Vintage Tech: Jaz Drive, Slides and Rare Video Tape Formats!

[@MisterTalkingMachine]

In my drawer I have an old glass picture slide from WWI. It pictures a battlefield with barbed wire, and soldiers walking away from the camera towards the horizon with their guns. It's only marked _B.12_.

[@Stoney3K]

Kodachrome was a superior film stock with unprecedented sharpness and colour reproduction. Too bad they don't produce the film anymore or you can't process it. The good image quality is the reason people still shoot film today.

[@johnny-becker]

My schooling age was the golden age of video. In grammar school, we pretty much got real to real. I remember one time the catcher reel stopped spinning and the film landed in a big pile on the floor. in Jr. High, they all got VHS players and in high school, we got the new amazing technology of DVD players. oooh, ahhh! I hate to say it but I think Blu-Ray players, much like the old FireWire portable connection to computers, never really got a fair shot at becoming main stream.

[@joydime]

When I was in 6th grade Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video was released on MTV with much fanfare and hysteria to follow. The problem was that you couldn't watch it anywhere other than cable. Well since only about 25% of the kids had cable tv in their home, it was quite an unfair situation. No worries, our public school principal was able to obtain "Thriller" on a film reel, and sent everyone in the 5th and 6th grade home with a permission slip, to be signed by a parent, to allow you to attend a special screening of the video in the auditorium the next day. Of course a few unlucky bastards were consigned to the library. We loved the video so much we begged for them to rewind and play it again, which they wisely obliged us. To this day whenever "Thriller" is on the radio I can still hear the loud clicking of the school's film projector keeping time in the background.

[@vintagecameras9623]

nice

[@kenknight5983]

I swear I have some souvenir slides next to my laptop , watching this video. Without having a proper way to view them (my naked eye or a torch), superficially they don't look as good as those proper shots.

[@SurprenantJamesAB1DQ]

Kodachrome slides are archival quality and retain their color qualities, but standard E6 slides like Ektachrome fades over time. GAF is pronounced as G A F, not "gaff." Also 128 was not a film format.....you probably meant 126. Good stuff however, yo do good work, keep it up.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

We called it "GAFF" in my family. I suppose the joke was on us, but they were quite big in the 70's for a lot of film products like cameras and even View Masters.

[@MrSpacelyy]

Zipdrive isn't a tape... It has a soft disk inside. (floppy) Jazz had a harder disk. Iomega ditto was a tape drive.

[@kelboswell]

I have some experience with the Quasar Time Machine format, and an interesting story. In the early 90s, I was doing VCR repair in the back of a video store in West Memphis, AR. The estate of Elvis Presley brought me what was left of one of the machines, and a box of tapes. They claimed that he had thrown it out the window in a fit of rage over a recorded newscast. They were hoping that there would be home movies on the tapes, and wanted me to try and get the machine running well-enough to see. I tinkered with it, and got it partially working. Unfortunately, all of the tapes were timeshifted TV :( They paid me well for my time, and took all of it back.

[@kelboswell]

BTW, the video head goes inside the hole opposite the reels. It's a manual loading system, using a horizontal sliding knob in front of the top-load door.

[@BlueNeon81]

the problem with slides is, that anything else than Kodak Kodachrome and Orwo (before 1981) has the problems with faded colors. Also known in retro cinema theaters

[@postal_the_clown]

I kind of beg to differ on that.. I was an Ektachrome person as I did not like the punchiness of Kodachrome. What few slides I have left from the 60's & '70's still retain their color..That is one advantge of film over digital. It seems that every manufacturer has their own concept of color. Truer with earlier digicams and the differences between CMOS and CCD. If there was a film you liked, you could pretty much expect the same color quality in your Argus brick or a Nikon F.

[@wildbilltexas]

My dad had a Argus "brick" 35mm camera and shot a lot of slides back in the 60's. I scanned many for my parents 60's wedding anniversary a few years ago and they still looked great. I'd love to find a vintage slide projector too.

[@smudger671]

Plenty of vintage slide projectors on fleabay.

[@orbulonayylmao248]

ya like jaz

[@ewk67]

ray liotta private select

[@Craigamonster]

ur terrible for that

[@IAmNotAFunguy]

Look into Sony NT, the world's smallest audio tape.

[@slade307]

I remember those video formats. That Quasar tape reminds me of CartriVision. I remember the Technicolor CVC ads in Video Magazine. I wanted all of these different formats. The one that stands out the most for me was a Kodak Video8 modular unit. You had the main VCR unit that could dock with a camera module to have a camcorder. At home, the VCR section could dock with another piece that would let you play the tapes on your TV. I can't find a good picture of it. It seems to be called the Kodak MVS and the camera modules are MVS440 and MVS460. Those are the only model numbers I can find.

