I absolutely love learning about various accessibility techniques. There are so many great features included in this device that the designers ought to be congratulated! I hadn't even realized what was going on with the hole in the cassette door, but once the instructional tape revealed its purpose, it's so genius! So simple, and yet perfectly effective.

I have been legally blind since 1992. (I was 3 at the time). I have been using this audio book service pretty much my whole life. It's awesome to see one of my favorite KZfaqrs doing a video on obscure tech that has been such a huge part of my life. Thanks! Best of luck with your vision loss too. I know it's tough.

When you have all your senses working (hearing, sight, etc) it's easy to forget that others young and old may find it a huge struggle to do simple things like read a book. My great aunt was legally blind towards the end of her life, and now I appreciate the organisations who make these devices. I am especially surprised by the quality of them. It may look like an old piece of tech junk, but after watching this I gained a new appreciation for the folks who make devices and services for the disabled. So, thanks.

I have a Relative who is blind from birth he told me a joke “The blind are people too and have feelings you shouldn’t say bad things about them, you should write them.” He hangs out in a meeting room at the local library With with a club for the seeing impaired And a librarian reads aloud the local newspaper and books and magazines When I last talked to him he offered to drive me home

Techmoan video opening trademark: "A couple of months ago"

Haha.. thanks for making Kristine instant Vaporwave! That was hillarious!

I think Techmoan's voice would be ideal for voice cassettes. Very smooth and clean.

I'm sorry to hear about your condition, Techmoan. I couldn't pay as much attention to the video thinking about you saying you're lost some sight. I'm kinda sad right now.

Thanks Mat. The system you demonstrated is fascinating. I have a blind friend who uses USB now. She remembered the old slow 12 inch records, then compact cassettes. I played your video (on my laptop) and I audio described it and she asked me to say thanks to you. Her computer does not have a monitor, she has a screen reader instead that can read stuff at a very fast speed. Her motto is "Blind not daft". Audio books are great she got me into them, great for long journeys. I wish your sight remains steady. Best wishes.

Great video as always. I've been completely blind since birth, I started following your channel a few years ago and really enjoy the content you put out. You do a really good job of describing what you're doing and how the thing you're looking at looks and functions like, even down to where all the controls are. Whether intentionally or not it makes your videos really easy to follow without vision. It's quality content from people like yourself that make the internet a more interesting and accessible place! I wish you all the best with your health, I can only imagine how it must be more frustrating to lose your sight later in life. Keep up the good work!

Don't know how one of the best people on this platform is plagued with health issues. Get healthy.

I never expected Techmoan to mention Vaporwave in any context.

I suspect the pitch adjustment, in addition to helping negate the pitch shift from speeding up playback, also helps with people that are tone-deaf. Adjusting the pitch may help a bit in bringing the audio into their hearing range.

Jack Fox's voice sounds like he was pulled straight from one of those 50s era informational videos

Go from vaporwave to anime theme tune with just the flip of a switch! 16:26

I remember as a 12 year old in the early 60's my sisters and I sitting with an Elizabethan 4 track reel to reel recorder and taking it in turns to read childrens stories onto 3" tapes to create audio books for the blind. I seem to remember they were destined for Africa but perhaps they were sent elsewhere as well.

I lost my right eyed vision when I was 15 -- this week actually marked crossing over to having been blind longer than not. It certainly makes you grateful for the vision you have and cognisant of the possibility of being left without it. It's great that these services still exist in any form and great to see you take a look at them. Thanks for the years of wonderful content!

I remember my Aunt Catherine having a huge machine from the RNIB that did talking books and newspapers

Impressive how the voice of the manual sounds just like that of an 60s military instruction video.

When I worked for a local PBS station, we had services for the blind and hard of hearing. The volunteers did everything from magazines to audiobooks. They recorded everything to Adobe audition and went from there.

Interesting note: while listening to this in the car, when you tested the index tone it was beyond a noticable hum. One of my car speakers on the left went mental. Heavy loud bass tone.

"Is Vaporwave still a thing" he said...

