SPECIAL FEATURES:
8 technology revolutions that are now relics: Ditto machine
8 technology revolutions that are now relics
photo 9 of 10
Photo:
firexbrat/Flickr
Sign in with one of these accounts to add your comment.
Wolf Helser
Apr 12 2011 at 3:30 PM
Let me first say, I'm not an audiophile. I'm more of a bibliophile as the home is over run in bookcases. But I grew up listening to records, tapes, then later CDs and now purely digital. It was a interesting read about the Steve jobs discussion on the iPod and makes a lot of sense to me. I have been listening to CD's and digital for many years now and I have to say when I put on the first record on my player in years the only thing that stood out was the pop,crackle and hiss.Although I find it bringing
.... More
back old memories I do think that's where a lot of the debate comes from. From what I have heard a audiophile can hear the depth and richness of a old school recording while the rest of us only hear the pops and crackles with the recording. Of course that could also be true because of cheap speakers and headphones. In the end, I really think it just depends on how sensitive your hearing is. Do you hear various subtle nuances or does those high quality changes completely elude you? I myself just want to hear my recordings, I don't really care about hi-quality as long as it plays when its supposed too.
Robert
Apr 02 2011 at 11:45 AM
That it did not use electricity was NOT the big appeal.....remember the fresh off the press sheets? What was the first thing you did the second it got in your hot little hand? It was like catnip for gradeschool kids! Kinder Crack!
Bill
Apr 02 2011 at 1:33 AM
Someone said radio stations are still using 8 tracks for commercials. Close, sorta, but no. These units (lovingly known as "Carts") are 2 track (stereo) sometimes 1 track (mono) that typically have only 30 to 360 seconds worth of tape. Neither will play in the other kind of player, the size is actually not the same, but they do look similar...
John
Apr 02 2011 at 1:32 AM
The versatility and re-recordability and re-usability of Compact Cassettes for sound and VHS for video will always keep them and the machines in my home. CDs and DVDs cant compare, especially when tapes play while disks and their players love to give error messages.
One thing that had been obsolete for a few years was the projector screen but now it's back even bigger with DLP projectors hooked up to computers and video machines.
One technology that predates all but real records(which sound better
.... More
than CDs which sound gritty), ditto machines, reel-to-reel tape, wire reorders, vacuum tubes and a couple of others was the cassette wire recorder dictation machine from the late 1940s or early 1950s. This contraption had two wire spools in an openable cassette. You loaded your spools into the cassette, set it place on top of the machine and turned it on. The record/playback head and a pinch roller rotated and if you turned it on without the cassette in place and inadvertantly had your fingers in there you ended up bleeding and swearing.
Some want to make real books, newspapers and magazines obsolete but more trees are killed in the course of making electricity for gadgets and the gadgets themselves than goes into a paper form of the books, rags or mags.
Russ
Apr 01 2011 at 8:33 PM
I beg to differ with the notion that vinyl LPs sound better than CDs or MP3's. First, that's largely a matter of opinion. Vinyl LPs wear out quickly and get scratched, and when they do, they sound awful--and again it doesn't take long for that to happen! I much prefer the clear, clean sound of a CD to vinyl or cassettes, or even 8tracks. Those dinosaurs I do not miss, and with digital audio files online now, that's even better than CDs. I really think we have better now than before.
Clint
Apr 02 2011 at 12:37 AM
Audiophiles knew the only way to preserve the quality of a record was to record it onto reel to reel tape, and store the record for future use. A vinyl record will lose its quality after about 50 plays, a tape will lose it after 500 or so. So you had the potential to listen to your favorite record 25,000 times before that 51st recording you made was degraded from the first. A true accurate analog recording will always surpass any digital rendering, no matter how many filters you might use, at
.... More
least when you look at it at the laboratory level. Considering most folks ears are already blown out by the time they are 18 now, I guess it really does not matter.
Dave
Apr 02 2011 at 10:32 AM
A digital recording depends on its sample rate. If this is low then the some of the information will be missing. The analog recording will have ALL the information but included in the information will be what is know as wow, flutter and noise. Analog recording devices all suffer from the inclusion of noise and recording tape has a problem with "hiss", high frequency noise that is a by-product of magnetic recording. In the by-gone age there were many techniques to control this problem.
Records, if
.... More
they are new do offer a very clean sound, providing they are played on good ,properly adjusted equipment. However they are a mechanical form of recording and wear is introduced with every playing. It is very important to keep the tone arm stylus pressure to a minimum to limit the wear.
It is better to record the information to either tape or a digital media and use these for day to day listening. All forms of recording have pros and cons... there is no perfect recording system.
