A smart phone from 1984 - The STC Executel
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- 1984's smartest phone - The STC 3910 Executel. A desktop information device that looks straight out of Blade Runner. Futuristic in concept, yet very much a product of its time.
Binary Dinosaurs pages on the STC Executel
www.binarydinos...
www.binarydinos...
UPDATE
IT TURNS OUT MY PHONE WAS ONCE THE PROPERTY OF THE COMPANY I RANG AT THE END OF THE VIDEO (H&S)
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---------Outro Music----------
Over Time - Vibe Tracks • Over Time - Vibe Track...
-----Outro Sound Effect-----
ThatSFXGuy - • Six Million Dollar man...
*M Y S T E R Y S O L V E D* - *THIS PHONE WAS PREVIOUSLY OWNED BY H&S (The company who answered my call)* *It is an executive recruitment consultancy.*
*This message is pinned and in bold to make it as visible as possible*
How did you find out?
Old phone directories showed the numbers as belonging to them. The company still has offices in all those locations and has been around sixty years. I think the problems with the numbers I rang were just down to changes over the last 26 years - e.g prefixes of some numbers or consolidating to a central exchange.
@@Techmoan Ah, right. Of course. Like almost all phone numbers in the Netherlands changed in 1995 because of a giant reorganization to make more space for phone numbers and comply with new international standards.
Not pinned any more - i think it gets unpinned if you edit the comment
@@Techmoan it's a minor miracle that at least one of these numbers worked.
"New York, London, Paris, Munich." Maybe it has something to do with pop music?
I love this channel so much!
Bowowowowow Bowww Bowww
Whelp that song is stuck in my head now.
🎶Talk about, pop music, pop pop pop, pop music🎶
Shoobie doobie do-op
San Francisco
This device has yellowed a bit
*8-Bit Guy wants to know your location*
😁😆😂
He knows, and he's not interested... ua-cam.com/video/cIXOH1tJJu4/v-deo.html
LOL ... but then, it he will have so many rainy days that it will take ages.
Still, I wouldn't mind seeing it wretchrowbreighted (or one of those spellings).
I have many yellowed devices in my mouth, 8bitguy where art thouuu
Gordon McBeath (listed in the calendar at @10:01) was the Personnel Director at ASDA until 1994. Prior to that he was the Personnel and Administrative Director for... drumroll... STC Telecommunications.
Most of those people are probably dead now. We're looking at dead people.
@@frankcooke1692 good
@@frankcooke1692 History books are full of those. Don't be spooked.
@@wesleyswafford2462 This is the most profound thing I've read today... Should mention I've been reading mostly tech literature :)
you mean 10:01 , 19'35" is the end of the video (how am I the only one in 2 years mentioning this?)
13:01 That ringer is a time machine! I was instantly transported back to the 80's.
You've become a telephone sanitizer as per Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!
Yes and he has a forest load of money. If you don't believe me, go ask the head honcho in the large bath tub.
Must have been retrieved from the wreckage of the 'B'' Ark...
The lady from Heidrick & Struggles answered your call on her STC Executel
on the Executel's slave unit
Halfpipesaur indeed.
@@Halfpipesaur "slave unit" sounds so much worse than it should in that context.
@@Halfpipesaur Lololololol
@@CaptainCaveman1170 Lololololololololololololo
Thanks for the nod to my STC page which I've realised is sorely out of date :) When I first saw one of these back in 2016 I didn't care what it was, I just had to have one. The resemblance to a Beocenter was striking and there's reasons it won a design award. These days thanks to the generosity of STC ex-staffers I have the motherlode of Executel goodness which is awesome, and the demo unit that went around the world will once again be on display at the Centre For Computing History in Cambridge UK at the Retro Weekend on the 7/8th September. Your unit is an early version missing the printer capability, later versions had not only serial printer support (hence your missing key) but also an external RGB socket so you could hook up to a large SCART TV to show off your stocks and shares on Prestel. A quick note about the One Per Desk - the project manager for the Executel was also responsible for the Wunper.
