Gramdeck
The Gramdeck Gramophone Tape Recorder was a sound recording and playback device from the late 1950s. Its inventor, the engineer A. Tutchings, worked for the British defense company Royal Radar Establishment . The device requires the possession of a record player . It is placed on the turntable and the drive of the turntable is used to rotate one of the two tape reels evenly . In this way, the synchronous drive for the tape recorder was saved.
Tutchings had developed the technical arrangement for internal purposes in his company, which specializes in radar systems. But it seemed likely it in 1959 at the London sales Andrew Merryfield Ltd . under the name Gramdeck (short for "Gramophone Tape Deck") on the highly competitive mass market. The trade journal The Tape Recorder praised the invention with the words: “The Gramdeck is ingeniously simple. Why on earth didn't anyone think of it earlier! "
The Gramdeck sold for £ 13 and 12 shillings and was practically off the market a year later. A comparable device called Voicemaster, marketed in 1960 by the English Gramophone Company , was also unsuccessful . The Voicemaster was a turntable attachment and used a tape recorder as the basis for the drive. Both approaches served to save a drive and to copy records to tape.
Technical details
The drive via the spindle of the turntable to the tape reel took place on the Gramdeck via a rubber band. The speeds 78, 45 and 33 revolutions per minute were translated into belt speeds of 7.5, 3.3 and 1.6 inches / second. There was an optional microphone for recording records on tape, and a low-frequency amplifier powered by a 9 volt battery to amplify playback.
Individual evidence
- ^ Advertisement in the English trade magazine Wireless World from October 1959, p. 62.
- ↑ Gramdeck Ton-Bild Merryfield, Andrew, Ltd .; London, build 19. Retrieved November 25, 2019 .
- ↑ London Science Museum Object Y1984.53.1