[@slade307]

Found an image on eBay - www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-Kodak-MVS-460-5000-Vintage-Compact-8mm-Modular-Video-System-Camera-Camcorder-/322179447216?hash=item4b036439b0

[@airgunzel4430]

Still have my Sanyo Vcord tape machine (in PAL) plus about 50 tapes, bought about 30 years ago from a School yard sale. Still works tho the video camera doesn't. As far as I can tell it was a B&W format.

[@databits]

Very cool, I'd like to own one some day.

[@lukewind30]

I remember how amazed I was with Jaz Drives. Still have about 12 of them in storage, each one filled to the brim.

[@databits]

Jaz and other IOMEGA products were just plain cool

[@jasonthejawman5442]

This trip brought memories love your content

[@1marcelfilms]

i remember on vacation there was this free public internet computer where i hung all day. this had a dat drive i think. it could hold like 25 or 50 gb i think

[@pierrejeanf.dupuis4150]

It's six years ago. My showing of rare formats six years ago would have been lame to very poor (my most interesting format would have been an early to mid 70's Philips tape for the N150x/N170x VCRs). Although I did have a large number of (multi-reel) Super8 feature films already back then. Combining rare and just plain old obslolete formats I own now (just media, not players) I'd probably get 2-3 hours of video spending about 30 seconds on each format. I know "rare format" videos have been done to death on other channels. Stil... I'd be interested in seeing your update. How many rare media formats do you have now, six years down the road?

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

The reason for all those old slides and motion picture films getting red, is due to the cyan-color dye later in the film's emulsion severely fading (with the magenta and (to an extent) yellow layers holding up over time, hence the reddishness). This was almost exclusive to "Eastman"-branded film stock, which was a cheaper line of film stock that Kodak sold throughout the 50s-70s to commercial customers for making commercially-released films and slides. It was cheaper because Kodak didn't invest in either the emulsion formulation ingredients to keep the red dyes from fading so fast, or research to make them last longer. Kodak passed the savings on to the customer which resulted in severe cyan dye fading with the Eastman stock, resulting in those red prints.

[@crazycory25]

I just came across this video. I had the Iomega Ditto drive. That thing took FOREVER to back up my Gateway 2000 with a 850MB hard drive. I think I had to let it run over night for the backup to fully run.

[@BlueAcid9]

+databits Ignoring ROM, optical, etc... what makes a case for magnetic storage a cassette or a cartridge? Is it a real technical distinction or just whatever the company wants to brand it as? VHS, Beta-Max, LTO, etc.

[@DelilahThePig]

Kodak carousels are more reliable. Less friction and sticking.

[@BetamaxFlippy]

I have a BRAUN Paximat Multimag 925 AFC and despite aging problems it works a treat

[@yaboimaxwell9031]

Just saying, there are some CVC demos on KZbin if you want to see the quality. I've seen CVC cameras cheap on eBay.

[@KenjiUmino]

wow - i never seen a jaz drive in action - i have used 44mb and 88mb SyQuest disks tho ... and zip. was that large audio tape cartridge on the market before the audio cassette we know today went popular or did those two formats compete with each other ?

[@jaybrooks1098]

Jaz and sparq drives were unreliable. The disk heads will eventually get damaged and will destroy the disks put in afterwords.

[@AnOfficialAndrewFloyd]

SCSI - Small Computer System Interface. The Atari ST / TT computers could use them.

[@FromSagansStardust]

The film/camera format at 6:30 is 126. It was the Instamatic and other low end cameras, film came in a cartridge and cameras had no focus or exposure adjustments.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

ever read the phrase "Because it's your stuff" it is the same phrase on the JAZ drive, we have over 30,000 color slides from over the years near to where one of your presidents were born and bred.

[@KentuckyRanger]

@ 2:12 I love that slow clunk of the read write head. They where so fast back then, but sound, and are soooo slow in comparison today. Also, they where't cheap! @ 3:59 I so remember dropping film off at the Fotomat... www.retroland.com/fotomat/ @ 4:19 That's G.A.F. It was a BIG company back in the day. It's an acronym, meaning General Aniline & Film. They've had quite the history! People my age remember GAF for the View Master. They're still in business, manufacturing roofing materials! @ 5:21 Kodachrome was awesome film! Kodak decided to introduce its movie film to the public in this form, and it was spectacular! It was also allot more expensive that other slide film. Ilford had Cibachrome (Ilfochrome). It was an awesome positive (Slide) film as well, and expensive as well. The wonderful thing about these films are the fact they retain their pigments indefinitely. Stock film shot in the 50s looks like it was taken yesterday afternoon. And the films emulsion was so tightly packed, there was almost no grain, but the purest image possible. Other slide film was inexpensive, and horrible! The color is lost so bad, they become nothing but a reddish, ultra grainy, image. There is so much color loss, white balance is impossible. The only way to achieve any quality when scanning them is to completely take the color saturation out, leaving it a black and white photo. @ 5:38 Just look at the color depth! And this photo was probably taken back in the 50s! @ 6:03 There's a perfect example of the horrid, cheap, film! All emulsion layers shift to red, just horrible! They don't fade, but the dye's shift hue, rendering the image completely red. Like I said before, when scanned, the only way to save the image is to convert it into a Black and White image. Once you do that, they don't look bad. @ 8:31 CVC??? I've never heard of this one... @ 9:08 Whut??? Now this one is an odd bird... @ 9:41 WOW!!! I remember in the late 70s and all through the 80s, format wars where all over the map! And this one is another I never saw, LOL! @ 11:23 Now I feel stupid, LOL! I thought I was going to see formats I'd recognize, and you've stumped me! I though I knew most formats, but this is just wild!