I am legally blind and my late father was also legally blind. I have years of experience using and working with various technology devices for the blind. I own a large collection of audio technology for blind people, much of which I've used myself through the years, and some of which I have just because I collect and enjoy audio equipment as well. I have a few points for you: 1. The HandiCassette II actually came out in the late 1990s, I used one in high school in 1999. There was also a previous mode (HandiCassette) that was manufactured by GE and bore a GE logo. I have working examples of both machines. The original HandiCassette was actually smaller than the II, and the main functional difference was it lacked the stereo output capability. APH also manufactured (and I have) a tabletop version of the 4-track recorder that resembles one of the "classroom" tape recorders. 2. The machine that many blind users would have used to listen to the 4-track format was manufactured by Telex and is known as the C-1. It is easily recognized by its striking yellow color. C-1 machines were (and I believe still are) available to blind individuals in the US at no charge. The C-1 cannot record at all. The main reason anyone would purchase a 4-track unit was either for record functionality and/or for portability, since the tabletop C-1 is a large and heavy unit. (Yep, I have a working C-1.) 3. Many other third-party devices were modified by various companies to be compatible with the 4-track format. I own an Aiwa walkman, a Sony dictation-style handheld recorder, and a Panasonic mini-boombox style recorder that are all capable of playing the 4-track format as well as standard stereo 2-track cassettes at either speed. 4. The modern incantation of books for the blind provided at no charge involves a "Cartridge" format. The cartridge is actually just a USB flash drive in a custom shaped casing, and an accompanying tabletop player (again, available at no charge) can be used to listen. Books are stored in the open DAISY format (EPUB and DAISY are very closely related); an encryption scheme is used to prevent "unauthorized" people from listening to the materials. Similar to the cassette formats, many third parties make compatible portable book players that can read the same DAISY format files from an SD card. Blind and other print disabled individuals in the US can download these special format books and magazines for free via the Internet. 5. You mentioned that the Choice Magazine Listening recordings predated the cassette - this is because, originally, magazines and books for the blind shipped on both reel-to-reel as well as record. Reel-to-reel is pretty straightforward - they did the same thing that was done with cassette using a stereo reel-to-reel deck to achieve four tracks, and ran the tape at 1 7/8 IPS. Reel to reel was in some ways even more efficient, as a typical 1800 foot 90 minute reel could hold 12 hours of audio. (Yep, I do have a working 4-track reel-to-reel recorder that can play these tapes, but I don't have any actual examples of officially recorded reels, but I do have a few I've made on my own for fun.) Records are even more fascinating to me. The records were originally simple vinyl records recorded at 16rpm, but this obviously was not economical for a "Throwaway" application such as magazines. To solve this, a flexi-disc format was used running at the amazing speed of 8 RPM. A typical flexi-disc could hold about an hour per side and was played on a record player that was also available at no charge to blind people. The record player had the unique feature of having a "reversible" needle - once the stylus went bad, you would simply flip a lever and the other side of the stylus would be usable as another stylus. (It was at that point that you would contact the library for the blind to request a replacement stylus be mailed to you.) I do have a working record player, and I am pretty sure I still have some of the flexi-discs but I haven't been able to find them... I've got a ton more trivia and facts about audio technology for the blind that I'd love to share. @Techmoan are you interested? :-)

That pitch control is extremely natural-sounding. I'm impressed. Even in digital audio workstations, it's hard to accomplish that when you're also messing with the speed.

I like the fact that when you played the retro grooves and played with the buttons, it did sound alot like vaporwave!

Thanks for being open about your vision problems and raising awareness of this interesting machine and format. One of these days I should record my grandfather's war memoirs as an audiobook.

Thank you for being so open about your health issue in creating this video, it really puts a different perspective on the topic. Being so candid really suits you, this is when you're most engaging - you could be talking about anything and I'd watch!

When you pressed the index button at normal speed during recording, my woofer started going nuts and rattling. Gotta love low frequency sine waves.

Hi Mat! Vaporwave is totally still a thing, and many of us adore your videos! In fact, the vaporwave scene is putting out new cassettes, Minidiscs, vinyl, and are even hosting concerts! Thanks for indulging in our shared love of the retro and obscure.

Another brilliant piece of work, Matt. Thank you. I'm partially sighted, an audio engineer and a bit of a technical nerd so this stuff interests me too. That is a very useful piece of kit. The pitch adjustment essentially adjusts the formant. This refers to clusters of frequencies spread out over the human vocal range and created by the vocal cords. They give character to the human voice. When you speed up or slow down the voice it sounds odd unless you adjust the quality of the formant to match the speed. This is something usually only available on Studio software for pitch changing voices. Thanks for your continued work, for the interest and always the humour.

Really sad to hear your sight issues. I am severely sight impaired due to MS so know what you are going through. Take care

"Starting from here we will press the ind-" *subwoofer proceeds to explode* Oh yeah, it's noticeable.

Great to see this is still provided as a service, I remember my grandfather (in the 80's/90's) with his huge headphones and Philips cassette player. I always had to post the cassettes to send them back to the (special) library. Thanks Matt :)

The rear speed and digital pitch controls are reversed one compared to another. This makes sense, and they're intended to be operated in tandem and brought to the same position in order to retain the natural pitch and formant while modifying the playback speed. This also determines the range of these, as digital slowdown really doesn't work all that well, the double or multiplied transients become apparent.

My dad had macula degeneration and loved the digital version of this product. He would get send tapes every week and just consume them. Incredible organization and service. It was a lifesaver for my dad. Thanks for covering this.

