GE Stereo Micro Cassette TV Boombox - So Cool!

[@oldradiosnphonographs]

Some very happy kid in 1982 probably got this for Christmas and thought they had it all...heck I want one of these in 2021 lol.

[@n6vcw]

I used to have one. Brings back memories.

[@andypalm7061]

I had one of these! in 1986. I used it at work on lunch mostly.

[@memriloc]

ahh, back when things were still built to last. I was only four that year but still have some gear from that era that still works fantasticly

[@coolelectronics1759]

I was given one of these in a fleamarket regect lot for free! It even still had the little dictaphone connected and the power supply. It was about 5 yrs ago If I remember correctly it even had a car adaptor with it. Cool little set. Dope that you could use it on a car or boat haha even if its big af.

[@JR3059]

This just might be the best example of this machine left in the world. Just amazing.

[@mellegerda]

Love the 80s when we had brilliantly designed electronic products from Japan. Just couldn't keep my eyes off them every time I walked into an electrical/electronic store.

[@reginaldadonis3525]

i guess im randomly asking but does someone know of a way to get back into an Instagram account? I somehow lost my account password. I appreciate any help you can give me

[@sincereivan8538]

@Reginald Adonis instablaster ;)

[@reginaldadonis3525]

@Sincere Ivan I really appreciate your reply. I found the site on google and im in the hacking process now. Seems to take a while so I will get back to you later with my results.

[@reginaldadonis3525]

@Sincere Ivan it worked and I actually got access to my account again. I'm so happy! Thank you so much you saved my ass !

[@sincereivan8538]

@Reginald Adonis You are welcome =)

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

That GE Microcassette demos sounds pretty funky, wished I could listen to these in full!

[@LightTheUnicorn]

That's a fantastic "little" portable stereo, the pop-out Microcassete recorder is both bizarre and wonderful! And the entire schematic? Nice.

[@joselu90]

Nice colour CRT. Long life to this boombox

[@semectual]

If a boombox was built like that today from Samsung, LG or Apple, it would probably be one fully out of glass with everything sealed up, no schematics and also no craftsmanship! I miss the days where companies gave the consumer the flexibilities at their advantage! Great Road Show Stereo by the way!

[@nationwidepenguin]

Hi! A great vintage review. This unit was actually made by Sharp and rebadged for GE in some markets. The US model has cosmetic differences to the UK and EU models (due to the TV Tuner channels / NTSC tuner) and the Hitachi variant was a mono (single speaker) version as it had an electronic TV tuner (with magic line tuning). It's great to see it in such good condition after all these years!

[@WAQWBrentwood]

David Oxendale Thr fact that it's a 1980s Sharp means it'll likely last forever. I have a 19" Sharp TV that still has great color and sound. I bought it at Zayre. Yep the TV out lived the retailer by almost 30 years!

[@TonyFleetwood]

this video made me melt inside. i didnt realize i needed one of these until i saw this. ill probably never find one for cheap or in as good a condition, so thats why i appreciate videos like this!

[@markanderson350]

I have seen a ton of electronics but never something like that. I wonder why the microcassette in such a huge machine? Love how it comes out.

[@PlaidDin]

Mark Anderson I guess the engineering logic in the early 80's was ,,The Smaller, the best", also I guess they were trying to stay future-proof, lol.

[@william79707]

Mark Anderson with boomboxes of the 80s, the crazier the better. They came up with all sorts of wild design. Sony even put out a dual cassette walkman.

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

Never knew that. Must be as rare as an honest polichicken now !

[@markanderson350]

Basically the microcassette is rare and seeing a pull out player is a one of a kind. The demo tapes were popular but not in microcassette. These were normally for dictation, not music but there was a move to adapt them for music but it never took off. Then again the same could be said for the compact cassette in the 60's

[@HamtaroEL]

@@markanderson350 In Japan microcassettes were the future and even in the alternate world they took off to replace compact cassettes.

[@buhshmuh]

That music at 13 minutes is amazing!!! I must make it my ringtone!

[@MickeyD2012]

That design is FANTASTIC. It would be SO easy to wire up your own Li-Ion battery pack.

[@jokerzwild00]

We had a GE unit that was similar, but not identical to this one. Ours had a fake woodgrain finish, my mom watched or listened to it while she was doing stuff in the kitchen. For some reason my parents thought electronics were more classy if they had a wood finish. Our living room TV probably contained an entire small tree's worth of fiberboard and weighed almost as much as our Volvo.

[@databits]

HAHA That's hilarious, thanks for sharing.

