[Dtb-talk] DTB Here and There

[Flint Million]

Hi all, glad to join this discussion of DTB's.

Joseph, the interesting part about your statement on the modification
of the players is that the idea of a tape head that can read all 4
tracks is not that uncommon. In fact, every single auto-reverse tape
deck out there has a head that is wired to read all 4 tracks no matter
which way the tape is inserted. In addition, there were even kids toys
(anyone remember the 2-XL?? haha!) that used all 4 tracks of an audio
tape in the same direction. Of course, 4-track heads also were found
in professional applications like early 4-track multitrack studio
recorders and so on.

What may have made the products expensive and, an argument in the "not
cost effective" category, would be simply that the products are unique
and there's a small market. Most stuff for the blind tends to be quite
expensive, not because it costs more physically, but because the R&D
and the production costs don't allow for a cheap price as would be
possible on a product distributed to the masses.  The walkmans had to
be typically be individually modified, so that $150 price was largely
paying for someone's time to do so. The head wasn't the problem, as I
said, as it was easy to drop in a new head. You had to cut holes in
the side of the player for more switches, and deal with wiring them to
an already finished PCB. That, is a stroke of genius and explains the
cost. :)


FM