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So you found granpa's stash of old LPs but you don't have a record player to hear, say, Alice Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare"? Fear not, there's a piece of wood that can play LPs AND uses Bluetooth speakers! I recall that there was a "VW Bus" LP player that had a built-in speaker to play, say, The Fugs' "It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest," as it whipped around the disk at road runner speed. So, should you get one for an LP collector? Not if you want to make a lifetime enemy out of the LP fancier. This was a "Shark Tank" contest winner's $500,000 gift to an unsuspecting world, which doesn't say much for "entrepreneur TV" (I've never watched the show myself, preferring "Moonshiners," instead, since the "boondocks distillers" have practical skills.;) Late news: Techmoan got some flak on YouTube about "playing at the wrong speed." So he dug out his "house LP players" to show how strange the RokBlok sounds next to "the real thing." Then he took it apart to see if something was wrong with it...

Step right up folks, here's something for your new year's party, a record player that fits in the palm of your hand! In spite of it's toy-like appearance and 8 cm vinyl discs that play for up to 4 minutes at 33 1/3 RPM, you can have some fun with 4 AA batteries. I suspect that this definitely would catch the fancy of the "person who has everything.";)

It's the 40th anniversary of "Star Wars: Episode IV"! For the "Star Wars" fan in your orbit, here's a sound and sight extravaganza with the Original Sound Track on vinyl, complete with holograms! Beware! There be hand puppets lurking at the end of this video, armed with a suspicious looking potato...;)

Do you miss those days of dropping quarters into video games at the local arcade? Is your "Man Cave" too small for a console video game? Step right up folks, you too can have four, yes 4 video games and have space left over for your can of cola! Once again, "Techmoan" has tested and approved (some) of these video games for young gamers, in time for Christmas. (Indeed, only the sub-30 club can even see the tiny LCD screens, let alone play these games with their tiny controls.) Sorry, no hand puppets were endangered during the production of this video.;)

It's 1992 and you're putting together a marathon of "The Songs of Slim Whitman" for the company's "Mars Attacks!"-themed Christmas party. But MP3s don't exist, nor stand alone CD changers, so what will you do to curry favor with the boss for that much needed "Christmas bonus"? Never fear, "Techmoan" to the rescue, with a 5-Compact-Cassette-Changer from Panasonic! And this time, the hand puppets make an appearance...along with a Potato!;)

Step right up folks, have a gander at this joystick-and-buttons video game console with 800, count 'em, 800 arcade-level video games! Leave the quarters for laundry, this console has a coin button so you can play long enough to say: "What day is it? Really!?" Techmoan lets us into his video gamer youth (and drags a young relative into this pit!) to test the 2-player games. On your marks, get set, push "Play"!

Get in the WayBack time machine and set Ye Olde DeLorean for 1983. It's time for "Techmoan" to look at Retrotech and fix an-otherwise-pricey Sony vertical/horizontal LP player. No puppets this time, but a look at "Hipster Tech," a niche which has priced these units into the stratosphere. But you can play, say, Barry Manilow for up to 7 hours on a set of 4 AA cells!

What unusual recordings has "Techmoan" found today? A tech to repair a defunct DCC player, an album on Elcasete (!?), A playable stereo microcassette ala "A Clockwork Orange," and old 3.5 inch "mail tapes."

Step right up folks, here's a technology that will make vinyl LPs sound much better than they do now. Sorcery? Impossible? Not at all, CBS records has found a way to make LP playback a pleasure with a CX decoder, and no worse without a special box. But then, recording engineers weighed in, and the waters got very muddy...

Return with us to the late 1960's, as Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" is about to change the way we think about long distance communication. Enter Smith-Corona, putting the typewriter business aside to solve the problem of high priced long distance telephone calls. For the record, I saw more of the 3.5 inch reels of 1/4 inch tape headed for the post office than these cartridge-based "voice mail" items. I also recall seeing Compact Cassette mailers for very long-winded "messages from home.";) Bonus: The Bacon Express!

Hey, what did your dog/cat/kids/significant other find in your "junk box"? An old mix tape that you haven't played for years! (For the Y2K generation, a mix CD.) But what to play it on? The last ccompact cassette player died years ago, the capstan wrapped in ribbons of "eaten tape." Trust "Techmoan" to discover Sony's latest multimedia product, CD+cassette boomboxes. One is a simple, somewhat round thing that has the look and feel of a local discount store. (With sound to boot!) The other is a "domestic-market-only-Japanese-character-labelled-controls" version that can do "the clock radio" thing. Listen as "Techmoan" tries various cassette tape formulations Without Dolby Noise Reduction to determine a winner. Then thrill to the Puppets at the end!

