Sony's forgotten ‘80s Picture Phone

[@mhuntuk]

Only Mat could say: I’ve got a super-rare Sony product; oh and 2 more of them; oh yes and a peripheral to match. Amazing.

[@ChipGuy]

"And I thought one might have a problem....so I got a 3rd one". How cool is that...

[@6581punk]

The guy who said he was hoarding all the minidisc players and called him a jerk will be triggered by this.

[@jamesduncan6309]

Pulls out a printer that he just happens to have that's compatible. If it was anyone else I would have thought it was a setup lol.

[@ChipGuy]

@@jamesduncan6309 Well, those printers were pretty common. You could use any standard video printer with RCA input from Mitsubishi, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and other brands I don't know.

[@ChengduLittleA]

LOL I was just about to comment the same thing and there it is!!

[@imnotangry7594]

Hi, Techmoan! I’m living in Japan and I still have one! Is it possible to call from UK to Japan? I’m so curious about it!

[@gopanski5330]

It should be no problem I think. You just have to dial in the prefix of the UK and his number, if he gives it to you.

[@JRCSalter]

I would actually like to see this. It's not often such obscure out of date technology is shown in use.

[@imnotangry7594]

Thank you for your replies. I looked up the cost of international calls on the internet and it said it may cost around $0.05~2 per minute. Not cheap.

[@volvo480]

I doubt if it will work, as the lines were analogue back then and are digital now, especially those over long distances.

[@mrfrenzy.]

It would work just fine, either if you have analog phone lines or VOIP with an analog adapter. With voip it's basically free. You could even play back the sound of this video to the tape input and get his test image.

[@JamesBos]

My Dad had one of these in the early 90s and we used to use it with our relatives in Holland. Back then, it was absolutely magical! Thinking back on that time, we really take technology for granted.

[@Jehty_]

I was wondering why anyone would buy this. I mean who wants a single image. But your comment made me realize that if this is the only way to see a relative/friend it's still great. Beats sending pictures per post any time. I really take our technology as granted :)

[@bluebull399]

@@Jehty_ So true. Whilst video calling is for the most part a gimmick (even today), it's completely transformed the lives of deaf people.

[@listajones8042]

there are a few on marktplaats even

[@EzeeLinux]

I think Sony made some things just 'cause they could.... Neat stuff! :)

[@sismofytter]

Now they are just boring like any other company. I'm sad they don't do proper HiFi anymore 👎

[@gabrielvieira6529]

@@sismofytter What other brands still makes hifi's?

[@EtsuMatsuya]

Back when Sony was the Google of its day. Doing things for the novelty and seeing is people would turn it into thing. Thankfully many things did catch on.

[@MaxSMoke777]

That device was for phone sex. It was made for phone sex. It's purpose was phone sex. How are people having a hard time understanding it's use? Still pictures? Printer attachment? Large screen connection? It could have been sold with lube and tissue.

[@kenneyjake]

@@MaxSMoke777 that’s what I’d used it for

[@mr.skeltal8687]

When I was around ten years old I went on a field trip to a science museum, where they had a dozen or so of these exact phones in little booths scattered around so you could dial out and talk with someone on the other end of the museum! Blew my mind at the time!

[@arakis4]

The old C.O.S.I. on E Broad in Columbus had the Mitsubishi Visitel Viewphones in the Kidspace kids only area. It was a blast to send pictures. The area also had several regular phones on the same pbx in the same area. Sometimes you would be on the non picture end of a conversation and have to listen to buzzing on the line when someone sent you a picture! Sadly, the coal mine in the basement was not connected to the system.

[@eadred9164]

Boomer!

[@Pickleriiiiiick]

How strange it is. Someone was holding this thinking "wow, we've come so far" whilst I sit here, watching this on my smartphone thinking the same thing.

[@Shorty15c4007]

No bull. People complain way too much these days. You can buy a super computer that fits in your pocket and communicate with pretty much anyone for a very affordable price. We're already living in the future.

[@dempsej]

So do I. And also wondering what future will bring us, would we be watching some old 2020 smartphone review on our virtual couch with overseas friend sitting next to us using some Neuralink device. Fascinating.

[@Shorty15c4007]

@@KarlSmith1 We can barely handle driving on paved roads without killing 35K people each year in the US. Yeah, no thanks. I just hope I'm alive to see the day that I can buy a used Honda Civic that can drive me home after I stumble out of bar.

[@goldbullet50]

@@Shorty15c4007 We live in a horrifying dystopia.

[@Shorty15c4007]

@@goldbullet50 Lol turn off the CNN and the Fox news. That crap is poison.

[@misforyoutube8452]

Probably the only chap to own three of these units ever 😁

[@alexfinns6162]

Yes lol

[@listajones8042]

Nice, want to test? I also have one

[@User-uj7nz]

He must be a billionaire!!!