Jon
Apr 01 2011 at 11:09 PM
Having worked for several high-end audio manufacturers over my career, I would like to offer some input. I won't get drawn into an LP vs. CD debate, I've heard wonderful and horrible examples of both. CDs are 16 bit, 44k recordings. Around 10 years ago new high resolution digital formats appeared (DVD Audio, which was a big improvement as it was 24 bit, 192K, and SACD from Sony) DVD Audio never caught on but the wonderful SACD format caught on, sort of. Sony didn't release many titles (3 - 4,000
.... More
I believe) though you still see new SACD players being released. Online audio files were never intended to be a high fidelity medium. I was working with Mark Levinson about ten years ago and one day found myself with Mark and Steve Jobs at Mr. Job's home discussing the future of digital audio formats. Mr. Jobs excused himself for a few minutes and returned with a new product he was getting ready to release with the unlikely name of iPod. Mark and I are both analog fans and were promoting the new (at that time) SACD format. SACD generally provides the best qualities of analog and digital without the downsides of either. We tried to get Mr. Jobs (who is an audiophile) to consider using the iPod to download "high resolution audio" via iTunes.
He listened to our proposal but asked us to join him in his study for a "storage comparison". I am generally comfortable working around celebrities but I must admit that looking over Mr. Jobs shoulder as he crunched numbers on his (what else?) Mac to decide the future of mainstream digital music was a bit of a heady experience. The iPod uses even a lesser bit rate than standard 16 bit CDs. We were trying for 24 bit. Quite a stretch. While he knew the 24 bit would sound better, he pointed out (after making the appropriate math comparisons) that it would take up much more "recording space" and that alone killed it. Quantity over quality. The target market for the iPod was primarily young people with mostly untrained ears listening via $10 headphones while riding a skateboard.
And with that, the die was cast. The target market was unlikely to be willing to cough up more money for quality that they probably wouldn't notice. Not to mention the greatly reduced storage. Mark Levinson has often been called a visionary and many credit him with starting high-end audio back in the early 70's. On this particular day, Steve Jobs managed to "out-visionary" Mark and though I was on Mark's side that day, in hindsight Mr. Jobs proved once again that he seems to have an almost magical ability to know and create what the vast majority of people want. Any guess on what the various iPods and the iTunes site have earned for Apple? A lot more than if he had made it a hi-res (or even medium-res, i.e. 16 bit) format. Why this long story? I just wanted to correct your statement that digital audio files on the internet are "even better" than CDs. Having said that, there are some sites where you can download higher resolution files if you are willing to take up more room on your iPod. If you are really committed to the MP3/iPod format, there are four things you can do to bring your listening experience into the high-fidelity realm.
1. Get a player with the maximum amount of storage.
2. Search out the hi-res. web sites.
3. Spend $200 - $300 on an audiophile headphone amp to replace the built-in chip.
4. Lose the stock headphones and replace them with the best phones you can afford. Shure makes some nice units in the $200 - $500 price range.
There are also some audiophile quality docking stations that will allow you to
connect your improved player to a quality home audio system and bypass the headphone issue entirely. But you'll have to give up the skateboard............
'Nuff said?
Richardson
Apr 01 2011 at 7:29 PM
I can't begin to estimate how many pairs of shoes lost their shine, and how quickly I STOPPED wearing fingernail polish. That ditto fluid could remove anything (except the blue stain from skin), and the vapors from the stacks of cool damp papers couldn't have been healthy to inhale....but then, who cared?
My greatest error while student teaching was running stapled papers through the Thermofax machine, tearing the belt. I was NOT on anyone's best friend list for the two weeks it took for the replacement.
urielg1
Apr 02 2011 at 11:44 AM
Did anybody like the smell of ditto paper ?because i did , always brings me back to grade school..
T.C.
Apr 02 2011 at 9:59 PM
I kind of liked the smell. Can't remember if I ever caught a buzz or not.
Richardson
Apr 01 2011 at 7:29 PM
I can't begin to estimate how many pairs of shoes lost their shine, and how quickly I STOPPED wearing fingernail polish. That ditto fluid could remove anything (except the blue stain from skin), and the vapors from the stacks of cool damp papers couldn't have been healthy to inhale....but then, who cared?
My greatest error while student teaching was running stapled papers through the Thermofax machine, tearing the belt. I was NOT on anyone's best friend list for the two weeks it took for the replacement.
Priscilla
Apr 02 2011 at 4:51 AM
I disagree about ditto- I saw them in my very current, well-funded school district throughout the 80s. I remember that fresh ditto sheets smelled like buttered popcorn; we kids would sniff them eagerly when they were handed out.
I do agree about 8-tracks, though, we had a few left over by the early 80s but we had switched to cassettes by then.
However, Brad, if you were a child in a rural 1970s school district, I doubt you had any notion of what was current and what other places had. So I suspect
.... More
you're just posturing.
Jon
Apr 02 2011 at 11:08 AM
I'm not sure how your comment showed up in my email box but I'm not Brad and my comment had to do with digital audio formats, nothing about ditto.
