Voice Mail - 1967 Style: The Smith-Corona Mail Call 

My grandma had one from my father when he was in Vietnam he says it was better then writing because he could hear grandmas voice it brought him comfort

My Dad made the Lancashire evening post by ringing my Grandad in Seattle in 67, "Preston man makes transatlantic telephone call".

At first i thought thr idea was rubish, but when i read the comments that it was marketed at the military. I changed my mind, it must have been very comforting and raised moral for a soldier in the Vietnam war to hear his loved ones voice rather than a letter.

When you mentioned the price differential ($5.50 vs $0.10) my immediate thought was "it's gonna be some absurd gizmo that plays a recorded voice message at 50x speed over the phone line where a second device receives it and slows it down for listening". Just snail-mailing tapes back and forth seems disappointingly sane by comparison.

All of these old tape formats are simply fascinating. These companies put tremendous amounts of effort and R&D into these things for some of them to just be dead on arrival. Thanks once again for the quality content!

5:20 Looks like James May 20 years ago.

I still have tapes from the early 1970's that contain the voices of my grand parents. It's nice to hear their voices again.

Spot on, those colours were pure 2001 aesthetic. The future never looks like the future when it arrives!

Can't believe this was recommend because of corona in the title xp

Corona Voicemail...will i get a virus listening?

My dad and I sent compact cassettes to and from each other when I was stationed in Korea. It was nice hearing each other's voice as well as the family and the children.

Reading that title in 2020 really is weird.

A Techmoan I haven't watched yet? No idea why this came up in my feed! Wash your hands everybody!

The "Mail call" was marketed to military, and that's how I got my pair. A neighbor was in Vietnam and he and his wife were sending these tapes back and forth using the military postal system. I was given a pair of these with a box of tapes I was told to erase (as there were still recordings on them). Some of the tapes were relabeled playtape cartridges, so I figure this was a way to take advantage of an unsuccessful format to use existing parts stock.

Techmoan: Every day I look to see if you have made a new video. The things you talk about just fascinate me. I just waned to thank you for what you do. You are my favorite channel. Don't stop. Thanks again for what you do.

Reminds me of the armrest controls on Picard's centre seat on the Enterprise-D... :P

I binge watched nearly all of your videos! My favourite is the RCA CED videodisc. A vinyl with moving pictures, you say..? Smashing! :)

Analog heaven! And I'm so glad you mentioned 2001 Space Odyssey. You snatched the words from my mouth. I used to have a Major Matt Mason set, and his spacesuit was exactly the same colour. Well done.

Anyone else notice that the previously perfect PlayTape player grille now has a conspicuous dent in it, like every shiny speaker grille gets from mysterious dent fairies?

Did the video get corrupted? The sound and video slowly completely desynchronize from each other

“Hello Corona? It’s Agent Smith. It’s time.” - The Smith-Corona call, December 2019.

Smith corona .....unfortunate last name these days

A similar thing is still seen today - mailing USB drives for people with poor internet, for some "linux ISOs" ;-)

The only phone that spreads the coronavirus

Audio was out of sync with the picture on this video, Mat. Otherwise my first thought was that I used to to what we called Tapesponds on cassette, with Talking and music on them Between my friend Paul and Myself. We kept this going for about Fifteen years, with maybe two tapes each per month. This was quite ridiculous really, because we only lived about a quarter of a mile apart, and we used tyo hand the tapes to each other personally, but it was fun and we must have enjoyed it enough to keep it going for Fifteen years didn't we? Mad, eh?

I think the REAL reason it failed is the cartridges were too heavy to be carried by carrier pigeon.

Yeah, looks totally like a 1960's sci-fi gadget

They also remind me of the props in The Prisoner - I can just see Patrick McGoohan growling into one!

Why does the name "Smith-Corona" hit differently this year?!

Just want to say tis is one of those channels that just has nice quality content Love it

Looks like a prop from the original Star Trek

Two techmoan videos in one day.....is it Christmas? Haha

Repackaging old tech in a sleek package? Like Apple! At least this had a headphone jack.

I started watching your channel since 808 keychain cameras. Since then you kept simple but meaningful and enjoyable, well done! Thumbs up from me, again!

Where did you dig up the vintage footage of that crazy cat with the groovy threads listening to his granny, man? Loved the styling in popular contemperary media references, Matt. And as always... thank you for the making of the videos.

Anyone else watching that RU-vid subscriber counter in the background steadily climb?