[@josugambee3701]

Except the phone company, of course ;-)

[@sandycheeks7865]

I have 4.... two boxed, two unboxed!

[@KoenOnbekend]

Amazing video Mat! Really cool to see one of my auction finds featured on the channel!

[@jezusmylord]

youre the MVP!

[@dannygrob]

Bedankt Koen :)

[@CruelQuertos]

What site was the auction on?

[@LondenTower]

echt gaaf om iets van Nederland op een Engels KZbin kanaal te zien. Koen kan het Doen! 😜😉

[@rafaeltogami]

Considering it’s from the 80s, I think this is really impressive! Not just by the embedded technology, but how Sony (and Mitsubishi among others for sure) were able to actually release a fully functional product,

[@anthonynorton666]

First MMS.

[@eliseoespera6965]

Literally majority of the companies that are innovative back in the day are japanese like sony, mitsubishi, panasonic, fujitsu etc.

[@michealpersicko9531]

@@anthonynorton666 more like facetiming

[@TheSultan1470]

ok

[@scottboy96]

13:22 The thought of somone "screenshoting" nudes in 1987 is absolutely hilarious

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

And yet that was the immediate thought I had I was like "people used this for phone sex didn't they?!" And I'm 110% sure they totally did.

[@Christopher-N]

Those 900 number television adverts. ;)

[@glipk]

@@JohnDoe-wq5eu lol that's exactly what came to my mind as well

[@Prizm44]

You take what you can get 👍

[@macelius]

I was thinking mid way through that, basically, the first sexts must have been sent with these..

[@wal]

Wow, what dedication to make a video buying several units! Very cool product, excellent video as always.

[@tomikuusla925]

When he unboxed the first one I thought that "yeah nice, but you can't demonstrate it without anohter unit" and when he unboxed the second one I was "but of course you bought two!" and when that one was faulty... After the third one was unboxed I was thinking he would have to make yet another trip to the storage to get a fourth unit.

[@NathanOakley1980]

Does it bump do?

[@yshwgth]

He knows about the magic of buying two of them.

[@rarbiart]

Alec would dropped the "by the power of buying two" joke.

[@stephenmontgomery5807]

This channel is the real deal.

[@olik136]

Picture Phones always seemed like the pinnacle of technology when it was hard to achieve- but after 11 years of facetime and me using it twice... I have to say I don't really want to see or be seen while talking on the phone at all...

[@AfferbeckBeats]

What are you talking about, having a phone call while trasmitting the underside of your chin and nose is a technological achievement you can no longer do without!

[@d-culture927]

@@AfferbeckBeats In old sci-fi TV shows and illustrations the person on the other end is always miraculously perfectly framed and well lit no matter where they're talking from. Well here we are in the future and the reality is shadowy chins silhouetted against overexposed, washed out room lighting.

[@MmntechCa]

Problem now is that thanks to the beer bug, everyone wants to do bloody video conferencing for everything. It's an introvert's worst nightmare. I keep my camera off if I can get away with it. Also don't video call me for something that can be handled via email or Google Chat.

[@xiaoka]

When I lived in japan nearly 20 years ago they were pushing the hell out of their overpriced video call features, which wouldn’t be much better than this 1987 Sony thing resolution wise... That said, FaceTime is great for calling grandma and grandpa with the kids. It really is the best use case, especially in the era of covid.

[@dakrontu]

Exactly, you have to get dressed (at least partially) and look respectable. That's why, when they finally arrived, it was such a big non-event.

[@thegrimyeaper]

David Letterman uses a Panasonic version of this to keep track of the traveling Calvert DeForest in "Pan American Goodwill Tour Collection on Letterman Fall 1988" found here on KZbin.

[@oldmantoza]

I remember the “Calvert never left” conspiracy.

[@thecommenter578]

Technology Connections: *"By the magic of buying 2 of them*" Techmoan: *I'LL TAKE YOU ENTIRE STOCK"*

[@twothreebravo]

[Captain America saying 'Hey, I understood that reference']

[@sickregret]

Love this comment

[@Hamporkchop]

too clever

[@raisa_cherry35]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂👏

[@Christopher-N]

Put it next to the coffee maker, et voilà! You have _another_ small kitchen appliance.

[@latrace1986]

I've been watching this channel since 2014 when you were doing a lot of dash cam reviews and I'm just always so happy to not only see your success, but just how you're always able to pull something else so unique and amazing out of the bag -- I felt like at this point, you'd already gotten through a lot of the interested old tech and media formats!

[@ecstazyrm]

He is amazing I love him too. He has all the gadgets I ever wanted.

[@jrmcferren]

There is actually a name for this technique of sending still television images rather slowly. It is called slow scan television or SSTV for short. Radio amateurs still use this technique to send images all over the world, although we use analogue mainly and colour these days, the idea is the same. The limited resolution used was primarily a limit of transmission time as a 320x240 image in full colour will take about two minutes to transmit using analogue signaling.