[@TRLTheRandomLab]

Seeing things like this make me miss analog TV :(

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

We all do. You didn't need to keep the TV in one spot to watch it!

[@Okurka.]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_terrestrial_television

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

ATSC 2.0 isn't as robust a signal as DVB-T I've read.

[@Karmy.]

William P watching the baseball game on a slightly messed up 19 in TV

[@markanderson350]

It would ghost and snow but the picture usually was watchable. You could see what was wrong with the picture. Now, you have either a perfect or no picture with no idea why it does not come it.

[@Bodragon]

With reference to that very large and heavy powerbrick; switched-mode power supplies were still, at that time, (1982), rather quite novel. That said, Apple had been using them in their Macs since 1977. Great Vid !

[@BetamaxFlippy]

This is some orgasmic piece of tech

[@lennylexx5611]

I bought one a these brand new back in 1980 and it costed around $300. Got mine from crazy TV Lenny in Waukesha Wisconsin. That little TV was color and I also bought the Timex Sinclair computer and hooked it to the TV and coded basic program language to scroll text on screen by basics goto command. Had this for many years and the micro cassette was not that good especially for music play back. I eventually sold this in the late 1990s on ebay. You got a gem of history there.

[@FurrySergal]

Wow I would pay for a scan of that stereo microcassette corder's diagram. Edit, 8 months later: Apparently I just bought the cassette recorder\player from you? Man I was already getting hyper just opening the box from excitement of having a stereo microcassette recorder for the first time; and then I see it's from you!! _Muy muchas gracias!!!!!!_

[@arijip]

Thanks a tonne for this review. Never experienced that such a thing existed. An engineering marvel.

[@ThePbrook1967]

That was soo kewl!! And it's even a COLOR tv!!! Most of them were B&W

[@artisankatstudios7902]

That thing is a beast of engineering.

[@stolmich]

I'd like to have that one, with KITT inside. A portable KITT would be great.

[@frederickmowry526]

My friend had one of these ,it was amazing,back in the day.

[@spritefun9362]

I had version of this in the late 90s in the UK. It had a B&W screen and a non removable tape deck.

[@FoxMulder78]

Ha, Japan loved tango so much that they had to do a funky cover of "El choclo".

[@kylehazachode]

what a great oddity

[@jasontwynn7356]

Awesome channel first off 🤘👍. You should take some good pictures of the wiring schematic (diagram) and post it online for people to check out. I know when ever I get a older or vintage radio pp r tv or anything the first thing I do is look online for a schematic or diagram for it. I would love to have the schematic or diagram for a lot of the older and vintage stuff I have. It takes forever to redraw the diagram for the stuff I have and have to repair or am rebuilding. But that said, I love the channel 👍🤘. I came across your channel a while back. But I was half asleep,so I forgot about it. The funny thing (not for you) is that KZbin never put your channel on my feed,or my watch this list??? I was just going back iny history and BOOM 💥, there was your channel. I've been watching all your back log of videos for the last few days. Keep up all your hard work.

[@5roundsrapid263]

Can you possibly get any more '80s than this? Stereo microcassettes tried to catch on, but only lasted a couple of years.

[@tomeasterbrook9486]

Someone must've really looked after that one; the fact that it's still got all the packaging & literature with it in decent condition shows just how careful the original owner was. Lots of people would've ripped the box to shreds opening it for the first time on Christmas morning & that would've been the end of it. On its own the player must be pretty rare, especially in such fine shape; but I bet the packaging & all the other bits it comes with are impossible to find now.

[@PascalGienger]

You got a liberty commercial at 880kHz AM. CBS Newsradio, the emitter is here in NYC (-:

[@BrokebackBob]

GE, we bring good things to life!

[@jomjom1207]

I find Dolby B to work quite well for me. However i think it really depends on the cassette deck condition and how well calibrated it is. I regularly use Dolby B on my Denon 810 to remove the hiss. With some careful manual bias fine adjustment no treble is lost.

[@andrewdupuis1151]

wow i haven't seen one of these for meany years. i love old tec

[@therestorationofdrwho1865]

Damn I’d love the micro cassette recorder on its own. I can’t find anything like that anywhere and I love it.

[@shawnyoung5960]

Wow must have been good and well thought of, They included the best battery to go with it. Today it would be a small one to power it with the bigger as a paid extra if they even supplied one at all. I'm assuming the small one would have worked since it seems to have the same end.

[@Madness832]

Oh yeah, when they tried to turn the lowly microcassette (used mostly in dictaphones & answering machines) into a hi-fi medium. Biggest problem, other than cost, was the fact that the high-bias current, needed for the metal tapes, quickly wore down the batteries.