The video is a few mins out of sync for me.. how odd

+Techmoan I would LOVE if you could do a video on the fascinating *Sound-In-Syncs system* devised by the geniusses at the BBC R&D department. That was a system where analog studio radiosound would be digitized, then converted to a regular black-and-white analog television signal which was then send to an FM transmitter, where the digital "disguised-as-analog" signal would be converted back to analog FM sound. This made it possible to avoid the quality-loss of picking up regular FM transmissions and then re-broadcasting them onto another transmitter where each signal overtake would lead to more and more quality loss. Now, the staggering thing about this: the BBC had this pre-DAB digital radio system running... in *1970*! They made their first digital tape recorder and A/D convertors in 1967 and this technology and knowledge also led to the NICAM digital stereo system. There is a lot of information about this on the wonderful BBCeng.info website and BBC R&D has also a lot of their original technical papers available for download. I think those first DAC's from the sixties alone would be worthy of a video, if they still excist today (I know Philips and Denon made them in those days too). Sound-in-Syncs was at the basis of digital broadcasting, formed the basis for NICAM, DAB and MP3 and given the fact that the first digital recording for CD also used ones and zeroes recording as black and white on regular videotape with the aid of a PCM processor it also had a major influence on the CD format! To me it's right up there with color televison, stereo sound, widescreen, high definition and HDR.

This is one of my favorite channels! I have a 3340s myself still in working condition, with the mixer, meter bridge, and remote too.

How in the heck did this thing make it past the planning phase? Even for 1967 it seems like an incredibly weak idea.

Real cost to send that tape in the USA today... $0.88. (.46 first class 1oz+.21 addtl oz + .21 nonmachineable surcharge)

Hey apple this device from half a century ago had a headphone jack!

Was the audio delayed in this video? I refreshed it to find it still was delayed still

Man, I love that design aesthetic from the '60s and '70s! Even useless equipment like this just looked awesome.

60's space age sci fi looking device for sure. Kind of a neat idea. I could see this being useful as a dictation device or for taking voice memo's on the go.

I'm always looking forward to your videos. No matter what the topic, "device". I find them highly entertaining. Thank you for making such fun videos!

This looks like it was left behind from space 1999.

i didnt know you know james may?!!! 5:21

Big, beautiful and utterly pointless. It's the 1960s equivalent of the Juicero.

This is really a "bioshock thing"

I have been watching for videos for years and I just realized that I wasn’t subscribed! I am now ❤️

Has the word "Corona" in the title but its a miracle RU-vid didnt put a COVID-19 tag..... Meanwhile, some unrelated news videos talking about a Filipino chief magistrate who got impeached got the COVID-19 tag.... all because his surname was Corona.

I don’t know what happened, but about 3 or 4 minutes in, the audio is completely out of sync?

Hmm, An extant technology reduced in features and compatibly with other existing devices and costing as much or more, but wrapped in sleek styling. Too Bad Apple wouldn't exist for another decade. Hipsters would have bought millions of 'em! 😛

Typical techmoan making a video with Corona in the title before we knew it was a virus.

Watching the subscription counter tick up in the background gives me hope for the future of RU-vid. Without resorting to the use of cavorting cats, you have deservedly attracted a half million subscribers. To rip off 'Field of Dreams' : If you make an intelligent, engaging video, they will watch and subscribe. Thanks once again for your efforts.

Not all of the letter packs would have the stop-beep feature. They would just go round and and you could make sound-collage things by just randomly recording bits over other bits till you had your own Revolution #9 sort of thing. We had a blast with Mail Call in the early 80s when my uncle gave us his from his business.

I love the advert. Baring this was in 1967 it look's like she was probably talking to some poor kid out in Vietnam or 'son in service' as the ad says.

key takeaway: "Predicting the future is a tricky business" .. you nailed it, man! :-)

Audio is badly out of sync starting just before the four minute mark, and continues throughout the video. Seeing a couple others saying the same thing, but only recently. Did a software update break something odd about how this one is encoded?

I wish there was more through-back 60s designs. I would love to own a desktop computer designed like this.

I wanted to see you pop a music cassette in their. I guess their might be issues with tracks bleeding through or a change in the case that might prevent it.

It's like using a holotape on your brand new pip-boy

Your videos are a real joy. Thanks, man.

When I first heard the description I though you would record your message, hook it into a phone line, place the call and the message would be played over the phone line at a very high speed.

Man, sometimes I wonder how you get all these gadgetries! Things I've never even heard of!

5:28 NEVER has your James "Capt. Slow" May been stronger! That had to be intentional, right?

This is a generation gap device. Even nowadays such devices are made. Think big button cell phones, cheap tablets with special features for hard of seeing or computer illiterate. This Mail Call device was designed so grams and gramps could send and receive audio messages. The reel to reel was a far cry from the phonographs of their youth, and perhaps too daunting a task for their ailing minds and bodies, but Mail Call was simple push of a button technology that they could easily be instructed on how to use. Put the tape in, turn the dial, press the button, and talk. Post to the mail and wait for a response. Put in tape, turn dial to play, press button and listen. Super simple for the technologically impaired.