[@jamesduncan6729]

Very cool 👍🏻 thanks for the info

[@daveys]

Did you try to decode the audio in SSTV software John?

[@daveys]

Yep. Next event is 9-10 June - tomorrow!

[@Intermernet]

Kerbal Space Program had an Easter egg in SSTV format

[@CptJistuce]

Cool thing: SSTV was used to make several broadcasts during the Apollo mission. Including the "one small step". This of course, caused significant issues for the normal television broadcast, particularly as people wanted to watch this live as it happened. The solution was, essentially, to project the SSTV image up on screen and then point standard TV cameras at that screen to capture broadcast-compatible versions, albeit at a reduced quality. (NASA would subsequently accidentally overwrite the tapes with the original SSTV signals, so the only surviving copies are of the degraded broadcast version. Really puts the traditional sitcom "you taped over our wedding" cliche in perspective.)

[@AndersEngerJensen]

And that last printer bit... you should have «faxed» yourself a «You’re fired!» ...Mcfly! 😂🤷🏼‍♂️

[@Techmoan]

Hindsight is 2020... ;-)

[@GrantStewart01]

@@Techmoan *is 2015 🤣😂

[@jwil6902]

I can’t imagine that the use case for this device applied to more than about 5 people on the entire planet in the 1980’s.

[@uselessDM]

I think that applies to quite a few Sony products from back in the day. Maybe there could be some use in the ability to save pictures and watch them on a PC/home computer (if that is possible), but even that would be very niche of course.

[@travis1240]

I imagine that remote grandparents would have really loved this thing back in the day (if they had plenty of technical help).

[@frojoe2004]

remembering the early 90s, My girlfriend and I would definitely have found some..... uses

[@grayrabbit2211]

...yet Instagram has made quite a bit of money off almost the same thing in the 2010s...

[@jwil6902]

@grayrabbit, there’s a world of difference in what Instagram did. Not the least of which is that this is p2p still where Instagram is broadcast. The two aren’t even remotely comparable.

[@techbaffle]

That design still looks modern - must've looked fascinating in the 80's!

[@bombtwenty3867]

Nah, in the eighties door entry video phones used the same sort of picture tube design. Not rare. I only recently threw an old one away bought in 1985.

[@pauldziejman]

Yes I was thinking the same thing! That box looks like it could be on a Best Buy shelf and not be out of place

[@pauldziejman]

@@bombtwenty3867 he's talking about the design language, not the tech.

[@Lishtenbird]

Exactly my first thought after seeing that box! Really had to go do a double take just to if whether I heard the year right. For a moment, I was even disappointed that it was some new product review, and not forgotten tech.

[@Ice_Karma]

The opportunity to see full-motion video of some obscure, antique, or otherwise rare bits of kit (many of which I've never even _heard of_ before!) in action, and frequently their insides too, is the thing I love most about your channel!

[@FatNorthernBigot]

I can't wait until 2001, when we get colour, full-motion video on our home phones. That will be monolithic!

[@worldcomicsreview354]

There were briefly "web phones" that were like extremely cut-down, slow computers with no hard disk or disk drives, viewing the internet (very slowly) only. One of them was called an "iPhone", in 1998! I think Phillips made it.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@worldcomicsreview354 I hope it comes with a nice, long telephone cable, so I can watch it in the front room.

[@favoritemustard3542]

I see what you did there... ...it's moving living-color picture perfect!

[@mrburnz884]

The speed of that printing was impressive.

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

As Eric pointed out it's a thermal printer. It's a stationary head one too: like a fax machine it has a head that spans the entire length of the page. Same technology is used in receipt printers. Modern ones can do pretty decent gray scale graphics, even if the average receipt is a bunch of black and white numbers in a rom font.

[@jessi74]

They use these exact printers on ultrasound and endoscopy equipment to print out quick images during medical procedures.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

@@user-qf6yt3id3w Same as the game boy printer if I'm not mistaken.

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Ooh, that looks weirdly ahead of its time in design. Could easily pass as something much more recent. :D

[@OzRetrocomp]

If the screen had a white bezel and there was less writing on the front, it could pass for something from Apple circa 2005.

[@ncot_tech]

It looks like something you'd see on Kickstarter, probably as some kind of in-home intercom.

[@RocketboyX]

It looks like a home arcade from NeoGeo

[@coding-stephan]

At 4:36 you can see the (really old) logo for the Dutch nationwide phone provider (PTT Telecom). They slapped it onto every device that was sold by them. So this device is once sold (and probably used) in the Netherlands.

[@TexRobNC]

I specifically remember these, because it was one of many things that helped me understand that just because new tech is available, doesn't mean it will become widespread. It caused a lot of frustration in my younger self.

[@eekee6034]

I had a lot of frustration too.

[@netsurferx1]

"Through the magic of buying two of them..." The Technology Connections vibe is strong with this video.

[@nobodynoone2500]

Thankfully, however, much more interesting and easier to listen to.