[@MnACreations]

That is a pretty cool find! Thank you for sharing!

[@elektroqtus]

That jam sounds like it would really be cool at half speed

[@TheRealCaptainFreedom]

That's the sort of thing I'd have by my limo's hot tub back in the day.

[@ChronoTango]

I found one of these just a week ago at an estate sale!

[@rollingtroll]

That thing is beyond, beyond cool

[@Philflash]

I have seen this, great piece of equipment. The microcassette records in stereo!

[@RobbieStrike]

I use use a uhf video sender to send to my citizen black and white getto blaster with tv. back in the 80's

[@EgoChip]

When I was a kid in the 90's, my dad let me use a Casio system that was half as deep, so it was properly portable, it had a black and white TV, radio and regular cassette recorder, it was pretty good. Nowhere near as good as this looks though.

[@jinggarcia]

wowowow! never seen anything like it. i love old tech. thanks for sharing this video.

[@kevinpatrickmacnutt]

I used to have one of those. The microcassette unit was a bit gimmicky, but it sounded good.

[@popNL]

Man, i need to have that song as my ringtone. Hope you go on to make that seperate video.

[@JetScreamer_YT]

I would have gone nuts for this. sexy tech. Mini Cassette is so-so, but Color TV! wow.

[@DoomBunnyKiller00]

Haha!! Nice find! I have that same one. But your's is in immaculate condition. Got mine from a garage sale a few years ago dirt cheap. Didn't come with the box & goodies nor the headphones (can't remember if it has the battery either) but it has everything else including demonstration tape. I did hook my Sega Genesis up to it via a coaxial to flat antenna matching transformer & was trying to game on it. Tended to hurt my eyes a little since i had to stare pretty close to the 4" screen ;)

[@databits]

Yes indeed, thank you for watching!

[@dadautube]

man! so cool! and that micro cassette recorder / player things is quite a thing even for its time btw! i have a similar thing, which is surely from a while later i guess because it does have that small few" tv / monitor but instead of the micro cassette unit, it has an non-removable VHS video tape recorder / player ... and i guess it has ta tv tuner built in too but not sure as i haven't opened it for many years now ... it did work when i bought it in a Goodwill store in the year 2001 although the head showed signs of wear and tear with specs and noise etc being displayed on the video ...

[@riverhuntingdon6659]

Very nice little thing. I wonder if it was made by Panasonic, I have a tiny radiorecorder from around the same time. The Microcassette mechanism is very similar to my mono unit. Both sets appear to have been built when the makers gave a hoot.

[@jeffk7734]

Have seen this video several ties. I wonder why they didn’t just use standard cassettes instead of the micro cassettes? Was there any other model like this that used standard cassettes? In any case, it’s a nice machine.

[@Kane615]

Thanks for showcasing such an oddity! Considering that the battery pack is 12v I wonder if it works be possible to take a modern lithium battery pack and retrofit it into this unit.

[@worldgate989]

I used to have this when i was a kid, but i never knew you could take the casette player out.

[@theshadowman1398]

That thing looks really cool

[@davismv]

I totally want an MP3 rip of that boogie song plus would love to hear the others!!!

[@databits]

I posted the entire tape on my Channel.

[@davismv]

Which video - I was looking perhaps I missed it. Great channel, BTW.

[@databits]

Mark Davis kzbin.info/www/bejne/iHOuoHSVobyfeac

[@KentuckyRanger]

Just stumbled across your channel, awesome! Subscribed and will be binge watching tonight, LOL!

[@databits]

Thank you Mr. Ranger, appreciate the support!

[@MsMadLemon]

What a fantastic and unique piece of tech, I wasnt expecting the TV picture to be that good to be honest. 15:47 hahah! :o))

[@larrycharpiot4962]

Loved it! Can you play reg. Cassettes too? We are amazed at your finds!

[@edwincancelii2917]

Meaning, “this thing is an engineering marvel.”

[@joytoy2281]

Я из 2018 года. Мой "like" юбилейный - 800. ))) Отличное видео, отличный продукт! Мой Бог! Это 1982 год, я не верю что это возможно.

[@MrFlyboy1972]

Wow, Portsmouth Virginia - I live in Portsmouth UK

[@CanDoo321]

I really enjoy your videos

[@EricLDC]

man goodwill used to be great in Georgia. can't find anything good anymore it seems. but at value village I found a califone comet reel to reel. worked a week then the belts quit on me. lol just my luck eh

[@verastaki]

A micro cassette instead of the standard audio compact cassette tape? I thought that the micro cassettes are not suitable for music reproduction since the tape speed of micro cassettes are much slower than standard compact cassettes, making them only suitable for voice recorders, dictation or answering machines. On the other hand, Japan did release music on micro cassettes at one point, using chrome tape formulation, same tape used in standard Type II compact cassettes. This stereo actually has very good quality playing music from micro cassettes. Never knew micro cassettes can sound that good!

