United Biscuits Network | Hacker News Reader

United Biscuits Network

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57 pointscnorthwood15 comments

There were various lo-fi business music systems. Muzak, like United Biscuits, distributed over telephone lines. There were self-contained systems. Seeburg, the jukebox maker, made one, the Seeburg 1000. It wasn't random access like a jukebox. It just played a stack of records over and over with a relatively simple mechanism.

Seeburg's had their own orchestra, in Chicago, and recorded their own records. They just had to buy a "mechanical license" from the songwriters, which in the US costs a fixed rate set by law. So they owned rights to the content. To protect it, they recorded it on a nonstandard sized disk (9 inches), a nonstandard hole size (2 inches) with a nonstandard speed (16 2/3 RPM, rather lo-fi) and a nonstandard stylus size (5 mils). They didn't copyright the content; that cost money back then.

Someone collects these obsolete machines, restored a Seeburg player, and modified a modern turntable to play them. They stream it out, legally.[1]

[1] https://radiocoastcom.godaddysites.com/

In the 90s I worked at a pharmaceutical factory. They had little autonomous electric line follower vehicles that transported samples through the halls.

Because these moved very silently, every one of them had small transistor radio attached (in a makeshift way) that blared music through the buildings.

I'm always shocked more companies don't do things like this, especially now that it's so much cheaper. Yes, yes, everyone has their own playlists, but an employee-run, company-wide streaming station is a cheap moral builder.

There's one that immediately pops into mind: Walmart Radio.

It's hosted in Bentonville, but distributed to all the stores in the US, as well as some international locations.

Associates (Employees) can call in and request certain songs, give shout outs to another associate, etc.

https://www.walmartworld.com/content/walmart-world/en_us/rad...

Disclosure: Used to work at Walmart Corporate.

In the 90s, Microsoft support had a DJ spinnin' tunes while you waited:

https://www.wired.com/1994/04/radio-microsoft/ (check out those single-digit wait times.)

I worked there when it was still going, but I don't recall if it was employee-accessible or not. I seem to have some vague recollection of having heard it, but I might have been actually making a support call for a product.

When I worked in a factory they piped the local pop station over the PA system all day. At first it is really cool, but then when you've heard Alanis Morrisette for the 112th time that day, it can grate. And there is no escape :(

> And there is no escape :(

From the irony? ;)

Ha! I can quote you all the lyrics all day long from every song on that album since then :)

It’s the jingles that got me. They still visit me in my dreams all these years later..

When I was younger I did gymnastics and the gym coach had some local pop station set up.

3 days a week for what felt like a whole year I was hearing that "Hot and fresh out the kitchen" song. I think it was about sex.

My university had a radio station. Still around: https://www.icradio.com/

TIL. I thought this would be related to King Biscuit Time, "the longest-running daily American radio broadcast in history", but apparently it's just a coincidence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Biscuit_Time

The King Biscuit Flour Hour certainly did come to my mind when I saw the headline for TFA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Biscuit_Flower_Hour