[@josugambee3701]

"Oh god, he has a _third_ one..."

[@kenjineered7750]

20 minutes and 37 seconds of pure delight. Thank you so much.

[@bastien-]

The image on the larger screen gives me Gameboy Camera vibes

[@B33FY2011]

That is exactly what I was thinking about as well. I wonder if Nintendo seen this and it's possibly where they got the idea from.

[@drzazgi666]

The design on this one is absolutely timeless.

[@YourLocalGP]

"You'd need a video printer (wtf?) attached to this. I do happen to have one somewhere!"

[@ryjelsum]

Look up the 'medical printers' video he did. Devices that print NTSC/PAL video frames. Meant for like, endoscopes and the like..

[@neatodd]

Videos like this make me pick up my smartphone and marvel at how far we've come.

[@CharlesHepburn2]

Future Humans holding holographic oracle cube of wisdom: Awwwhhhh, smartphones... remember them? So cute.

[@DJGodaryD86]

@@CharlesHepburn2 How things are going I highly doubt there is any future with humans in them. Even if the planet survives it can consider itself lucky.

[@CharlesHepburn2]

@@DJGodaryD86 ...but you're an optimist! LOL

[@hanselmanryanjames]

This has to be the only device to ever have a "There\Here" button.

[@DoctorNemmo]

It's missing the "Everywhere" button.

[@christianleigh5051]

No doubt an early Chuckle Brothers reference... To me... To you.

[@raisa_cherry35]

@@DoctorNemmo 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@SkylarsTerribleMemes]

other than the rane pi-14, though that one's got a knob

[@haraldschiner6837]

@@craigjensen6853 Really underrated comment!

[@xmlthegreat]

Design looks gorgeous. Technoman's subscribers are truly the greatest community out there

[@hegedusuk]

Techno man!

[@xmlthegreat]

@@hegedusuk my imaginary grandmother who wanted a boombox called him Technoman, and it stuck.

[@malfattio2894]

I'd love to see an 80s tape recording of a conversation over two of these machines

[@kikichantal72]

Hello There, loved to watch your video Techmoan! Congrats for this particular one. You brought back my memory of around 1990 when I had a small pc/phone store in germany. We bought 4 of the mitsubishis then, tried them out between home and store and realized very quickly, that nobody of age liked the idea of seeing each other whilst being on the phone. I was around 18 years old and still enough of a kid to do like it. I was finally the one who sold all four of them to one customer. 🤣 On the downside as far as I remember this customer only paid half of his bill and dissapeared into thin air 😔

[@oceania68]

Space 1999 rocked back in the day. Still a nostalgic fan though. Shame i didn't keep my gadgets from the 70s.

[@watershed44]

@oceania68 This unit reminds me a LOT of the desktop video communications unit on Commander Koenig's desk! Comlock also was very much a predecessor to the modern smart phone/cell phone/ formerly known as a PDA. I have to believe that many of the things we take for granted today came from the ideas from shows like this back in the 1970s-1960s.

[@americansupervillain4595]

Pictures on a phone? That's crazy, it will never catch on.

[@realJoshiBOI]

Then came Blackberry

[@sbrazenor2]

Yeah, next thing you know, some guy's going to come up with a portable phone that you can carry with you in a pocket. Who would want to make a phone call outside their house anyways? 🤣

[@100hundert]

The design is so lovely. If I had one, I would just put it on a shelf to look at, even if it's effectively useless.

[@domramsey]

Me too. I recently bought a Sony Watchman just to sit on the shelf and look pretty.

[@StarkRG]

It would be cool to set up a Raspberry Pi or something to periodically send it weather data or something

[@favoritemustard3542]

...is there room for me on that shelf?

[@debrainwasher]

@Techmoan The keystone effect is probably caused by a dry electrolytic capacitor in the horizontal amplifier of the CRT. When e.g. the internal power supply voltage breaks down during each frame and recovers during the blanking intervals, such an effect is explainable.

[@boowiebear]

This is simultaneously super impressive and wildly underwhelming! I can’t believe they got this to work at the time and with the limitations of phone lines.

[@saadutuber4920]

Unlike most Tech channels on KZbin your content is still original & entertaining as it has s been been for years, Thank you

[@JTA1961]

True enough

[@300DBenz]

The image data sounds EXACTLY as I expected to sound: perfect.

[@YvanJanssens]

I'm really curious about having a lossless recording of the audio it transmits and that you can save to tape. I want to see if I can write a software encoder/decoder for it

[@felixe2890]

If you haven't seen it, he uploaded the audio file (linked in the description)

[@JamesBos]

Yes! Let us know how you go. That said, we are talking about analogue here, so before any decoding you need to demodulate the audio. GNU radio is made for stuff like this.

[@YvanJanssens]

@@felixe2890 yeah, I've sent Mat an email about that earlier today. Just saw it.