I am a blind technophile and audiophile who listens to your shows regularly with much pleasure and nostalgia. It pleases me immensely to see you cover a product made for blind people. Before the digital revolution began, I used to listen to audiobooks recorded by the RNIB on 8 track cassettes. I was amongst the 1st to try out audiobooks recorded in a digital format from Audible. Would love to see you feature more things like this in future episodes. A lot of technology these days unintentionally serve the needs of blind and partially sighted people. For example, announcements in railway stations, and on buses and trains, voice navigation on Google and Apple maps provide extremely valuable location awareness and useful information which we would otherwise not be available to us. Apps for public transport was intended for the convenience of able bodied people, but they have also enabled visually impaired people with built in text to speech on their phones, to use public transport more independently.

Odd that the "play" button has a circle on it, which would normally be a "record" symbol. Interesting tape player, though.

+ 1 vote for mentioning Vaporwave I've watched your videos for awhile sorry to hear about your eyesight you are one of my favorite channels on KZfaq.

I figured it was only a matter of time until Techmoan did a video on these alt formats, but I also like the guy's humility. Once something starts to affect you directly you tend to start looking at things a little bit differently. Huge respect for that! I never had that particular machine, but I had friends that did. I used these books and magazines on tape most of my life though... I used to use the players loaned from the library until I started college in 2002. There used to be companies that would mod commercial tape recorders to be able to play and record these 4 track cassettes. I still have a modded Sony recorder that's the size of a typical later cassette Walkman, but it doesn't have the tone indexing that the Handicassette 2 does, and it also can't play quite as fast. That made it an absolute pain in the butt to find reading assignments in some of my early college textbooks... it ended up being more trouble than it was worth. Fortunately around that time everything started going digital so I haven't used that player in years.

16:00 I had an old Saisho "walkman" that did all this without me even touching it! :-0

So here's your creepy connection for the day... I first heard of the show Mindhunter thanks to your video about the reel-to-reel tape recorder shown in the opening credits, watched it, and fell in love with it. Like many, I was horrified and fascinated with the story of Ed Kemper, and looking him up on the internet, one of the things I discovered was that as he's been in prison, one of the jobs he's had is reading books-to-tape for the blind. So...if you get any from the US, there's a chance you're being read to by him.

If I knew this cassette deck existed while my great uncle was alive I would have bought him one he was legally blind. I miss him I lost him my junior year he was like a second dad to me.

Hi Techmoan! Fellow KZfaqr Robert from R3dn3ck Breawing here. I'm from Tennessee in the US. I'm so glad you made this video. I've not thought about the APH in 20 years but, I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. I'm not blind or visually impaired but learning disabled. When I was 8, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. I was able to get my text books on tape through the APH at no charge. That helped me so much. I fully believe that a disability is only as much of a disability as you allow it to be. Thank God we live in a time that technology can give people with disabilities the same chance in life! Love your videos, Cheers and Thanks Again

So sorry to hear about your vision difficulties. My mother lost the use of both eyes to macular degeneration over time in the last decade. Now one eye is only light and shadows, and the other functions like a blurry peephole, requiring her to use a lot of “pan and scan” and magnification in order to read, and it’s very tiring. I had no idea this was in our family, and man, it’s not something I look forward to dealing with in the future, if it comes for me as well. It’s painful to see my mom struggling with everyday tasks, so I’m thankful that you have at least one eye functioning. Please take good care of it. Best of luck.

That's really neat. Love it when you upload. Its always something cool. Appreciate the vids!

Techmoan I was waiting for him to say"this tape will self destruct ",sorry to hear about your health issues don't give up on these excellent vids.

I had no idea you were experiencing sight loss. But man, does this resonate. In 2015 I woke up one morning with a searing pain in my right eye. Turned out it was uveitis, an inflammation of the structures within the eye caused by an immune reaction. That was dispatched fairly swiftly with low dose steroids, only to flare in the other. Unfortunately the inflammation had damaged the drains in the eyes which then caused the pressures to soar to 45 (they're meant to sit between around 10-15). Operations on both followed, but the damage was done: loss of most of the lower peripheral vision in my left, and my right is now down to a small, badly blurred dot. Fortunately our wonderful NHS (what *are* we going to do without it, as now looks almost inevitable?) managed to save enough vision in my left eye that I can still work, read, get about, and watch videos such as this. All the same, I've gone from having 20:20 vision to being unable to drive (tough in a country with almost non-existent public transport), ride a bike, navigate crowds without people constantly crashing into me (and then getting mad at *me* for being in the way!) I do get incredibly down about it sometimes. They've still no idea what caused the original inflammation. In 95% of cases, it's unexplained - one of those 'shit happens' things. I've certainly had my share of that - in 2013, my wife died very suddenly, leaving me to raise our infant son alone, and there have been suggestions that the stress of that could have been a trigger for immune system issues that are already present in our family. (The effects of stress on health, including development of things like diabetes that are blamed on the individual, are only just beginning to be understood). What I do know is that, for every person like that idiot below who likes to throw around blame and point fingers, there are still many good people who understand that bad things happen to other good people and spend their time developing things like this to make life that little bit more tolerable. I hope I never need transcribed audio texts, as I love to read, but if I do, I'll be very glad that they exist. I hope you don't need them either Mat, and that whatever the cause, the experts we trust with these things are able to get to the bottom of it. Technology is fun but it can also be life-changing, and who knows, with the pace of change, the next few years may offer some sort of Star Trek-style device or even a means of repairing damaged ocular structures using stem cells or the like. Fingers crossed...

