Tag: retro

Stylophone pocket organ

What the listing stated:

A BRILLIANT RE-pro of an iconic Stylophone Pocket Organ from 1968.

Bought for me as a birthday present back in 2008. I packed it away and placed it in my loft.

I’ve just found it again and have added 3 Duracell Plus AA batteries to test it for the first time. (Included in sale)

All works extremely well.

The unit is as new, the box has very minor wear.

EBay

We will just have to wait for delivery to see just how true this listing is… however I have spoken with the seller today, he’s a lovely chap and my mind is at ease that this is a genuine good purchase.

Unit differs slightly from the 60s one
In general looks similar
All looking good, original packaging

Anyone that pays the slightest bit of interest to my blog will know I love retro electronic equipment, especially if at sometime in my life it has meant something to me. Well, the Stylophone was a very basic synthesiser/toy that popped its head above the parapet originally in the late 60s, but was super popular in the mid 70s and that was when I first got my hands on one. It was a cousins unit, not mine as my parents wouldn’t pay out for toys like that as they were just a fad. (How wrong were they?). So envy struck once again as I was never able to have one…..now fast forward 50 years and I’ve now purchased a good example of one.

The Stylophone is a miniature analog electronic keyboard musical instrument played with a stylus. Invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis, it entered production in 1968, manufactured by Dubreq.

Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children’s toys, but they were occasionally used by professional musicians such as John Lennon, Kraftwerk and David Bowie.

Wikipedia

Back in the day a chap called Rolf Harris was constantly on the TV advertising or playing these units, however the less time talking about this fellah the better, he was a right wrong ‘un.

This particular unit is not an original, I’m still after one of those. This unit was a reissue in 2008 so it’s about 17 years old now. But I’m happy with that. And it works, and for me that’s unusual as I normally only buy broken ones to repair, maybe the original one I’m after will fit the bill, if I can find one that is not completely overpriced. The original unit ran off a single PP9 9v battery, these newer units have improved circuitry and operate off 3x AA type batteries using half the original power. I’ve said before retro electronics are rapidly become the antiques of tomorrow, and people are out of their heads with the prices they are demanding even for something that is completely wrecked. They all need a reality check for the prices they are demanding. The total I have paid for this one is £20:00 GBP and that includes the postage and batteries, so in all I think I’ve got a bargain if it matches the actual listing.

I’m actual going to record a video of learning how to play this unit, just to see how easy or hard it is, and this creation will also be the subject of a later post, Here: You were warned

In the meantime prepare your ears for an assault to the auditory system as someone with no ability to hold a tune tries to play a toy/instrument from the 1970’s, you are truly blessed 😂

You lucky people 😂

Release Your Inner Ansel Adams With The Shitty Camera Challenge

Loved this post regarding the reuse and repurposing of old cameras. I know its social media based, but you can’t have it all your own way. I’ve got about 70 candidates that could quite easily be adapted for this purpose…

Social media microblogging has brought us many annoying things, but some of the good things that have come to us through its seductive scrolling are …

Release Your Inner Ansel Adams With The Shitty Camera Challenge

Wot? No 4K

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

I was a product of the 60s and the only choice we had back in my childhood was 405 or 625 lines B/W Tv. Once turned on you had to give all the valves good time to warm up until a picture appeared, in truth you could probably go into the kitchen and make a snack before the ghosting even started to appear on the screen.

An old 405 lines tv

Back then we only had two channels, BBC and ATV, that was the forerunner of ITV.

No Adverts and only a few hours scheduling a day meant that you were more likely to see the test card transmission than any real TV program.

To be honest I probably listened more to my little transistor radio, or tranny as it was known then, nowadays I’d probably be pulled up by the PC brigade for even saying that.

We spent most of our days outside playing and exploring so TV never really factored into my formative years, I can’t really pinpoint specific programs I did watch however one really stuck in my mind as a funny moment. That used to be when we would watch a program called “Pot Black” it was a snooker program. However it was hard to determine colours of the balls on a black and white screen. It was funny when the commentators mentioned a coloured ball that they would refer to as “the grey looking one in the top corner” In fact they all had this colour as they were all just shades.

Aye, what with all your 1080, ultra HD 4K super duper vision you have now, you’ve never had it so good. But back in the day when it was a new technology it was truly ground breaking. I remember my old man saying “it’ll never take off”, how wrong was he?

Have a great day all. Peace.

A bit of this and a bit of tat

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

I miss the stores such as Maplins (aka Radio Shack). When I used to go into town with the wife at the weekends she would go do her thing and I would go into and spend a lot of time in Maplins. For her it was like a kind of Man Crèche as she knew where she could easily find me ( don’t forget this was in the days when mobile communication was in its infancy)

Here you could buy individual electrical components, it must have been murder doing a stocktake. But I loved it. All the kits, all the ideas, and all the boys toys you could dream of.

I really miss Maplins.

I’d also love to have a store where you could get hold of good quality retro games, and equipment at a reasonable price, not at rip off prices that are currently being seen on auction sites. People really do have inflated ideas of the worth of items only a few decades old, they really are becoming the new antiquities.

So maybe the shop I’d like to own would be a mix of Maplins and a quality second hand store of memories. Somewhere the hobbyist or dreamer could walk into and spend a good while reminiscing, and maybe buying some stuff.

That would be nice.

Sony Discman D-121

Anyone remember these? To say they were popular in my younger years is an understatement. Originally I had the Walkman (A cassette tape version) and I came to the Compact disc quite late in the 1990’s to be honest. Lately I’ve been looking at getting a Discman as I do still have an amount of discs at home and I like to listen to my old music whilst walking the dog. Yep I have my phone and Spotify so I guess I have access to pretty much everything there is out there but I just fancy trying a bit of retro and stepping back into my formative years.

Why not buy one that needs attention? I can kill two birds with one stone, get a repair on this site hopefully and the jobs a good one.

So off to EBay I trot and find this Sony Discman D121 that the seller agrees to sell to me for my offer of £10 GBP.

Sony Discman D121
Sony Discman D121

I expect age related issues, as this particular model was produced sometime in the mid to late 90s. This one has an issue where the disc isn’t recognised and is intermittent. This range has a few known issues and to be honest I don’t think I will have too much trouble in getting this one going again (Famous last words 🤦‍♂️)

I’m expecting its arrival sometime in the coming week so I’ll come back to this post when it’s in my possession for an update on its condition.

Update: 9/3/24 23:11 – For some reason I’ve now purchased a damaged Discman D171 as well🤦‍♂️ I’m a glutton for punishment.

Sony Discman D171

Further update: 11/3/24 22:30 – Stop 🛑 🛑 just 🛑 😳

For some reason I’ve just brought another 2 faulty Discman. This time the D-141, two of them. That’s it I’ve got to stop now 😂 really I have to stop 🛑

Sony Discman D-141 x2

Thanks for passing by. Always appreciated.