Richardson
Apr 01 2011 at 7:29 PM
I can't begin to estimate how many pairs of shoes lost their shine, and how quickly I STOPPED wearing fingernail polish. That ditto fluid could remove anything (except the blue stain from skin), and the vapors from the stacks of cool damp papers couldn't have been healthy to inhale....but then, who cared?
My greatest error while student teaching was running stapled papers through the Thermofax machine, tearing the belt. I was NOT on anyone's best friend list for the two weeks it took for the replacement.
Brad
Apr 01 2011 at 6:33 PM
While mostly noting that many of these items were gone 'by' certain timeframes, in reality you would virtually never see them except in instances where newer technology adoption was EXCEPTIONALLY slow, or there was some extenuating circumstance.
8-tracks, for example, were considered antiquated relics even by the very early 1980s. I was a kid in the late 1970s and even then virtually everything that was an album was on cassette tape unless you had an older car with an 8-track player, for which you
.... More
would likely have no tapes. Vinyl albums were vastly more populat still than 8-tracks, and at the time vinyl singles were wildly popular.
Similar can be said of the Ditto, which even in the rural school district in which I grew up was long gone by the late 1970s. Outside of a church in my early childhood, I don't recall ever even seeing a Ditto machine.
Momma
Apr 01 2011 at 7:23 PM
I am a child of the eighties and I remember having used every single one of these technologies at some point in my life. Our grade school used a ditto machine up until I was in at least 6th grade; my mother and I were explaining to my baby brother the other day what an 8-track system was; and I first watched Superman on a rental laser disc.
It wasn't that in our rural area technology adaptation was EXCEPTIONALLY slow--many times these were used side-by-side as I grew up-especially as I got a little
.... More
older. I actually cried when my mom's 8 track player was replaced with a CD player one Christmas. I was sure we would never get to listen to the "good" music again!
Heywood Jiblowmi
Apr 01 2011 at 6:55 PM
The author is not trying to write an autobiography here. All this is about is just an FYI
Paul
Jan 28 2011 at 1:36 PM
Some stuff is really never gone. Eight track tape is still used in some small radio stations for playing comercials. LP records are coming back because they sound better than a MP3 or CD. You can still get a DVD player with a built in VCR tape deck. Reel to reel tape is still used in both video and audio production and of course Kodak "film" is still used to make movies. So are things gone forever from the world? No, they are just gone from the consumer market.
Tom
Jan 21 2011 at 5:14 PM
mimeogragh machines, Ibm selectric typewiters you changed the ball to change fonts, dul cassette dubing decks, lp turntables, ( which I still have) blenders, salad shooters, and pug in drip coffe percolatoers. c7 christmas bulbs and zipppo or ronson lighters. wow.
Terry
Apr 02 2011 at 12:44 PM
all these things were used by me also I remember the Christmas we girls got a 8 track player and our dad took us out to buy tapes. A realy good memory. I find myself telling my grand daughter about some of the stuff we used She was fasinated when visiting my great aunt who is in her 90's and looking at all the old stuff she still used and had along with the new. A great history lesson for her.
Bon Ami
Jan 20 2011 at 6:16 PM
The peculiar sweet smell of the fresh blue ink on a ditto-machine-produced worksheet handed out in an elementary school class in the mid 60s is as strong a memory as the smell of Crayola crayons, Play-Doh, or newly-cut grass on the playground to bring back memories of childhood.
Dave
Jan 21 2011 at 11:34 AM
Wow you hit the nail on the head with that one. I can smell it right now, brings back memories of slightly blurred purple-blue "hand-outs"... I'd add the smell of white paste glue ("paste") to your list, and the peculiar smell of a school gymnasium. Oh, and the smell of drying woolen mittens on top of the steam radiator that would burn you if you touched it.
Amon Amarth
Jan 20 2011 at 3:51 PM
The Ditto is way out of place in this group and doesn't belong. It belongs with techology like punchcards. An Atari 2600 would have been a better addition.
Bob Barker
Jan 20 2011 at 10:24 AM
The Risograph machine is the technological heir to the duplicator throne.
Gareth Amon
Jan 06 2011 at 11:23 AM
I have plenty of this stuff at www.FreeRecyclingQuotes.com if you need it
Ditto machine
Before there were photocopiers, scanners and printers, there was the Ditto Machine (a.k.a. spirit duplicator), produced by the Illinois-based Ditto Corporation. Originally introduced in 1923, the Ditto Machine was a printing method that transferred ink onto a master copy made of smooth, waxy paper. An alcohol-based fluid (hence "spirit") was then applied to transfer the image to a copy. Primarily used by schools and churches, the Ditto became less and less commonplace as other copying technologies were brought to market. Its decline began in the 1970s, and by the mid 1990s, the Ditto was virtually extinct — although it can still be found on rare occasions, its appeal being that it does not require electrical power to run.
Advertisement
Advertisement
From our sponsor
Email
Join the conversation