[@databits]

Thanks for the MANY comments and for being a faithful watcher!

[@michaelshultz2540]

The quasar great time machine tape the little door you opened up was for the audio / sync head. The large round hole has a cover that screws out to expose the tape loop. The video drum in the machine had only one head and the tape had to be compleatly wrapped around the head in a spiral loop. The machine had a skew controle that adjusted the tension on the tape do it would track the drum. The other tracking control works like all vcr and adjusts the timing of the sync pulse.

[@adenowirus]

Does that Jaz Tools CD have an unnecessarily elaborate installation program on it?

[@zusurs]

3$ ?? When I was looking for one on ebay and local trift shops here in Europe, cheapest I found was 70$... :(

[@ingenfestbrems]

Why didn’t call the zipdrive, the blues drive?, it’s Blue

[@bobsbits5357]

the price's of working units is now very silly and there's a wars on them in the uk finding some one that has time to work on them now i hard to find the man in reading he stopped woring on them

[@burntoutelectronics]

i still have all my zip disc drives

[@Jeffrey314159]

I still have my family's old Commodore VIC-20 from the early 1980's, with its specially made cassette tape player, game cartridge, joy stick, RF modulator, an power supply

[@theodoretreinen5206]

anyone know where i can get windows 10 drivers for my zip drive?

[@Jeffrey314159]

3:53 My parents, my dad had a slide projector like this he used to show to us all in home shows in the 70's and 80's

[@databits]

Fond memories?

[@Jeffrey314159]

Strangely enough I don't remember the pictures myself, but I do remember my late father getting a lot of pleasure using his slide project to see them. My father was always so fond of his gadgets - - be they cameras, watches, calculators, binoculars, or automobile accessories

[@AckzaTV]

So its only for recording Jazz music? can you record hip hop or R&B with it?

[@databits]

Actually Jaz music with one "z". Slight variation of Jazz.

[@zfoxfire]

You know you are old when you grew up with all this stuff

[@adampoll4977]

Why do you have a photo of Will Byers? ;)

[@autofox1744]

What kinda sheltered-ass childhood did you have where "scuzzy" was a curse word?

[@databits]

Mine was far from sheltered. But I appreciate your concern! :)

[@BetamaxFlippy]

Slide projection is an amazing activity. I found some very old slides from the 60's up to the 90's that look simply amazing, especially the kodachrome ones (they're really dark tho) and it's interesting to notice that older film is much more grainy but still holds all the nice colours. I have various """souvenier""" slides too but they faded to red as well, sadly the slides of the apollo are included in the faded ones :'((

[@databits]

Oh no! Such sadness with the fading.

[@BetamaxFlippy]

Well the apollo/moon landing slides have thick frames with a glass plate on both sides, gonna recycle them for better slides. After all the apollo photos are all over the internet already and in better definition.

[@ilcool90]

Those are quite cool. I actually like the Zip drive format. My old Mac had a 250 mb Zip drive. And I do plan to get a stand alone drive soon

[@prismstudios001]

I just watched a man explain what slides are.... Crap, I feel OLD.

[@databits]

Thanks for your comments!

[@Spacekriek]

Another very interesting video (I thumbed it up too), it's always enjoyable seeing these old-time formats a bit more up close. The VX format was new to me and I did some reading up on it. It was interesting to note it used a very small head drum, i.e. 48 mm (smaller than 2 inches) compared to Betamax and VHS with somewhat larger video drums. I am just curious to find out if it was also prone to damaging the video tape like in the case of a similar system, the Philips VCR format ? Lastly I just want to mention that I would like to see more of the D1 (or D-1) format... that was one massive video cassette I recall seeing a picture of one on the internet, it measured about 18 inches wide (though I might be out a little bit !)

