 times (2 seperate trips) in 2006 so may have heard of one these tapes when travelling from Birmingham to Spain. I think I still have the MyTravel earphones somewhere!

The last time I recall using the in flight 'radio' was on a long haul flight from London to Toronto. I remember choosing the 'alternative' station and hearing Champagne Supernova by Oasis and 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins 6 times during the flight - which tracks with 90 minutes of audio available on any given station. I also remember that the channel selector went from 1 to 12 but having 2 empty stations.

Holy smokes, that MyTravel advert has to be one of the most unintentionally relevant clips 😂 Good on you for finding that 👏

I love Saturday mornings. The other half goes to work and I get a brand new Techmoan video to kick my day off with. Bliss.

16:01 You'd be surprised how many used cars in the U.S.A. STILL have cassette players in them (and the fact that cassette system adaptors for that purpose can be purchased in dollar stores!)

Airplanes are notorious for sticking around with systems just because it is cheaper to go with something that works. In-flight movies were played off Hi8 tapes and you'd have to wait for them to rewind when they ended. They definitely were still using them in 2010 and 2011, when I did long-haul flights on BA and United - hell, when I went to Chicago in 2016, my United flight was still using this system, even though many others had upgraded to a digital on-demand system.

I worked for a rival to In-flight Dublin here in Suffolk CALEX Skyline-ife. I started in 1998 and we were still occasionally making tapes for this system when I left in 2013. I can tell you unpacking the tapes and getting them ready for the duplication machines was a pain … all commercial wrapped cassettes TDK 120 FE used a lot… I’ll try and dig out some photos of the set up.

Fantastic, Mat, and yes, I’m astonished to learn that some inflight entertainment came from basic C-90s. It all seems so primitive now. I remember one time listening to an audio documentary about the Beach Boys on a flight from Singapore to Sydney - I think it was 2002 - and eventually hearing the whole thing, but not in the right order, in various grabs between sleeps. It would never have occurred to me that it was almost certainly a tape playing the program. If I’d given it any thought at all I would have assumed it was a CD. And now, of course, it’s all digital files, so you don’t have to wait for the recording to start over again. Fascinating. Long may you find such obscurities to make Saturday evenings better.

My very first flight was on a MyTravel Airbus A330, around 2001, this brought back some memories :) I remember the armrest control panel very clearly!

The 3rd PCB you found in there is the solenoid control logic for play and rewind. 👍

Aviation with it's super heavy security constraints, long plane lifespan and short margins is surprisingly full of older tech. The black boxes them self are archaic even the new digital ones, good luck opening yours.

I seem to recall on most planes there would be a 12 channel system. Channels 1 & 2 were generally video, which as Techmoan covered off several years ago would likely be played off a Video8 tape, although VHS was occasionally used. I assume there'd be two languages, both in mono. Channels 3-12 would then be used for "radio" stations. Virgin's oldest B747-200's (the ones with the absolutely miniscule seatback video screens) had a hybrid and you had to physically move your headphones between the seat back video for TV and the armrest for radio. These were definitely from tape. Newer aircraft apparently used CD. Obviously now the idea of inflight radio is completely dead, at least in Europe. Shorthaul they don't bother, and longhaul there's effectively an internal music streaming service as part of the seatback touch screen. From what I can see, nowadays your inflight entertainment system is basically a heavily locked-down Android tablet!

14:10 One of my favourite reasons to watch your videos is your snarkiness against the trolls on RU-vid. You're fecking lovely, Matt.

I met my missus in Spain in 2001 when she worked as a rep for Airtours. She stayed with the company through their transitions to My Travel and finally, Thomas Cook. My Travel also sold flights through My Travel Lite, where you could book flights for just a few quid. We even got a flight once from Birmingham to Málaga for 1 pence !!

Aviation tech changes slowly. When BA’s 747s were retired in 2020, some of them still used 3.5” floppy disks to load the flight plans! 😂

Aviation technology tends to lag state of the art a bit because of the cost and complexity of getting a new piece of electronic equipment certified for use in an aircraft, for which it has to meet very stringent safety standards.

To me, the whole concept of having in-flight entertainment on short to medium haul routes back in 2006 sounds so odd to me. Being from Germany, I grew up mostly flying Lufthansa or German holiday airlines like the now defunct Aero Lloyd. They simply did not have any kind of in-flight entertainment except for the magazine in the seat pocket. (And I'm not sure if Lufthansa has in-flight entertainment on their Europe routes now, haven't flown with them in ages) In-flight entertainment was something I always associated with long-haul flights back in the day, like my first transatlantic trip in 1993 in a brand new A340, still with the good old three-CRT projector. I don't recall ever being on any short or medium haul aircraft that had in-flight entertainment, which wasn't either the now so much liked "stream to your mobile device, but you can't charge it here, lmao" option or the on-demand audio and video touch screen variety. But of course you wouldn't usually find that on an A320 in 2006.

