Childhood toys: 40 years on 2-XL works just fine | Hacker News Reader

Childhood toys: 40 years on 2-XL works just fine

blog.jgc.org

104 pointsjgrahamc21 comments

Techmoan somewhat recently did a video on the 2xl, including breaking down the various tracks on the 8-track.

That’s cool. In the clip I posted I swear the initial sound effect is actually RTTY. Anyone ever try to decode it?

I was thinking the same thing. I am not sure it is 45.45 baud w/170Hz shift (taken from memory) ham RTTY, but I figured I'd run it through a decoder once I got back inside the shack just to see if it is an Easter egg or just random...

Let’s see which one of us gets there first!

I don’t have much time to look deeper but around 3kHz there are two peaks 300Hz apart. Wouldn’t surprise me if there is a signal there and could be ASCII.

https://blog.jgc.org/2022/10/the-hidden-code-inside-2-xls-sp...

One other thing I learned from Techmoan is that one of the few remaining companies making cassette playback mechanisms today is a company called "Tanashin" - and I only bring that up because that name is on a sticker in one of the photos inside this 2-XL in jgrahamc's post.

According to https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-last-cassette-pl... , Tanashin no longer makes tape mechanisms. The so-called "Tanashin" mechanisms found in modern products are actually Chinese mechanisms based on old Tanashin designs.

Ahhh very interesting! I had no idea

It looks like Tanashin is out of business now. At least their website returns a 401 and has for the past year or so (according to the internet archive).

Last snapshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20210117133724/https://www.tanas...

Another youtuber, VWestlife, has more technical and has talked more about this. As another poster notes most of these are knockoffs and even the motors are knockoffs that go so far as to put the label of a more reputable company on them.

> On opening 2-XL by removing 13 screws I was ready for an internal mess and had the air duster ready. But the insides were pretty clean for something 44 years old.

If you don't have re-circulation / ventilation fans, it really shouldn't get that messy if the exterior case is moderately tight. My image of "old electronics" is mainly from old mainframes / desktops, and those have copious fans to really suck in all the dust and pet hair.

It generally heavily depends on room it is in. My PC at home (no AC, middle of city) pretty much needs yearly dusting, one in office (AC) barely gets any dust, servers in datacenter even less even after near decade of use (we had some legacy stuff)

There was an Italian equivalent version of this. I don't remember the name but it was grey and blue, and it was sold circa early 90s. It had the exact shape and look of this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/694191660/vintage-1992-tiger-2x.... but without the 2xl logo. Loved how Italy was rebranding everything

I had almost worked out myself how it worked by playing those special tape in a normal recorder.

Unless there were weird bootlegs going around, it was still called 2-XL with the same branding (https://youtu.be/aVXwo6raHoA)

Today this will be an app, probably much better in many aspects. But some magic is lost by not being an specific object designed for a single purpose.

There are plenty of "Story box" that exist now. Mixed Ng the advantages of an app and the tangibility of a real object. One example I know of: https://lunii.com/en-gb/

Pictures of this old, clunky circuit board bring up fond memories.

I’m surprised the 8 track cassette was still good. I remember finding an old box of 8 tracks in the late 80s and they were disintegrating. Assumed they weren’t built to last for decade plus. But maybe those were just stored poorly.

I wonder if this acted as some inspiration for the 2-Bit character in Deathloop: the vocals in particular are similar.

LOL I had one of these. They made them with both red and green LED for the eyes. I only got a Big Trak when I was 40 and they re-released it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com