[@YvanJanssens]

@@JamesBos that's indeed the direction I was heading!

[@grishka212]

Judging by the way the direct capture of the video out looks, it sends it as analog, as in, it doesn't digitize anything. edit: I downloaded the file and looked at the waveform and spectrum, it certainly looks like amplitude modulation with carrier just below 2 khz

[@safetinspector2]

About 20 years ago I had a customer that was a "house arrest" services company in Michigan. They issued surplus Hitachi videophones to people under house arrest and these folks would have an alarm that would go off periodically at which point they had to make a video call to a highly modified 486 server which would capture an image of the arrested person in their home, often blowing on a alcohol breathalyzer. The images were stored on flopticals. The hardware for receiving the call and executing a video capture was built into custom 16-bit ISA cards, which made it impossible to upgrade that server. I remember sourcing dusty old mother-boards to keep it alive. A bit like the Vectrex being legendarily an invention borne of an unexpected surplus in vactor monitors, the entire house-arrest-videophone idea was cooked up by a dude that had come upon a warehouse of these black-and-white videophones and developed the service.

[@IdahoFox]

It's interesting to see how many times the idea has been tried over the years. From proof-of-concept versions by Bell Labs in the 1930s when television itself was still fairly new to the public, to their later efforts with Picturephone in the 1960s, to this neat Sony effort in the 80s you show, and early webcams in the 90s and 2000s. Yet every time it seems like the public at large just isn't overly interested beyond the novelty of it. At least for the price that was frequently asked for the quality given. Smartphones and internet speeds certainly have helped bring the price way down, that's for sure. You do mention a good use for the tech being those who benefit from sign language and I agree that's an excellent market for video phone calls (2020 isolation stuff notwithstanding). But even as it's matured I think for most of us it's still a novelty with limited uses. Fascinating and cool, but still relatively niche. I think mainly because most still feel self-conscious about being seen on video. Whether that's a good or bad thing is certainly up for discussion.

[@CDRaff]

11:50 I got teary eyed from nostalgia. If you had edited in the AOL "Hello" I would have burst into full sobs.

[@mubd1234]

A similar Panasonic device was used during a series of segments on Late Night with David Letterman in 1988. Calvert DeForest (a regular on the show) was sent on a doomed goodwill tour from New York to the southern tip of South America, calling into the show to make phone reports every few days and sending a snap of himself using a Panasonic Picturephone. As they went further south, the picture quality gets worse and worse before finally not working at all and they just abandon the idea. You can find the video on KZbin by looking up "Letterman Pan-American Goodwill Tour 1988". Can't direct link in the comments for some reason. Worth a watch for the sheer situational comedy as well, but it gets a bit uncomfortable when they get to Nicaragua, have their car seized at the border and have to catch a rickety bus into the major city....and Calvert is reduced to begging Dave to let them come home!

[@ellsesig.7763]

Amazing find, thanks!

[@imranahmad2733]

I had a similar problem with a 6" Sony pvm monitor, the geometry would get better when left to warm up after 30 minutes, I changed a couple of capacitors and that fixed it, but the service manuals made it easy to fault find, without them it's not too difficult but with them it's straight forward.

[@lagtvfan2128]

The way the screen is setup with the front panel and the glare, totally made it seem like Mat's head was in 3D. Also too, it looked like Holly from Red Dwarf.

[@glennwarlock1555]

Never heard about it, very impressive find. I did obviously heard of the concept of video calls since I was a child in the 70s and 80s--obviously from films and possibly The Flintstones?

[@TheLebbe]

I'm always impressed by the quality of your videos: well researched and well explained.

[@GeneraleRus]

The sound of the image being send is curiously very similar to SSTV that is still used by radio amateurs! Maybe the tech involved is the same, as in encoding and decoding grayscale images by analog sound!

[@derkeksinator17]

That's because the standard is either very similar or the same. Analog Video basically all works about the same way.

[@EmergencyChannel]

SSTV is much slower

[@mjouwbuis]

@@derkeksinator17 only what you hear is not raw analogue video, but some kind of modulation. Probably one where each grey value and sync pulse gets its own frequency. That's arguably digital, or in any case discrete.

[@frankowalker4662]

I love the design of these. The two dodgy ones look like they have a deflection yoke problem. Maybe one of the magnets has come loose.

[@markjamesmeli2520]

This is fantastic. I grew up when re-runs of The Jetsons were still occasionally shown in prime time. In 1970, I fully expected there would be videophones in everyone's home. Never saw, or even heard about one of these. Thanks for bringing these to light.

[@Carstuff111]

I absolutely love the design of most of Sony's stuff in the 1980s. That said, I love a lot of designs from the 1980s.

[@juliussokolowski4293]

Hah! It’s what’s called slow scan television. We still use it on amateur radio bands. It’s narrow band so you don’t waste transmitter power and thus range.