Adrian Graham I was thinking OPD as soon as I saw it.
@@GrahamDenison The main difference is that the 3910 is a computerised phone whereas the Wunper is a computer that happens to be nailed to a 2 line phone exchange. I need to revise my OPD page though, I wrote that back in 2002.
youre right.. it DOES look like a B&O device.
Clicked the video, waited for a Blade Runner reference, you never let me down.
Eh, with that tiny monitor it looks more like something out of Brazil. Just add a magnifying screen in front and pull off the keyboard cover to expose the wires and it would look exactly like something Sam Lawry would use.
@@trippmoore Or straight outta Alien. I bet the software can easily calculate the landing trajectory.
The 80's and 90's were big on those fake cooling fins.
Orin Anthony Xbox original has them as well.
Lol, Atari 2600 though.
I don't think most fins are fake, there was heat to dissipate even back then.
All thanks to the Ferrari 512 Testarossa which innovated the design.
Most of them weren't fake, just a clever way of hiding the tiny holes
That was an impressive phone receptionist for H&S - I can tell how high quality a firm is in their employee staffing/training based on how professional the receptionist is. Especially these days when firms just replace receptionists with temps if they have any at all.
The design is really reminiscent of old Bang & Olufsen BeoCenter HiFis
That's what I was trying to think of. It really does!
My thoughts exactly!
Exactly. Especially the 2200 series, from 1979/1980.
Yes that what I thought when I first saw it.
As an owner of a Beocenter 9000, I agree.
3:30 a.m. here in Florida and I get a notification of a techmoan video and I instantly click. Absolutely one of my favorite channels. I can't wait a smartphone from 1984 wow.
3 mins later
I live in Florida too!
I winter in Florida 😀
@@patricescattolin43 smart, winter is probably the best time here, except for the snowbirds
ChrisS82 Cocoa Beach here!
Had one of these in our shop, I finally re-tubed it in 2000 & it still worked fine, everyone thought it was fantastic.
Per Wikipedia, Heidrick & Struggles appears to be an executive search firm--you know, the companies that go headhunt for people looking for executives. Anyway they apparently started in 1953 and eventually had over 50 offices in six continents.
Sounds like they may have been singlehandedly responsible for most of STC's sales of Executels...
50 offices on six continents... nobody has ever heard of them. Definitely a CIA front.
I know this is a few years old now, but I think there's a good chance that this device was in fact used by someone from Heidrick & Struggles. I've looked up their list of offices, and the only places he reads out at 15:36 that aren't on their website are Barcelona and Greenwich. I think it's plausible that those offices got folded into the Madrid and London offices, respectively. Considering that only two of those locations no longer have H&S offices, and one of the phone numbers still works, and this is both a headhunting AND executive consulting firm that would probably send people all over the world... There'd be no proof unless something on the machine specifically mentioned being owned by H&S, of course, but I think it's a reasonable conclusion to say it was owned by that company.
Jury's still out on whether it's a CIA front, though.
Beautiful. Looks kind of like an early AT&T Merlin deskset that was the unlikely love child of a B&O BeoMaster, and a Mitsubishi Visitel, but manufactured by Tandberg. I love it!
This had been one of the most fascinating pieces of retro tech that I've seen. Thanks for sharing!!
The look on your face when the lady answers was bloody hilarious :D
Damn you, I've been after one of these for ages for a project, and now the bloody prices are gonna shoot through the roof. xD
The minicassette was Made in Austria. Oh those were the days :)
Greetings from Austria.
This would not have looked out of place on CMDR Straker`s desk in Gerry Anderson`s UFO!
1k+ bonus points for the Pop Muzik joke! Does it come with a fresh keytar shoulder strap? Any salacious ASCII art on the casstte? :P
This video and device (STC Executel) just became my favorite! :-)
The design is lovely. Simply gorgeous.
Thank you.