[@MnACreations]

Speaking of slides.. We went to an auction several years ago and they were selling everything in box lots. So we bought a couple of lots. In one of the lots was a small box and in it were various 8mm film cans and several smaller boxes of slides. So dad loaded all the slides up into the projector and they were of someone's vacation.. So my sisters, brother and I made up everything about the current slide we were looking at and even the people were made up relatives.. That was so much fun.. Thank you for the trip down memory lane :-)

[@gerryroberts662]

I love the formats.. I have home movies of my 50 yr old brothers.. This is so great,,

[@databits]

I appreciate all of your comments.

[@scottstrang1583]

I've never seen a prerecorded Dolby s cassette. Have you come across any dbx type II prerecorded cassettes?

[@databits]

I found some tapes from Europe that say DBX on them, but they are far from high fidelity. Other than that, no.

[@postal_the_clown]

I did Super8 sound starting in '76. It was expensive as all heck. 3min of film would cost close to $10 (including processing}which was a lot then. The GAF camera may have cost around $200 but the Minolta projector I had was $400. Higher end projectors would allow you to record on the thinner balance strip as well. But Lots more money and patience were required to edit as the sound heads were placed about 24 frames beyond the gate to isolate the tape from the shaking of the shutter. To be fair, though, the sound was superior to the picture. In those terms, 2 hrs of quad HD from a smartphone would have probably bought you a Pinto. That is one piece of retro tech that should stay buried.

[@Cristian.Cortez]

why is there only paper slides I have some with a metal frame for what ever reason there darker though

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Sometimes the frames are plastic as well, it can vary from developer or use. I used plastic framed slides that could be opened up to remove the film inside.

[@КириллТелегин-ж8к]

What Else You Wanna Record On This Gigantic Video Tape?

[@rmx77]

there are 2 video tape formats u forgot one was the one made by grundig or telefunkin which is video 2000. then philips made one in the uk or europe that looked like a square which here in the us it was called svr but in the uk and europe it was called n1500 and n1700. on the video 2000 it looked like a huge audio tape or it looked like the rca cartridge tape where it could have video and audio on both sides. the svr or n series was very funky since the tape case was like a square and the tape i think i am not sure had either a reel on top of a reel or a single reel to the tape. those formats failed sad to say it wasnt till the vhs tape won over everything else. i wish we had tons of recording formats still in use.

[@MnACreations]

I have an internal Jaz drive somewhere.. Along with a ZIP and a Magneto Optic 3.5 inch

[@matthewrichards88]

amazing vjdri. full of amazing formats and. what a collection! I have never heard of some of these formats before. fascinating! :)

[@choma83]

Peter Griffin, is that you? @12:00

[@AckzaTV]

Scuzy does sound like a bad word

[@databits]

Indeed it does! Thanks for watching!

[@fadzilahmnasir1107]

'obsolete tapes' is pretty good movie title

[@Complextro93kg]

Cool stuff :)

[@johneygd]

Sooo many and/or gigantic tape formats i never heard of,amezing.

[@zacksullivan8194]

Ever found a Syquest drive? Pretty interesting storage with similar use cases to Jaz drives, although I believe Syquest was magnetic tape.

[@databits]

I've not yet run across a Syquest drive but I remember them!

[@zacksullivan8194]

I actually have a few sitting in my basement. One of them is hooked up to a Macintosh IIci that needs to be recapped. They're pretty neat.

[@douro20]

SyQuest made removable-cartridge hard disk drives as well as tape drives, but their removable-cartridge hard disks were more popular. They weren't quite as reliable as the Iomega Jaz drives, though.

[@scottstrang1583]

I seem to remember that the Syquest easy 135 used what looked like hard drive platers.

[@The_Laser_Channel]

CVC was a new one to me....surprised there was no V2000 tapes there....

[@crashbandicoot4everr]

V2000 tapes are almost impossible to find in the US.

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

Quite true--Philips (inventor of V2000) never marketed the format at all in North America--I reckon they saw the writing on the wall there with the "video war" between VHS and Beta then in the N.A. consumer electronics market, and didn't want to get caught in the crossfire and/or add a 3rd format to confuse customers in the USA/Canada even more..

[@KK4CNM]

We had one of these circa 1995-96, it was the 1GB version for PC and also used SCSI. We used it for backups for several years and found that sometimes the disc would go back for no apparent reason. We ended up using a CD burner for backups after that. I've got some stuff you might get a kick out of like a 1" master video h621 reel.

[@databits]

Very cool!

[@michaelbianchi22]

That landscape on the first slide is Oklahoma.

[@pixel1358]

You remind me A LOT of Techmoan. Another KZbin channel similar to yours.

[@databits]

Thank you. He's been borrowing ideas from me for a long time now.

[@kirknelson156]

i had both the ditto and the zip drive :)

[@channelr2st360]

Hit like if you love vintage technology

[@BertGrink]

haha that Sean Connery impersonation :D

[@databits]

Yesh?