Have you ever heard of a "sound camera"? In the early 1960's, when portable (battery powered) tape recorders were appearing on the market, the idea that you could record sounds found at home/office/travel locations was popularized. Submitted for your approval is the Sanyo Micro-Pack 35 tape recorder, which came to market along with the Philips Compact Cassette. I actually used a Channel Master version (I think) and found it ultimately underwhelming for recording TV audio with the supplied microphone. But "Techmoan" has nice things to say about this early solution to the complexity of reel-to-reel tape recorders. ("Mission: Impossible" on TV featured a tiny (tinny?) tape recorder to brief "Mr. Briggs" on the team's next spy caper!)

Did you see the sun disappear today? Out here in the Northern Pacific, we got only a slice taken out of Old Sol. Submitted for your approval, 3 recordings on "eclipsed" tape formats of days gone by. The final recording features a current artist on a Philips Digital Compact Cassette, which is supposed to be as dead as the ever-s0-tiny Sony NT format. Dumpster diving at eBay can be interesting, eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXlblGvNtOs&t=35s "Halt and Catch Fire" returns to AMC this coming Saturday for a fourth (and final) season. Techmoan also watches this "Silicon Prairie" tale, and seeks out a Commodore 64 to play some games from his youth. As with much of old tech, there are repairs required, and parts to be found for these "portable" behemoths of the 1980's. Does Techmoan get to play an old game or two? And do the puppets pop up at the end?;)

OK Hipsters, you got that killer picture on your iPhone, and one of your friends asks for a copy. A copy? As in "hard copy"? What to do with someone not satisfied with an email version? That's where the Prynt Pocket iPhone Zynk Printer comes in. See what labyrinthine measures one has to go through to make "hard copy" for posterity. See what happens when there's no 24 hour Kinko's nearby! Yearn for the days when Polaroid was still making packs of instant film! (Personally, I can't remember the last time I made a hard copy print from one of my digital cameras.;)

Would you ever associate Education or Games with 8-Track audio tapes? Here's another thrilling "eBay treasure" that Techmoan has discovered and imported into Great Britain. This unit required some repairs to run as either an 8-Track player or a game system. Hear Vincent Price asking questions about Hollywood movies! Is that Allen Ludden helping you navigate "Password"? And who is that weird fellow at the beginning explaining how 8-Trackl tapes work? A game system for ages 10 to Adult, but one wonders if there were 10-year- old kids that were that sophisticated in 1980.;)

Snap! Crackle! and Pop! Return with us to those thrilling days when vinyl LPs and marvelously over-engineered turntables were the sole high fidelity music reproducers. Yep, we're battling "the usual suspects," dirt, grime and LP mould release compound. To misquote High Fidelity and/or Stereo Review magazines: "Do your LPs sound like they were recorded at a pistol firing match? Make use of one of these fine debris removers so the only thing you will hear is pickup hum or turntable rumble." Techmoan has included sock puppets for the kiddies.;) Techmoan Ads, Enders, etc. (Warning! May induce girlish giggles and manly guffawa!)

Just in time to melt away in the heat of the Summer, a "wax cylinder" Edison Phonograph kit by Gakken. Record your own "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on a wax cylinder, find yet another use for candles, and above all, have as much fun as an adult as when you were a kid!;) How do the Pros do it? Are your LPs a dirty disgrace? "Wood glue!?" are you crazy?

Just when you thought that there was nothing new "on vinyl." Although nothing like the windup record disk players of long ago, here's something for that hard to buy relative or friend.;) A vertical turntable for 33- and 45-RPM disk fans... 1982 Sharp RP-114 Vertical Turntable + fixit exercise

This (apparently) iEurope-only automobile tape player system lost out to the 4- and 8-track Lear Jet system in the long run. Nevertheless, even for a monoaural, single speaker (downward firing) car tape player, I'll bet there's a tinkering genius who's still using this in his (large) classic sedan. It's a neat system, and the tape reels can be taken out to play on vintage reel-to-reel tape recorders.;)

Here's another "Muppet Labs"-level piece of tech kit that the Brit tech boffin found worth of a video. (I wonder if the Internet-challenged-hand puppets show up this time?)

Something that defies description from that YouTube tech geek, "Techmoan." Definitely something for the whole (Japanese) family back in the day, or for displaying a favorite image in ways you never thought were possible.;)