No Matt, the 'Pop Music' joke was brilliant!! Thanks for all the great content..
Yes, that gave me a chuckle.
New York, London, Paris, Munich, everybody talkiin about Pop Music!! The younger kids probably didnt understand that reference. Song is called Pop Muzik by M
Or those who just don't listen to that style of music.
Happy times!
This device reminds me that I miss having a pocket electronic organizer.
What I don't miss is the hinges on the protective cover failing.
Man, I really need to get around to rewatching Blade Runner!
Actually, I was thinking of Max Headroom, for where it could come from, what with everything having a telly screen. I could totally see Theora talking to Edison, with his camera feed appearing on the phone's screen, then Murray comes in, turns the screen so he can see it, Theora huffs sarcastically before leaning in to see, again. As a bonus, Max could pop up on it, later, and pretend to be an uppity business man.
Looks like something designed by Bang & Olufsen, their horizontal components had that same look.
It looks like the video phone they used In aliens! Try calling Wayland Yutani corporate office 😂😂
Bought out by Walmart
I worked at STC in New Southgate in the early 90’s and when it became Northern Telecom. I installed PABX systems similar to this called SDX that also had a top end device of this nature. Thanks for a trip down memory lane
I like your self realisation at the terribleness of that joke towards the end. Gave me a quick giggle that did.
This Telephone will fit perfectly standing nearby an late 80's bang & olufsen stereo system
@@NuGanjaTron they Made the beocom phones
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeoCom
My dad once worked for STC in Basildon, Essex. I remember him telling me it stood for "Sod The Customer" :)
Yup your right I do want to know about this. What an amazing find. It is just a fascinating time capsule of that persons appointments and schedule on a machine that has been long forgotten. Just exactly what we love to snoop through and remember back to that point in time. It will make a nice addition to your museum. Some university needs to give you an honorary degree in electronic history of home, office and industrial electronics. Nice find.
I'd love to see you do a review of the Seiko UC-2000 Wristwatch Computer, it was from the same period.
U r my fav geek/dork on the whole internet! Much Love
When you were talking about the owner of this phone using it so late in it's life I was reminded of my dad. He was a lawyer and used PFS: First Choice 3.0(released in 89) for all his billing, and paperwork until he retired in 2005ish.
What impressed me the most was the user interface for the agenda. Very clear and well laid out. I've seen a lot of proper smartphone apps that are way way worse.
Well that's fascinating!
ViewData... I bet someone savvy enough could write a bridge on a Raspberry Pi to connect that with some social media, lol.
That thing is so cool, keeping things original is nice, but in this case I think it would be a shame not to modify it with a rasperry or kinda micro pc, a nice touchscreen, but keep the original look, I really think I would use it, actually I have a pen and some paper close to my phone and sometimes search for number on my smartphone snd call then from the other one, with such a system I could do it all and it doesn't need more more power than an older DECT phone.
I didn't realise Viewdata was obsolete. Looking on Wikipedia it says "As of 2015, Viewdata was still in use in the United Kingdom, mainly by the travel industry.".
I more meant some sort of external bridge that emulates the original protocols on the phone line, rather than modifying anything, but I don't know if such a thing is even possible...
MrDuncl Really? It's actually pretty impressive that it's lasted into the smartphone era!
@@leisergeist I'm sure it would be possible with a Raspberry Pi, an old modem (not a soft modem) , and a bit of software. Teletext enthusiasts have done something similar to route news feeds into teletext generators.. Regarding travel agents using Prestel, the last time I went in one (over a decade ago) they were running Prestel as an application on a PC. I don't know what the situation is now but I don't think people would be very impressed if they were using the same equipment and websites as the general public.
MrDuncl D'oh, if they just use a regular old modem that'd certainly make it easier. In my mind I was over complicating it by thinking of how Teletext works for some reason.. I'll go ahead and blame that on late-night-brain, since I'm *totally* not a moron /s
Wouldn't seem too daunting as long as the protocol is documented out there...