I need one of these to just play tapes through the day. Kinda like having my own easy listening radio station playing in the background.

When I was a kid in the late 90s (or a teen in the early 2000s) my Dad was in the Air Force and he (and too be fair our whole family) was stationed in Italy and we flew from the US to The Azores and then on to Italy. On either the trip going or coming home I listened to the in-flight radio. I remember one "channel" played children's story. I distinctly remember it was The Story of Lazy Jack. I've wished I could find it, but those tapes are probably long gone. Good to see how it was all done.

I had a dbx-equipped cassette deck back in the late '80s. With a good audio source (like from a CD), the audio quality was exceptional, even on cheap type-I tapes. Recorded onto a FeCr (type III) tape, the audio was indistinguishable from CD... but buying the CD was about the same price.

I do remember there being in the early 2000s a similar system used on the tilting voyager trains operated by Virgin, where you could plug headphones into the arm rest and listen to about 3 or 4 stereo programmes whilst on the train (not all of the channels would be operational though, depending on content, copyright, etc I suspect.) - not sure if they used the same or were using a different format.

That is quite a fascinating system. I remember one flight I was on, back in the days where the headphones were air rather than wires (and you were supposed to pay for the tube to connect the headset to the armrest, but you COULD just hold your side up to the holes and hear them anyway) where one of the selections was the audio for the James Burke Connections series. Well, at leat the first episode, anyway.

I bought a DBX decoder, after seeing your video on dbx. I find most of the LPs sound like Compact Discs. (Except for the weird one or two, that were direct to vinyl mastered, which was at first a bit confusing😅) Totally acceptable to buy used DBX LP purchases, sight unseen.

Back in the 1990s I remember transatlantic trips on Continental. In addition to the "electronic" audio that could be listened to via standard headphones and channels and volume altered, there was also the option of piped audio where you basically plugged a stethoscope into the arm rest and listened to whatever echoed down the hollow tubes. Of course, with the "electronic" audio, there was also a channel linked to when the projector screen lowered down at the bulkhead and the RGB projector lit up and played a movie. And of course, also a feature in the armrests back then were ashtrays.

I remember travelling on a Wardair flight in 1989 and a couple of "tracks" sounded very Wow and Fluttery and I told the attendant. She let me know they were all controlled by a cassette tape system. Glad I finally got to see it!

been trying to get hold of one of these type of things i got hold of some displays from some video systems airlines used to use but they are always crazy prices (and most the ebay sellers are aviation upsellers instead of people with actual interest at some point ) so thanks for making this video

I fly the A320 these days. That aircraft has been around since the early 80's, so there are many, many revisions of it that came with different equipment, including cockpit and cabin equipment. I've no doubt that this system was used well into the 00's and perhaps even still today on certain airlines. My airline has a few 320's that still have CRT's for the cockpit avionics, and while I doubt they have this system in the cabin (my airline always publicized its cutting-edge IFE, even in the early 00's), I don't really know and I wouldn't doubt that others do. btw you are pronouncing Matsushita correctly :) I know whenever I pronounce a Japanese name the way the Japanese or even American company pronounces it, I get people from other countries telling me I'm pronouncing it "wrong". But Matsushita is definitely pronounced the way you're saying it. There is no overseas version of Matsushita for people to even get in a twist about.

Greetings from “across the pond” and an aviation enthusiast. I’m really surprised that tapes were used for this long. The only micro-cassette I have is my Grandfather’s final broadcast on KFAC on July 29, 1983

Perfect Saturday morning video, thanks Techmoan!

I remember there were about 10 channels, the first one being the movie being played, and the other 9 being the music that at the time I thought was the radio. I never really gave it any thought that it couldn't be the radio because an airplane is moving too fast to connect to a radio station for too long, plus when flying over the ocean there wouldn't be any broadcast.

In aircraft you won't find the latest tech in most cases. This is not a segment where you tend to experiment how newer technology would work with on a daily base. They more hang on older tech, because it works. This is always a good advice if you favor reliability over "simply new and hip".