[@JessicaFEREM]

You can easily use a modern Coaxial amplifier to boost the signal and then attach the anntanae

[@BrianSmith-vl7xu]

It seems like a pretty ambitious contraption.

[@MsJinkerson]

I had a standard cassette player with built-in stereo speakers

[@Darieee]

Thumbs up for the schematic !!!

[@Synthematix]

B&W sets like this were very common in the 80s but colour ones were not. probably because the colour sets were so expensive.

[@MarcelVanHoekElvis]

Fantastic machine superb!

[@wogfun]

I basically dreamed about owning this stupid thing ALL SUMMER LONG, two summers in a row while it was featured as the grand prize in the boardwalk arcade in Wildwood, NJ. Almost everyday out of my two month long vacation I would scrape together whatever money I could from my parents to go play arcade games to collect price tickets. By the end of the summer I doubt I had merely 10 percent of the tickets needed for the prize.

[@Lagib28]

I was not aware that micro cassettes were available in metal bias. Do you have any?

[@qwertykeyboard5901]

"It has a handle, that means its portable!"

[@louisliebermann2823]

Greetings from Maplewood

[@johneygd]

Phew that general electrocs road show device is HUGE and is impossibly portible,man you need to be a giant ape to carry this beast around all the time haha, i get what they were doing but they tryed soo hard to make it an all in 1 device,but it's clunky & cumbersume to use,heck even that adaptor aswell as those accu packs are giant bricks to even exceed a gameboy or atari lynx in size,haha. BUT for it's time that must've been soo cool, you could hookup your camera or vcr deck to it and see everything in color or watch the news in a cafe,or on the beach,listen radio and record music on the beach, it could,ve be handy business mans with little time . And OMG. I am just as old as this road show device, o,o,o!!!

[@brooksdj]

Back in the 80's we could deal with this type of portability

[@databits]

I saw a guy the other day carrying a "soundbar" on his shoulder. Amazing.

[@gerard3325]

I wonder why the unit is so deep? It is only the TV tube which would take up a fair amount of room, but for a small screen it still shouldn't be that much.

[@zoneb609]

I think because it's made of quality electronics, not today's compact logic boards with cheap integrated circuits and cheap caps.

[@coondogtheman]

So can you record from the radio and TV sound onto the micro cassette? Can you record a microcassette on a regular microcassette recorder and then play it back in this unit.

[@Starcat128]

Thats cool i bet that thing was expensive back then

[@phrobozz]

1982 Sears catalog lists it at $299.99

[@telocho]

A happy place for the antenna... like I heard Bob Ross describing it.

[@5argetech56]

Have you heard of the MINI COMBO by Westinghouse? BW TV am-fm radio, Phonograph...

[@nathegotule4666]

Awesome,,,,, Da,,bomb,,,, ☺💣👍☺💣👍☺💣👍☺💣👍☺💣👍☺💣👍☺💣👍✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌✌🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺 Peace n kindness down under Sydney australia

[@thetman0068]

This is gotta be the most 80s thing I've ever seen.

[@SeraphinaPZ]

So basically it does everything. I have no idea how someone can have such luck in finding these older technologies.

[@spankysmp]

It's pretty awesome. I love old kit from my younger days - was it a bargain?

[@TheSecretProvider]

Wow! What a cool little device. Does it have a headphone port as well?

[@GuitarAudiologist]

Cool video, subscribed.

[@databits]

Thanks!

[@kevinpatrickmacnutt]

GE produced odd things from their Portsmouth branch. They also would rebrand upper end Technics gear with their name.

[@JohnSmith-mg5ve]

mini cassettes never caught on in WI and probably not other areas or we would of used them more. that thing had too much going on a boom box with only music in that size would be great.

[@noahamoe3394]

that's so cool I want one

[@staticmunk7777]

man this is so staticool and awesome and what does the tv sound like I would love to hear it

[@reeltoreelrules]

that is a lot of D cells, however my Zenith Trans oceanic tube radio uses 60 AA batteries and 7 D cells.

[@illkid86]

I got a modern day boombox with dvd and digital tv

[@lutello3012]

I really want a high quality stereo microcassette recorder. Hack the boombox so it will play back NBTV! (Yeah, have a hard enough time recording that on Compact Cassette!

[@ZYZZXX]

so much tech!