Was fascinated at a glimpse of an old calendar. I'm a little odd and sometimes browse my old outlook calendars. Weirdly Heidrick and Struggles was an old client of mine for their mobiles. Can't believe they've Kelly the same number all those years!
The rainbow ribbon cables inside are just adorable.
AMD CPU. Still working fine 35 years later.
It's not a K5, which explains why it has not melted through the board. Yet.
... is this a fanboy comment? Intel chips from that era are bulletproof, too. As long as the power supply is good.
@@Phenom98 Yeah. It is... or it's supposed to look like one ;-)
I buy whatever CPU or GPU or hardware component is good at the time of purchase, doesn't matter who makes it.
But it's fun from time to time to start some flame wars between actual fanboys ... ^.^
@@wavetrex I agree. Thats why I'm rocking a Ryzen 5. Bought it a month ago for $135 :) whatever is fast and cheap.
AMD's Intel-compatible CPUs, before the 386, were simply "second source". They got the masks from Intel under license and simply manufactured the chips. So basically the design and technology is all Intel, and AMD's role was to diversify the supply chain in case there was a issue at the Intel fab.
I have one of these! It still has the “getting started” mini cassette in it it’s been sitting on the side for years, always been a good talking point!
heidrick and struggles is an executive search firm. they have an office in chicago at the sears err willis tower
It looks like a phone I'd see in a ridley scott movie. Lol you just said it as I was typing.
Caboose 92m great minds think alike
@12:06 after manufacture, there was either a repair or a design defect found on the main board. That is what that thin blue wire near the center of the screen is.
This "yellowish" device, was part of the history of the modern office .... A concept, which formed the basis for an industry, with a focus on business ... A piece of unique and special history .... ( If the calendar does not work at a date greater than 1993, it is why the software is NOT updated, this, and the battery of the real time clock (RTC) that was sulphated "battery Rotten"). good video, greetings from Mexico
New York, London, Paris, Munich - Thanks for that earworm Techmoan...
Everybody talk about... Which version did you get?
@@davidjames579 Try google
New york, paris, peckham you mean haha
Does that thing detect Replicants?
Now imagining Techmoan's (April Fools?) video "What we've got to show you today is a Voight-Kampff unit, in reasonable condition." 😂
This guy always finds things I love to learn more about... the 80s tech especially, I was born in 81 so many if these things I saw later as a kid at offices with my father...but never again as they were on their way out by then. I later saw some stuff at the local recycling contractor...he always cleared out entire corporate offices of all sorts of tech... I think I came across some of these back in 1991 or 92 ... I recognized it right away when I saw the thumbnail for this episode.
whoever mentioned the calendar .. I totally agree. That visual for the appointments during the course of a day is different in a good way.
I'd buy that for a dollar!
I very much appreciated the M joke at the end. Talk about, pop music.
Never knew AMD existed back in the eighties. You do learn something new each day.
Send it to David The 8-Bit Guy to retrobright it. He'd have a great day dealing with this relic.
I burst out laughing at the end with the "Pop Music" reference and noticed you smirking as well. Had to look up the video for old times sake. Thanks for the flashback.
That's one of the best reviews I've seen. Brilliant and fascinating.
12:31
Lol I was sure it’s a mosquito hovering near my ear
OMG, THAT RING!!! I have not heard that sound in years!! I heard that ring tone a lot when I was a kid!
I live in Brighton and wounded where stc was based. I found it was on Hollingbury industrial estate. It’s now an ASDA supermarket and I work opposite in a self storage building. Small world!
A return to form.
Absolutely - bravo Matt! 👏
It reminds me a bit of Bang & Olufsen's stereos from the era.
And this is why so much tech gets shredded now, instead of being allowed to walk out the door.
I wonder if it's network card would work when plugging it into a modem that converts 32/56k modem speeds to our current internet standards.
...what are you even talking about? That's not how any of that stuff works.