Makes me think this deserves one of those frivolous class action suits: "Did you pay for inflight music between 1999 and 2006 and expected you were listening to high-quality digital music? You might be eligible to receive restitution...." 😅

Thanks Mat, great video. I remember in the 80s the headphones were hollow; just basic tubes. They would acoustically amplify the faint sounds that were coming out of the socket in the armrest.

2B or not 2B, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to to suffer the slings and arrows of analogue in-flight entertainment or to go digital 😯

Well that takes me back... I have a very clear memory indeed of sitting in a delayed BA aircraft in a rainy Heathrow at night waiting for it to take off so I could see my wife (then girlfriend) on the other side of the world after a wait of six months or so. Cycling through the stations I discovered Scissor Sisters for the first time - their unique cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb really left an impression and I would later introduce a Pink Floyd fan I knew to the Scissor Sisters because of it. This would have been about 2002/2003 so doubtless the same kind of system...

I wonder if they ever did an in-place upgrade... Take out all the cassette gubbins, install a small low power PC with multi-channel audio, and interface it to existing systems. An 8Gb SD card could hold much more audio at a relatively higher quality... It would just need the supporting components to interface with the other avionics. Would've been an interesting stopgap, although most flyers would likely have their own portable entertainment by this time as Mat said

I remember listening to the in-flight audio some years ago here in the States while they were still offering a very similar program style on United, Alaska, and other airlines. I think 10-12 channels sounds about right. I recall there was always a classical music option. I would usually switch between that or the pilot-tower audio channel - which was probably channel 11. Some of the recorded programs did sound monaural and hearing the bits you played brought back memories because it had a distinctive tonal quality - probably the dbx processing. So this was likely standard equipment on most planes of that era. Very interesting. Finally got to see what I was listening to. Thank you sir!

Love the insider video at 8:11 "shortly before everything went to heck 😂

The video channels and audio channels (1 - 12) would typically be multiplexed using Delta Modulation to save wiring and weight and decoded at the seat electronics units, and armrest channel selector / volume controls for the specific channel desired. The same multiplex network could be used to control the overhead reading light and attendant call lights on airplanes like B747, B767 and L1011 which would be too high to reach from the seat, so their buttons would be incorporated into the armrest audio selector. The Delta Modulation resulted is fairly poor audio quality, but there were often one or two channels (5 and 6 if I recall) which would be in stereo, typically for classical and jazz.

I do remember flying with MyTravel, working in in IT I'd also visited 'Holiday House' in Rochdale quite a few times - I believe Zen Internet are there now. I always wondered who listened to the inflight radio stations. The only flight I can remember with MYT was an old DC10 - an aircraft with 3 engines and I think been used as a standby aircraft.

Thanks, enjoyed it a lot! A beautifully built device, which only proves that even a non-critical aviation electronics device or system is built and held up to higher standards.

I'm remembering those days back in the 80's where you have a little knob on the harmrest to choose music, and those ear plugs with unusual connectors that you can't use in your walkman. And when there is flight annoucement, the music stop playing on every channel. Also, there was films on screen.

I can remember being on a mytravel a320 with exactly the same audio come though the headphones... I believe channel 1 was for whatever was showing on the main screens, channel 2 was radio (if memory serves, not always the best reception), the rest of the channels were different audio about 12 channels in total... The headphones were the clip over ear type with the two prong 3.5 jack plug... Any PA announcements paused the audio feed. I also believe the audio from the tapes could be passed through the aircrafts PA system (during boarding etc) Sometimes you could hear the local radio coming through the pa when boarding

This is neat to see. A company named Lanier made a few large room 4 channel recorders that recorded onto cassettes. (Ex. LCR-5)

In very late 1996 I flew from South Africa to France then to the U.S.. Long flights. Audio worked exactly as presented here. I wondered what I was plugged into. The loops suggested cassette but I thought it would be more sophisticated as well. Units were near new when I used them.

Wowowow, wtf was that tidbit of My Travel video in there? Looked like absolute bedlam.

That's a really cool piece of equipment. If I can read the big chip correctly, it looks like a D8748 or D8749, which seems to be a really early microcontroller with embedded memory and storage. This piece of equipment being manufactured at 1994 makes sense too, with the datasheet I found for that controller being dated back in 1992, which I think makes sense for that kind of electronics. So when this was manufactured, it has to be a quite new design, and not a design from like 80s. At least it has been significantly reworked lately.

Great vid ! During the early to mid 2000's I was mostly listening to my Sony Discman for in-flight entertainment yet of course I've sampled the on board music library as well. I've gone fully solid state digital on flights and everywhere else by 2008 so the trusty discman was replaced by MP3 players, cell phones and well, back to the the infotainment as it is today. So, full circle.

