I have no direct experience with these, but I definitely remember them being sold by Radio Shack. Then they disappeared so thoroughly that I wondered if I’d imagined it. Thanks for letting me know that I wasn’t hallucinating.
I had one of these in 1967. It provided an alternative to the AM radio in my car. Then I moved on to 4-tracks, 8-tracks and cassettes because they were easily wired into the car.
As a Christmas present in 1968 I got a playtape model 1310, which was very similar to the model 1200 in this video, and my older sister got the 1320 which was larger and had a larger speaker. We had a few 4-song cartridges, and because I sent in the warranty registration card I used to get record club-like offers for cartridges in the mail, but my allowance wouldn't cover the cost. It's just as well, because by 1970 the cartridges and players were essentially obsolete.
These were sold for a couple of years by Sears. They were mostly mono and not really that noisy when new although probably had limited high end. There was no dolby for tapes yet. The Beatles producer George Martin claimed these would replace the 45, lol. 8 tracks and cassettes killed this quickly with longer playing times and stereo. Before they died, there were a few stereo home decks with external speakers. I don't think many stereo tapes were ever released.
Unfortunately the PlayTape format didn't last long enough for any stereo tapes to actually be released. There were also several miniature (about 3 inch) vinyl record formats competing for the youth music market in the late '60s, none of which were successful.
Haha, when I saw the title I was just about to comment on treading on VWestlife and Techmoan's tails. And here you are sub 300 views! Glad everyone gets along!
I was curious about the stereo carts, I couldn't find any. That explains it! I thought it was interesting they used staggered heads instead of a single 2 track head on the machine.
@Hugh_Hunt, yes here I am with few views, but it gives me justification to go out and play around with formats and equipment I didn't have the chance to in the past and to give my perspective on it. There are much larger channels doing videos about the same thing with any subject you can think of, and that's fine. I'm happy to just have fun and get my hands on the stuff myself.
Wow, I've never heard of this format. A new discovery to look for at rummage sales. The PT1200 reminds me of the home intercom blocks you see in older homes today that never got any updates since the 70s.
In Germany was the Tefifon phono tape with cartridges that runs up to 4 hours non stop. Not supported by the major labels, so only unknown artists could do cover versions. It died in the early 1960's. While introducing the Philips compact cassette, Grundig tried competing with DC international and pushed accidentally the compact cassette instead. Also an American company tried an incompatible compact cassette, they offered the machine inexpensive and wanted to sell the own tapes and people feel betrayed and ignored this format.
The American company was Sears. Their tapes were almost identical to the Compact Cassette, just different enough to make them incompatible. The Tefifon is intriguing. The idea of a phono tape is ingenious really. From what I've been able to hear of them on RU-vid, the sound quality was quite good.
My buddy down the street had one of these 1200's, but I got mine a little later and it was the fancier "Hipster" model which looked more like a larger conventional transistor radio of the time. It was in a black leatherette case with a soft carrying handle. It only had the "Channel 1 or 2" selector, no stereo. It sounded good. I had a few of the Playtape cartridges. I remember the Beatles "Magical Mystery Tour" and a Beach Boys. I got tired of listening to the same 4 songs over and over. Those cartridges cost more than a 45 rpm single and I was more interested in 45's then. A stereo Playtape cartridge may have been a future product which never materialized, but I never saw one. I don't remember a player with more than one speaker. I do remember the optional Playtape deck for VW, but I never saw one of those either. For cars, the 8-tracks were already popular by then and 4-tracks were still around. Cassettes kind of took over the car, home and portable markets from the early-70's.
I had one of these as a kid. I don’t remember what the player looked like, but the one here isn’t bringing back any memories. The only tape I remember having was also a Peter, Paul & Mary one, but not the one seen here. I just remember it had “I Dig Rock & Roll Music” on it. I must have had a Beatles one too, since they were always big in our house. Along with the other formats providing more, the name probably didn’t help boost sales. It sounds a bit too much like it’s a kids product, like a Fisher-Price “my first tape player” kind of thing. I guess that’s why I received one as a child.
. I was an electronic service tech in the 1970's-80's. I serviced a lot of different tape players including answering machines...but never saw one of those.
this was the first format i ever had. Christmas 1968. the tapes i got were stever miller band's children of the future, and Arlo Guthrie's album with the motorcyclev sing on it. i preferred the hot wheels.
I had one of these back in the day as a kid, late 60's maybe? Think my father got it on the cheap for me as they were being phased out. I'm pretty sure I still have it in the original box some where tucked away in the basement but you know how it is, no time to look for it.
Many have made mention of them mostly being mono. I think that ext speaker output would actually be the right channel in stereo. It was still the world of AM radio. Few kidshad stereos. But Play Tape was released at a bad time. They year before the FCC ruled that broadcasters could no longer simulcast their AM programing on FM and had to program them separately. This spurned the dawn of progressive and album oriented rock radio. Suddenly then everyone had to have stereo.
Yes as a teen I did have one of these. Not sure I'd called it successful though. Many record companies provided material but only a small selection of their catalogs. Dolby came along like the next year making cassettes quality much better and they rapidly replaced both this format and 8 Tracks. By the way an error... 8 Tracks had been out a few years when these came along. (64 and this was 67) My player looked a bit different than that one and as I recall a sort of mustard beige. No idea whatever happened to it. I don't think I ever had more than a few tapes, before switching to recordable cassettes.
I had one of these that my Dad bought me when I was about 7 or 8. I only had 2 tapes which were white. Eric Burden and the animals, and 1910 fruitgum company. I recall not being able to find additional tapes.
Was ANY restoration done on this device? Recapping? Belt(s)? Head alignment? Because almost every demonstration I have heard on RU-vid has had NO restoration at all, which means ANY demonstrated sound output is irrelevant. Nice video demonstration tho.
I haven't seen a recorder. The cartridges were used in the Smith Corona Mail Call. There's a link in the video description to Techmoan's video about that format. It was a recorder.
No They didn't even make recording 8 Track decks until the very late 60s or maybe 70 when cassettes seriously started impacting the market. I knew one person that had one. Actually preferable to the pre recorded as no fade out/in just a quick buzz/clunk at the track change
I have one playtape machine and a bunch of beatles tapes. Funny they always got the song names wrong! They printed Eleanor Rigby as all the lonely people lol
the stereo you can put it on makes no sense i thought it was going to mean it would come out in stereo but that's not the case from how it sounded so then what is the stereo setting for
It's a two track tape, and on the cartridge shown, it is one mono program per track. There were plans for stereo carts using both channels, one for L and one for R. So if you set it to stereo on a mono cartridge, it plays both tracks at once.