If you could add some extra RAM and reprogram the firmware in such a way that you could actually get a workable TCP/IP stack (and maybe a SLIP/PPP or SOCKS internet-via-modem-terminal protocol) running on a 2MHz i8085 based machine, and found an ISP that still offered dial up (and, preferably, a remote Unix terminal which could adapt to a 40x24 display and allow access to things like Pine and Lynx), you could totally hook this into the matrix and get yourself some extremely slow email, newsgroup and website action (a bit like how I used the old green-screen DEC VTs at my university library in the early noughties, but at no better than half - and more likely one-eighth or less - the receive speed... and possibly with a noticeable delay in following links if it had to send full URLs back up the pipe at native speed).
The 1200/75 standard it uses remains buried within the backwards compatibility support of most modern modems, as a last-resort fallback (just before dropping to a symmetrical 300 or even 110 baud) on really poor quality phone lines, so once the software (and maybe memory, if it wasn't possible to use the machine as a simple dumb terminal) side was sorted, you could just dial and go.
Remember when a cell phone was considered a luxury? You'd see someone pull one out and mock them for thinking that they're some kind of big shot that needs to be able to make calls everywhere.
this is one of the coolest pieces of retro tech i've seen.
I'm surprised you haven't made a video on early 80's CB Radio in the UK. I'm sure you had one Techmoan ? .... come on fess up , what was your handle mate ?
I'd love to see a CB radio review. I remember them. In fact I think it's still going and available. Citizen band .
@@jasonmcgilloway3522 There was an extremely brief craze for CB at my (very rural - lots of kids of farmers, builders, truckers etc) school circa 1993. My dad worked repairing trucks and was able to get me a vehicle-mounted unit but we never got it working. Now that I think about it, I should have wired it into my old Corolla.
'ow many candles you burnin'
I went to "The First Avon eyeball" back in Bristol Exhibition Centre back in 1981 before it was legal. Four halls full on Antennas, books, films (like Convoy) clothing etc but no rigs ! What is strange in retrospect is that 80% of the arguments William Whitelaw (Home Secretary) used against CB could be applied to Mobile Phones. You can't let the general public communicate as they will get up to all sorts of mischief.
Oh, does the internet's usage of "handle" stem from the overlap with CB radio? Yk I just realised that most ppl would default to "username" now instead of "handle". Shit. I'm only in my 20s but that's made me feel some big generational thing anyway
I'm impressed at how much functionality it has
This is so casette-punk. It gives me the feel of something you would find on the set of Alien, including that boot-up sequence with the beep and the test grid, and the wavy picture on the CRT.
Meeting with the BBC, KFC in Hong Kong... definitely interesting
Of course, Hong Kong was still a British territory at that point. Just treated as an extension of the UK, and handily close to East Asian manufacture for meetings too. It's still weird for me to think of Hong Kong like that, even just in terms of how were things before.
@@kaitlyn__L It's ok, there's still another 14 colonial tax havens for you to compare and contrast. It's why Brexit happened. The City can't survive any major tax auditing by the EU and in 2014 / 15 the Brussels corridors were full of chatter about major Interpol investigations. Turns out the reason half of Asia and Africa are bankrupt is because Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase etc etc have stolen all their natural resources and stashed the money in the Turks and Caicos islands.
More Pimms, Binky ?
This phone is a lot like the higher-end unified IP phones from Cisco and the likes. I have one on my desk with a color display, touchscreen, webcam and a bunch of Java apps on it.