[@nrdesign1991]

3:55 "It's coming." Basically Slow-scan TV but as a product

[@nrdesign1991]

@@mfaizsyahmi It's Sony, so it's got to be something proprietary. But at the other hand it should be very easy to reverse-engineer, with all the data available here. Audio source, settings of the unit, and a simultaneous visual about how the transmission goes.

[@nrdesign1991]

Looking at the waveform, it does seem to use FSK to transmit the settings and initialize the transmission, but uses ASK on a carrier frequency to transmit the image. The 64 grayscales might just be the result of the ADC on the receiving end. The setup for the full resolution "Normal" üictures will be a bit different timing-wise, but fundamentally the same.

[@m3snusteve]

So you can’t use mmstv program to decode the tones, because it’s not in a format the software will decode eg Martin mode 1 or Scottie 1

[@Steve-GM0HUU]

👍Well done for getting a pair of these and doing this demo. Really good that you captured the sound and even did the printer demo. It does sound a little like speeded up analogue Slow Scan Television (SSTV) which has been used by radio hams for decades. The devices essentially seem to be CRT fax machines. Instead of scanning a document and printing a facsimile at the far end, it's doing a video scan and displaying the still picture at the far end.

[@KarimMaassen]

PTT Telecom - Haven't seen that in ages. Instant Dutch nostalgia there.

[@blueredbrick]

I remember these being on display in the PTT Telecom stores

[@MauR1CEnl]

Jup same here 🇳🇱👍

[@maicod]

I remember my 'tick' counter from PTT

[@Alex-956]

aka Post Telegraaf Telefoon

[@LondenTower]

well. I've seen the ptt telecom logo just a few years ago while i was still working at a thrift store. we had some old telephone equipment laying around with the logo which was probably going to be e-waste. however due to a lot of things happening, the store eventually closed and I've never seen the ptt telecom logo ever again.

[@dhpbear2]

5:50 - I wonder how many customers (yeah, right) upon seeing *TAPE REC* and *TAPE PLAYBACK* thought that one could record telephone calls with this device?! :)

[@ChrisR]

Never even heard of this device until I saw this video. Great job, gotta love that 80's imaging/picture tube technology....

[@rompdude]

This is really cool, imagine having these back then and being able to send images back and forth. Would have been great

[@djmoch1001]

I love the look of it. It definitely feels more 21st century than something that came out in 1988.

[@comochinganconesto]

Okay, I'll be the first to ask it... How long do you think it took for this to be used for the 1980s version of sexting?

[@Lorten369]

Although we had video call already back then. But of course not for everyone. But yeah super cool. One of my favourite videos ;)

[@RetroReminiscing]

My thoughts exactley! They would have been pure delux to own and really exciting for us all to use...a fantastic 80s novelty

[@Skinflaps_Meatslapper]

@@Lorten369 Technically most news stations had video call for quite a while before this as well. Anytime there was a reporter in the field conversing with a news anchor at the station it was a video call...it just wasn't via telephone line.

[@stepheng8779]

Ah Sony, when you made the stuff of dreams, whether we wanted them or not.

[@slvr_l7732]

or in other words, whether we could afford it or not

[@MetallicBlade]

And now unfortunately they're an empty shell of what they used to be.

[@Clay3613]

@@MetallicBlade Piss off.

[@EmergencyChannel]

No he's right, Sony make crappy video game consoles and...that's about it.

[@Maikeru_Dabittsu]

@@EmergencyChannel -Worlds most popular console -Some of the best mirrorless cameras and lenses on the market -robot dog -a car for some reason -some of the best TVs on the market -one of best noise cancelling headphones -a drone

[@Crimerenegade]

Damn Boy, First of all props as always for showing us interesting stuff that most of us seen only in old SF movies. Second.. Today I was (like 20 minutes before the video got published) looking for information about image sensors used in videocamcoders before CCD and CMOS sensors were applied. And at 6:41, I've got information about video tube... Impeccable timing

[@pizzablender]

vidicon, image orthicon, those terms will lead you to a lot of history.

[@Crimerenegade]

@@pizzablender Thanks for the info

[@tokyowarfare6729]

Whatching this channel. Allways imprrssed on how much tech Ive ignored even existed

[@channelbrookes]

This is absolutely lovely! I was born in the mid 80s so was totally unaware of all the tech that existed at the time unless it was something my family could afford or was in our local Tandy.

[@PlayTheMind]

Fascinating! I’d really like to see a breakdown and analysis of the sound signal on tape, that would be cool

[@Stoney3K]

I agree. Maybe Matt can make a dump of the tape in Audacity and publish it so anyone who wants it can analyze it? I wouldn't be surprised if the audio format was very similar to either a fax or the slow-scan TV format used by ham radio and satellite operators.

[@Paturnus1]

@@Stoney3K look carefully through all the responses. Somebody actually came up with the mode that it emulates! 73 K2IF

[@ES5NHC]

Totally got nerd sniped by this audio example(thanks, by the way!). Since it seems to be some analog fax mode, I am very tempted to code up a demodulator.