I did a lot of listening on long flights in the 1970s and 1980s and they did indeed repeat after an hour. I also noticed edit points which often seemed less then ideal.

Haha! Wow! This brings back so much nostalgia from flights with my family back in the day. I can't guarantee it was exactly the same system, but it sounds like it. I remember stepping through the channels, till I found one I liked. Then when that looped round to where it started, I'd check out one of the others. As a blind person, it was such an easy system to navigate. Volume up and down, channel back or forward. Although the system is long gone now, I'm sure I've been on a plane fairly recently, in the last five years or so, where the buttons and headphone sockets were still in the arm of the seat. Nothing being transmitted to them, but the interface was still there. I was a bit sad when I plugged my headphones in and realised there was nothing being transmitted, but feeling that old familiar interface under my fingers made me smile. Thanks for the video as always. :)

I was more surprised the DBX system was used in the machines. I thought they went the way of the dodo by the mid to late 80's since CBS records dropped them. I did research after watching this to hear it went towards more professional. I guess the cost for the Dolby license was a tad to high in the sky for them to use it.

Very interesting story indeed Mat! I briefly encountered the tail end of these kinds of infotainment systems in flights when I was just a young boy, and thinking back about it when I got older I always assumed everything was already digital. You proved me wrong with the Hi8 tapes from your Sony Compo video and now with this C90 system. For many people these kinds of things are not interesting, but for the curious among us there are many stories to tell! Don't ever stop!

I definitely used an in-flight entertainment system with the channel and volume buttons only in around 2010. I don't remember it having the best stuff, but I probably was using the provided, extremely cheap, earbuds

In America in the mid-2000s i remember one flight i was on seemed to have a similar system. I mean I have no idea if it was tape-based, but it sure looked a lot like 13:33 and had a similar thing where you could pick from a few different constantly playing "stations" so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a similar kind of system. Back then I certainly never thought I would've been listening to tape cassettes at that time.

Rhinoceroce must have been in a "dance" channel. They were (perhaps still are) a French house (?) band, in the 90s and early 00s (and, maybe beyond). They combined the usual electro gear with two electric guitars, bass, and occasional bongos and flute. They were amazing live.

Thanks. Matsushita is the National/Panasonic/Sanyo group.

MTS TV audio also used dbx "companding". The last consumer version, dbx II, worked quite well but you had to record it properly or the output was miserable. Analogous to clipping digital audio, you had to avoid saturating the tape or the distortion was what was "expanded". The proof of the method was in dbx LPs, where the listener had nothing to do with the recording. Playing back one of those LPs through a decoder was mind blowing. You heard the stylus land then absolutely NOTHING until the music started.

I remember so vividly plugging into this arm rest audio with multiple “channels” like this. I even recall some channels working better because they weren’t in stereo. One of the tracks had like, deep house on it, no lyrics, playing for a solid hour. It would have been a USA domestic airline.

I wonder how often these were actually used by passengers given that by 1995 both portable tape players and portable CD players were extremely common and by the mid 2000's, mp3 players would have been very common as well. I recall audio being on planes, but I don't recall ever using it past the early 80's as I would have had my own device with an assortment of tapes.

Device looks like it was meant to be on a sled in the aircraft. Depending on where it was placed a cabin attendant may have even changed the A tapes while the b tapes were playing if it was on a longer flight. This would prevent the passengers from hearing the same stuff over an over. The connecting cable may have been on a bungee and be able to extend and retract with the unit, and be easilty replaced if it broke.

5:33 is “Video Killed The Radio Star” by the Buggles, and it was the very first music video to be aired on MTV since it was launched on August 1st, 1981.

I heard one of these around 2004 and probably 2010 as well. Remember seeing the odd channel selector and the very low quality audio coming out, with the typical worn tape volume fluctiations. Cant' remember which airlines, but one of them might have been Lufthansa. The early digital IFEC were an even worse experience.

This video reminded me of when my family were on a Qantas domestic flight to Brisbane for a Gold Coast holiday in 2010. They used an old aircraft from the 1990s or so (that would've since been retired) so the in-flight entertainment system didn't have individual LCDs, instead having RGB projectors and (if I recall correctly) CRT displays at the front of each section of the passenger cabin, and the channels the passenger could switch between were one for the audio feed for the screens and the rest for audio-only channels. I flipped between the audio channels and found one that just had someone with a clear voice reading something. Little did I know at the time that it was the first time I had ever listened to an audiobook. (14:42) I believe the audio on that flight would've been played by a tape player just like that, though at the time, I probably thought they were being played off of CDs.