Fun Fact: The BIS (Bank for International Settlements) is a large Tower in (my hometown) Basel in Switzerland, that looks like a giant robot leg from the 80s. The design of the building fits perfectly with the phone. Google: Basel BIS or BIZ
The place I worked for from 1987 onwards was a Euronics electrical retailer (Euronics being originally called TIGER, The Independent Group of Electrical Retailers). We went 'Hi-Tech' and would place our orders using one of those Executel machines over a Prestel/Viewdata connection. This was rather slow and had to be performed in a fairly strict sequence. Make a mistake and trying to correct it on screen was usually followed by a telephone call to head office, this being far easier than trying to navigate back and forth through the convoluted menu. Prior to this our orders were faxed through but often orders would get lost or mangled at one end or the other so was abandoned in favour of the Executel. I used one at least twice weekly, probably for ten years. It was still used up until the late 90's when online ordering eventually took over. I repaired the machine a good number of times, without it we couldn't order so if it wasn't working repairing it was a priority.
I've watched this video several times and when you start speculation about who it might be from the only thing I can think of is a food company like Mars, Nestlé, or something like that especially with a meeting with Asda/Wal-Mart. I used to work for one of the large international food companies managing Telecom and I would see the CEOs calender offer cause he couldn't figure out how his iPhone worked and it was full of meetings like that
What an exceptional example of forgotten 80's tech design - a Bang & Olufsen-esque vision of a future-forward look. Thank you so much for posting it.
If you decide to restore the keys, feel free to post a follow up. I'd love to see that unit restored, 'twould be stunning!
I can't remember ever seeing a thing that is so much "a product of its time" as this. Very cool.
Blackberry 1984 might be more accurate.
Or the mid-noughties candybar phone of the mid-80s. Add some fairly rudimentary photography, low quality mp3 playback and ringtones, and java app functionality to give access to facebook and google maps, and you've got most of the things my long lamented ~2005 Sony Ericcson K750i had to offer. (Or maybe more accurately - add a really dire camera, colour screen, voice recorder and polyphonic ringtones, and you've got the Nokia 6100 that preceded it... though both of them actually had a lower screen resolution... though given the STC's heavy reliance on double-size fonts and blocky semigraphics, the overall effect would likely have been about the same)
THAT THING IS SO ASWESOME!!!!
I'd keep it running in my living room just for the looks of it.
This is genuinely one of the coolest pieces of tech I've ever seen, I love it!
Don't you love seeing "bodge" wires on a finished product!
Ah! Get out of my head! When you started naming the cities, "Pop Muzik" by M is exactly what I was thinking of! Great minds think alike! :D
There were mobile phones in the UK as early as the 1970s, but they did not use the modern, UHF cellular system. They used just a few base stations around the country and VHF radio communications. To call someone using one of these phones, you had to dial a different STD code depending which base station was the nearest to them. Communication was one-way, with early versions having a squeeze-to-talk switch in the handset -- all very "Over to you, Roger, Wilco and Out". Later versions were voice-sensitive, switching automatically to listen when you were not saying anything.
What was new in 1985 was cellular mobile technology, which used many small, low-power base stations operating at ultra-high frequencies. This allowed smaller aerials to be used. This was originally using analogue audio. Digital cellular mobile telephony would come about in the 1990s and introduce the ability to send short messages in a portion of what would ordinarily be spare space in the communication packets between the handset and the base station ..... Also, the phrase "hand-held mobile cellular radio telephone transceiver" was a bit of a mouthful, and would come to be variously abbreviated in different parts of the world: "mobile phone" in the UK, "cellphone" in the USA and "handy" in Germany.
In the early 1980s, I myself was imagining something along the lines of computers connected via telephone lines. There would be a telephone handset disposed vertically alongside the monitor, but probably no dial as you would use a database to bring up a contact's details and press one key to dial their number automatically. The programming language (hey, it was the 1980s! What use was a computer if you couldn't write your own programs for it?) would be a version of BASIC, with extended commands to DIAL and ANSWER telephone calls. I even envisioned eventually adding voice synthesis and voice recognition, so it could place orders by telephone with a human being on the other end while you did something else. (Of course it would try first to connect to another computer directly, and order goods that way if possible.)
This is certainly a fascinating device, anyway. I have also been lucky enough to have seen an example of the ICL One Per Desk, some years ago now. If one turns up, it would be well worth a look at; and even if it could not be got working, it would be an interesting teardown!