[@ciphermatrix]

That design is pure Sony, it's so ahead of its time.

[@alexeisavrasov888]

Techmoan has the best intro and the best ending music of my favourite channels. The intro swirl draws you in; the end music makes for reflection. Perfect combination.

[@robbyxp1]

Those communicators in Space 1999 were amazing in the 70s. Nice of you to include a reference to them.

[@Rugops42]

"The Image doesn't look too brilliant tho" Me Watching in 144p: "I see nothing out of the ordinary here"

[@lutello3012]

It's 96p

[@AckzaTV]

lol ya u could send youtube and btc qr codes

[@davemc5075]

Mate its from 1989 fs 🤦‍♂️

[@ImConnor01]

my god, be original, you are fucking boring

[@blacklion79]

Maybe, this picture distortion is "mechanical" problem - mirror/screen changed its position, as tube project image upward - and not electronic problem?

[@TehBIGrat]

These screens are used in alot of old Video Door-Phones / Video Intercoms. We service a few different brands and usually there are potentiometers for that adjustment.

[@somitomi]

I think it's an electronic problem, but it is related to the fact that the screen in these small CRTs is not perpendicular to the electron gun. So just like a projector set at an angle to the wall, some additional circuitry is needed to make the image rectangular and if that circuit fails, you get this. If I'm not mistaken, the screen is a phosphor coating on the inside surface of the glass envelope, so it's hard to imagine it moving without the CRT shattering entirely.

[@mjouwbuis]

@@somitomi the deflection yoke could have moved, btu I agree it's more likely to be a problem in the correction circuit.

[@Paturnus1]

@@mjouwbuis more than likely a few coupling capacitors have changed value over the years.

[@watershed44]

@@mjouwbuis On a B/W unit like this you probably could simply adjust the yoke to get the correct geometry for the picture.

[@solidamber]

I was expecting you to connect it to the telephone, in two separate locations, it would have been great if your friend in Holland kept one to demonstrate.

[@Vectrex-xd6qi]

This turned out to be a whole lot better than I expected when I started watching.

[@pauldziejman]

Sonys packaging and designs look like they could be on a store shelf now and not look out of place

[@dietznutz1]

Dam that looks so modern looks early 000s packaging

[@AfferbeckBeats]

It has the same aesthetic as things like rice cookers still have today

[@sjhart14]

I thought the same thing.

[@AidGum]

Design reminds me of the PS5.

[@watershed44]

@@pyeltd.5457 Apple stole the Sony aesthetic ! Sony styling like this goes even further back to the 1970s, same with Panasonic in the 1970s!

[@shelby3822]

Legend has it Dave Murray is currently working on a port of Petscii Robots for this

[@6runge]

Lol it will be played on this device someday sir xD

[@Christopher-N]

I dunno. Computer nerds at the time could send / receive / record programs via sound if they didn't mind the telephone bill. A computer and telephone of the era would have greater interaction capabilities than one of these video phones... but, you still couldn't talk to each other at the same time without a second line.

[@Zatacke]

The transfer sound reminds me a lot of SSTV (Slow Scan Television)

[@LondenTower]

i was thinking the exact same thing.

[@pinkushatejar]

It is the same technology, actually.

[@beautyforashes2022]

13:31 These two contraptions, lined up, side by side, remind me of a couple of coach busses from the front.

[@bvapeldo]

Nice to see these again!! You could try them out at the PTT Museum in The Hague, The Netherlands, there were also telephones connected. The PTT Museum has unfortunately changed a lot the last years.

[@mvl71]

"...by the magic of buying _two_ of them" Sorry, wrong channel

[@fredbloggs5902]

Hilariously, nearly everyone with a smartphone can now make video calls, yet most can’t be bothered... ...It was a ‘problem’ that never really existed.

[@randomnickify]

As someone who lives on other side of the country than my family I make videocalls almost daily and I'm glad the technology exist. Never judge usefulness of technology base on statistical sample of ...you only :)

[@EricLS]

Yeah, I FaceTime all the time. You can see people at the store ok FaceTime with someone at home to make sure they get the right thing, etc.

[@joshuascholar3220]

I've never had a video call on purpose. I think sometimes old people make a video call on their phone by mistake. To be honest, I don't know the key to do it.

[@bxdxggxdxb2775]

Like humanoid robots or flying cars, video-phones are one of those ideas that people THINK they want, because its a sci-fi trope of "the future", but really, the practicalities mean they're next-to-useless, outside a few, niche cases.

[@ligius3]

Maybe it's just me and where I live, but I see people from the middle-east doing video calls in parks all the time, presumably talking to their families. So maybe it's a big thing there or just a cultural thing. I rarely see people from the west doing this in public, except perhaps for teenage girls. Maybe there's a stigma associated with it or perhaps people getting tired of video calls from work and not wanting to carry them over into their personal life.