Very interesting. I remember my first time on a flight was Air Canada, back around 1978 or 1979. The headphones were some sort of acoustic device, not wires. And the audio qualiy sounded good to my young ears. I wonder if it was a cassette system back then. I doubt it, I wonder what it was. Thanks again as always.

5:57 Portishead is pretty hip for an airplaine soundtrack. sick as

There are a lot of OLD planes that are still used, especially by smaller carriers. Commercial planes are incredibly expensive, so it makes way more sense to keep old planes going as long as possible. Not unusual for planes that are 20-30 years old to still be used, so it’s not surprising that some were using compact cassettes for audio well into the 2000s. I just recently flew on a 757 with Delta, and the 757 was discontinued in 2004, so that plane was at *least* 19 years old (it looked older than that).

I remember flying on a MyTravel A320 end of Feb 2006, probably listened to copies of these exact tapes. I do recall on some flights, the "radio" programme would end, then be silent for ages then come back again, on some channels. Maybe one side's deck was broken or had no tape in, in that instance. 🤔

I just bought a record player from the Library of Congress for physical and mentally disabled persons that has large controls and brail. I did some research and I found out they were produced alongside the crank cassette player you featured in one of your last videos and they mainly were used to play religious books and played at a slower speed than normal record players.

I remember wondering why, in the era of mp3s, the music on flights looped after an unreasonably short time and sounded like garbage, like tape that was stretched. Now I know.

I may well have been on one of the flights that these were used on... and probably wouldn't have been terribly surprised to learn it's all analog! I still remember there being the noise bands of a paused VCR on the movie during important announcements, and of course that you had to join an in-progress movie was quite the giveaway!

Funny how initially this looks like older technology but it's actually a newer device. I expected this to be from the 70's.

I remember flying as a kid in the 90s and they still had these in planes and I usually had a CD player so if it ran out of batteries I just plug in my headphones and listen to whatever they provided

Every time I see something like this I am further convinced that machines were created with more ingenuity in the 90’s than they are nowadays. As someone who’s never looked into the history of cassettes my mind was blown when you revealed the 4 sided pickup.

10:04 You may have accidentally discovered a new art form. Who knew Jack and the Beanstalk to a backing track of The Cars would sound so good? 🤣

As soon as I saw the arrangement of the tapes I thought this might've been for some form of passenger entertainment system...But when you showed the audio channel selector at 13:37 I suddenly had a flashback to the near *identical* ones that were used on Virgin _Pendolino_ and _Voyager_ Trains from 2002 through to when the franchise went to Avanti at the end of 2019. A nice wrap-around for a concept which originated on the JR _Shinkansen!_ 🚄🎶😀 When it was in use the Virgin system offered nine channels of audio on _Pendolino_ trains (Five on _Voyagers_ ) and most of the content on these was compiled by Virgin Radio, with the exception of the news channel which was compiled by the BBC News service. The channels were updated frequently, and a system based around compact cassettes would've been much more appropriate for this at a time before CD-RWs existed, digital audio systems were _prohibitively_ expensive, and CD-Rs were costing at least £4,- a pop. 🚄💿💸 It was often said Richard Branson wanted Virgin Trains to give a very _airline-like_ experience, and so the use of aviation oriented equipment to provide an aircraft-like feature seems on brand for VT as it was back in those days. 😇 I'm going to ask a few folk in the industry if these were used on Virgin Trains as well, and I'll update this comment if I find out anything! 🎧🎶😇

I'm pretty sure that many commercial airplanes still use 3.5" floppies to load software! Probably too expensive to change.

There was a similar system on Swedish trains. But it used 3 normal car stereos with RDS picking up three set channels and changing frequency automatically by RDS as the train moved along thru the country.

I remember using those in seat switches on Airtours planes, although often the seat had the double mono Jack and socket combo so you either had to use the crappy free airline headphones or go without. Now I wonder if that's why the tapes are mostly mono; did they play the same mono signal to each "channel" so that it sounded stereo to the casual user?

Fascinating piece of equipment, well done getting audio from the tapes!

Love that the humble cassette had so many uses. I worked in a travel agents back in the 90s. Remember Airtours well. Thomas Cook exist as a Web only company these days

I remember a very similar system, perhaps even the same units, being present on the first generation I.C.E. trains in germany in the early 2000s. Perhaps there are still a few out there that have in-cabin entertainment on the armrest.

+1 for the flight recorder video.