It looked like it was designed to be very easy to use, but I think it would been more successful had it used regular cassettes. I guess Smith-Corona (or Playtape) thought they could make a bundle selling blank cartridges, just like printer manufacturers today make their big money from selling ink cartridges.

Would you be able to review the General Electric 3-5300A Compact Cassette Recorder

The best way to wake up ❤️ thanks, Techmoan, that was a very nice video

Well what an unfortunate name for a company. Im posting from a few years in the future during the 2020 Coronavirus Lockdown.

sometimes I wish "the future" we are in now was like they thought it would be back in the 50s and 60s, the "flying cars, jetpacks, vacations on the moon" future, hahaha.

For a moment I expect a recording of "I'm speaking to you through the media of Wax"

the corona mail call? if 2020 knew...

The real expense is in mailing the 2nd. phone to the recipient of your call.

Is it just me or does this video go out of sync a couple of minutes in?

I remember my mom making a reel-to-reel tape to send to my grandmother when we lived in Japan in the early '60s.

I am one of the few people that prefer NOT to talk live to people and rather leave a voice message and here is why. I found that when I talk to people often what will happen is I will say call them on the phone to tell them about something but they will jump off topic and start to tell me about something else. I will then completely forget what I was talking about.. Well say about two weeks later or so that person will call me back to say hey I just found out blahh blahh and they tell me you knew about this… Why didn’t you tell me about it. I will then say ohhh that’s right I DID call you to tell you about it.. But you interrupted me and I forgot all about it.. But when I can leave a message.. I say what I want to say on point on target and say everything I need to say.. Also when I talk live to people sometimes I only need to say one thing but end up talking for an hour when I only needed 2 min of conversation.. But I guess that’s just me..

The design is awesome 😍

When my grandparents were stationed overseas in England and Germany in the 50s and 60s, my grandmother would send audio recordings back to her parents on reels.

I'd love to use one of these, even today. Great review! Keep it up Techmoan, I love your videos

Wow, never saw these before - they're kind of useless but look very cool. Would love to see if you could get your hands on an Bell video phone (Picturephone), not sure if there is a way to rig them up to work or not, but that is some awesome future tech for the time.

I use the mail call letter pack to communicate with everyone I know. I even sold my iPhone stock and gold investments and purchased 1000 shares in this product.

Can you do a review on a Weltron space-age products?

It may have been intended for sending messages to servicemen who were not able to easily receive telephone calls, or not at all, hence the name and the army looking guy in the ad. Military mail could go virtually anywhere servicemen were stationed

My father saw 2001 three times when it was in theaters and he saw Jimi Hendrix live three times... Another cool thing that looks straight out of 2001 is the Pulsar P-2 LED watch

I actually vividly remember my dad and his Sony DC-5 out at any family occasion. With us camping, any time we went anywhere, any time the family got together. He'd record 90 minute cassettes and then every six months or so he'd send a box of them to our relatives in Germany and we'd get a box back around the same time from them. He did this all the way into the 2000s because it was the format all the older folks were used to. Still got all the tapes - they're in my fireproof safe as some of my most treasured possessions nowadays.

I love your outro. I always sit through the whole thing. The combination of the song and clips in the background makes me feel nostalgic for old tech. Great video as always

SO recording on a cheap cassette tape📼 be cheaper 📼 🎤💬👉😲everyone soon bought a tape player well in the 70s we had one anyway as kid didnt know anyone existed out side my home town bar a few Relo's from a distant state 📼

HOW the smegging hell do you always find all this old tech in near mint condition?!?

There was also small cheap portable tape recorders for 3" reel tapes before that came out. And when cassettes were introduced there where small portable tape recorders for cassettes. Kind of amazing they sold any at all, with so many disadvantages & (Except for aesthetics.) no advantages.

I found one of these in my parents junk drawer. They must have gotten it when I was about 4 years old. I don’t remember them ever using it and I didn’t find any tapes. P.S. My dad was not involved with the military but he was a bit of a gadget nut.

Suitable name for 2020!

Looks like something Q would have invented for 007

About delayed communication and talking to someone in real time, are you sure it's something people don't like? Have you noticed how teenagers exchange recorded messages in whatsapp rather than actually phoning each other?

WOW I love the look of that device! It looks straight out of the brady bunch or I dream of Genie!

Another important thing people didn't move around like they do today only time people went out of state was for vacation... In the seventies/eighties I had one friend that moved away out of state Absolutely no use for this machine

heh..Corona

People used to record messages on blank phonograph disks. A friend of mine had a huge stack of them which contained conversations between his father and grandfather. I converted them all to MP3 for him and it was quite a labor intensive process because of the condition they were in. I still come across used recoding disks at antique stores and flea markets.