[@brianoconnell6459]

That almost sounds like an SSTV signal. A method used to send images from space, also an easter egg in Portal 2.

[@m3snusteve]

You are correct sounds like sstv as used by us radio hams and the iss space station. 73s..

[@ProfessionalNoodler]

My first thought was that it was going to be SSTV. Anyone who has pinged the ISS is quite familiar.

[@StarkRG]

It would be pretty silly of them to invent a new technology to do something identical to what already exists which suggests it probably is SSTV. That said this _is_ Sony who tended to have a "Not invented here" kind of corporate culture, so who knows.

[@GoSlash27]

Also an easter egg in Kerbal Space Program.

[@mrphlip]

I don't believe it's actual SSTV, as Wikipedia tells me SSTV is an FM signal, while this is AM...

[@TheLtData]

As always i love your video! I like the idea of a Techmoan museum were we could visit and see all the cool tech you collected!

[@OVERKILL_PINBALL]

Thank you. You channel is one of my top 5 favorite channels. Great video as always and looking forward to the next. :P

[@HisnameisRich]

I must say it's still impressive, I remember how impressed I was by my woefully low res orignal gameboy camera

[@Robert-Wilson]

The audio of the picture being sent sounds very close to the same as what us hams use to send pictures over radio. Called slow scan TV.

[@m3snusteve]

Hi Robert I think you’re right sounds similar to Martin mode 2, or Scottie mode 2 using mmsstv. Been a long time since I’ve sent and received any slow scan tv pictures on 2m fm. 73s.

[@DarkFiber23]

That's immediately what I though of. :) I instinctively wanted to fire up MMSSTV to try to demodulate it. hahaha 73 de WU2F

[@inregionecaecorum]

I can remember back in the day, when I was a member of the local post and telecommunications advisory commitee, being shown a demonstration of a videophone at the local chamber of commerce. The chairman thought that was such a significant event he had a plaque commissioned to celebrate the first step into the future. Well I wonder what happened to the plaque?

[@kalobyte]

it was useles and expensive for 95% of people in the ussr was this too and even in 1961 and 69 kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJaqhY1mqNhsg9U

[@du315h0k]

Fascinating bit of kit. I believe the data transmissions for the images use a similar encryption to Slow Scan TV, the noises being transmitted to instruct the receiver how to reconstruct the image. This is frequently used on HAM radio bands, and most popularly by the International Space Station to transmit images back to Earth.

[@JesseSwaney]

Super appreciate your efforts to make this video. Excellent content.

[@ikannunaplays]

This honestly would have been pretty awesome back in the 80's

[@AfferbeckBeats]

Convincing anyone else to actually go and buy one so you can use it must have been a tall order though

[@CharlesHepburn2]

@@AfferbeckBeats They should have let the porn industry market it... phone sex would have sold it by the millions. LOL

[@Davej82]

Yes, it can't be judged from today's standards standards of quality of photos. If you do it, you could also say that cameras on mobile phones of early 2000s were pretty useless. But instead many people used them and look where are we now with mobile phones cameras.

[@adrienfourniercom]

I like how the users in every single demo image are so uncomfortably close to the built-in camera. If they actually used this videophone like this, they may share their nostrils or a serial killer like face to their interlocutor. Very believable illustration.

[@Lorten369]

Maaan this was cool. One of my favourite so far. Was so sold when you printed. Good on Sony. Now I'm just thinking. What tech to buy that will be worth a billion in 30 years ;p This was awesome thanks

[@krnlg]

This is actually pretty cool - I like the simplicity of the audio and composite jacks. The pictures may be low res but actually transmitted pretty fast, it seems like it would be quite useable and nice to have at the time. The look of the thing is amazing too, very modern indeed!

[@rcfanaticdublin]

You look like the angry Boss 8:14..."Quick look busy!!!" he's watching us.

[@kins749]

Careful poking around with that CRT, it might be holding a nasty shock

[@briebelbus1524]

I’m from the Netherlands and I’ve actually seen these Sony Devices in the PTT telecom store in full working demonstration back in the early 90-ies. There was also a payphone setup with video images. To see these units brings me back to my teens. Nice item.

[@meanmoegel]

Great video as always! I would be curious to see what video output you'd get, if you played a Commodore C64 cassette on it, or regular music - and conversely, what a song's spectrogram would sound like :)

[@Phoenixesper1]

I fix old breadbox macs (Se30 and so on) And the screen distortions like this are very common from CRT's in small applications like this. They are also usually easily corrected with a small screw driver. all CRT's have a minimum of 4 adjuster pins on their boards, Vertical, horizontal, curve and bow. This needs a slight adjustment to the curve pin, to re-establish the parallel along the vertical axis. All three of these can be made to function near perfect with 20 mins and a screwdriver.

[@Carboxylated]

One of the coolest videos about early 80s tech that I have ever seen. So cool!