A *real* geek would want to set up her own Viewdata server for the Executel to talk to ..... it's probably easy enough to do with Asterisk, and a C library for generating tones and detecting tones in an incoming sample stream.
Thank you for ringing the phone!!!
I. Love. Your. Videos. One of the best channels on UA-cam. Keep up the awesome work good sir.
Oh! That keyboard reminds me of my first computer, the NCR Decision Mate V! Beautiful!
I had to chuckle when you mentioned Runcorn there - that's where I live! It's not a bad place really.
I doubt he was actually conducting business in Runcorn - though there is a large 24hr Asda here, that would have been quite new in 1993.
I think it is more likely that he was doing business of some sort in nearby Liverpool. It is now and certainly was in 1993, much more economical and cost effective to park at the large multistory carpark that serves Runcorn Station, then take a train into Liverpool town centre. It takes a little longer now, as most trains stop at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, but in '93 it took less than 15 mins to get into the heart of Liverpool City Centre from Runcorn.
It's proximity to the great City of Liverpool is one of the best things about Runcorn. lol
"Everybody talks about .. Pop music !"
Oh ! I almost forgot : Can it run Crysis ?
That keyboard looks a lot like a Siemens 9750 or Nixdorf 8870 keyboard. Also quite similar to a Sinclair QL keyboard.
Why would I enjoy this... I don't know but I did. I have no interest in office computers (or so I thought) but watching to the very end I can say again i did thoroughly enjoy it.. This bloke is a great uploader. Covers everything in a cheery fun way that kind of draws u in. And he did draw me in because like I said I have no interest in office computers.. So he did a remarkable job of presenting this to me in an attractive enticing fashion.. Good job.
I used to have one of these. And my Dad worked at STC where they made them.
Wow, not seen an S.T.C. device in years, but here in the South East of London, that company had a factory on a big site near Sidcup and Foots Cray, Kent..
ahhh I'm drooling over all that through-hole component goodness
It has a phone? This is my new favorite pocket organizer.
I couldn't help but think of various episodes of Columbo whilst watching this video ('Wow, and that machine really does all of that! Gosh Sir this company really is going places'......oh, one more thing...........)
Look like come out of Brazil movie of Gillian!!! great discovery from past!!!!!
That terrible joke at the end really made the video, for me. Superb stuff.
Interesting video. I have a product similar in idea to this from 1982, called a Workslate WK-100 by Convergent Technologies. Interestingly, that has a full LCD screen and fully automatic mini cassette.
The calendar UI is pretty impressive
Hi All. Nice find, at the 15 minute mark, the device you showed with the large 12/14 inch crt was also sold here in Australia.
Oddly enough the name is "Computerphone"
STC was also here in Australia, they basically were the hardware manufacturer for the standard rotary dial phones and later on the push button handsets ( one monopoly assisting another monopoly )
We had one at the office i worked in at 1986-1987 - actually i think 3 all up, but only one person really used it on her desk, she also had a printer attached. It was mainly kept as a speed dial machine and appointments for team meetings.
About 6 or 7 people had their own personal cassette, you could power if off, change the cassette and power it up again, and your calendar was loaded - i dont recall if it stored your contact numbers or they were stored into the phone system
There were problems with tapes, i recall people chasing new tapes and they were either full or damaged ( stretched / broken ) also the 2 drives , i cant remember if they were master and slave
But after 3 years , they were on the staff junk table, the management had gotten the last of the Apple 2 C computers and the lucky last person got the just released Apple 2 GS
A google search will bring up some info, but i found this to be very accurate, especially the political connection and the "failure"
telephonecollecting.org/telecom.htm
meanwhile in USSR since ~1989 people started to mod standard line telephones by sticking custom Z80 boards inside with a special software, giving the phone A TON of features, only limited by 1-line segmented display.
I really miss the 80's and 90's when adding "executive" to the name of anything meant: This is cool shit that'll make you a real hot-shot businessman.