I have been legally blind d all my life. I started using recorded books when I was in elementary school. I started with the LP records, then moved to cassettes which were originally recorded in the standard format and later used the style you demonstrated. In the last few years, the digital cartridge format is what is used. You can borrow the cartridges from your library, or download the books you want onto your own blank cartridges.

15:42 A S C E N D E D

Great video as always Matthew. I'm sorry to hear about your battles with your vision but I am pleased that you have used this to your advantage, bringing us yet another technologically obscure video that has caught my attention! Keep up the good work :)

Hello Matt, I've been a long time subscriber to you and love all of your films. Also as a Christian I'm praying for your eyesight to be fully restored. We love you a lot here in the US. Take care and may God continue to bless you and your family. Also, please don't go blind ever I don't know what I would do without your films

My heart goes out to you dude. Thank you for giving us awesome and informative content for as long as you have.

Vaporwave is still a thing as far as I’m concerned

As a kid I would have spend so much time playing with the pitch from Rupaul to James Earl Jones.

I am blind and used to get children's story cassette's from the RNIB as well as braille books. these tapes bring back memories of listening to the RNIB ones which had index tones to indicate each chapter or section. Now you can download audio books from the RNIB using an app on your smartphone or tablet.

Sorry to hear about your sight issues. Thank you for the excellent content you provide!

I have a friend is blind. If he cannot find a printed copy or a digital copy. He asked me to make him a tape for him. And I do.

I'm on the path to losing sight in one eye as well ("surfer's eye", even though I don't surf) I sympathise, Mr. Techmoan.

WoW, I had an older version of the APH recorder in the 90's, it was pretty neat and at the time I used it for recording Uni Lectures where the lecturer would just stand for an hour and talk, then I'd go back home and transcribe the tape onto computer, The sad thing is I cannot remember what happened to my recorder. It's great to see Techmoan feature something I actually had :) and I hope all goes well with your sight Techmoan, keep up the good work :).

I'm really sorry to hear about your sight loss. Best wishes from a long-time viewer.

There is a radio station about 50 miles from my location does the does The Big city's and little small-town newspapers in Michigan USA. It's pretty neat though how they do it.

It's a sad state of affairs when arriving home ones excitement on seeing their wife is drowned out by the anticipation of another Techmoan instalment.

I think this may be my favorite video of yours. What a fascinating device. I love when an inventor is able to use the limitations of a medium as a strength.

This is definitely a blast from the past for me! I’ve always been legally blind, so I remember getting these types of tapes from recording for the blind and dyslexic in grade school. I also had a Sony tape player that was kind of like this where you could change the settings from normal cassettes to 4- track. The player you’re using is definitely more attractive than the ones from recording for the blind and dyslexic, because those were always a gross yellow color… Maybe because they were so old. thanks for sharing!

“What's this? An audio book for squirrels?” - someone playing a tape in a regular player, probably

*BASS BLARING* Techmoan: It's a noticeable hum.

This review is 20 minutes too short. Fascinating. ...Never knew this was around. Mr. Ottens would be very proud, such a noble cause. Cheers.

Always happy for new episodes, regardless of the topic or device!

I've been essentially blind in my right eye since childhood. It's not a big deal really, if your other eye is alright. I don't even consider it a disability, because my working eye works. Hope yours does too, and that it stays working!

16:27 sounds like an anime intro

I REALLY appreciate you sharing this info, and for reminding me of the great Jack Fox. I grew up listening to him and many others through our National Library Service for the Blind's "talking books" program. I am saddened at your loss of vision, and I can imagine it is worse for knowing what you're missing. Don't let the frustration win out. For one thing, you have a built-in adaptability you've learned from messing with tech for so long. For another, there are many many many resources to help you out. Having Mrs. Techmoan by your side is a huge advantage. I so enjoy your channel! Thanks for many hours of fun!

I saw this video and immediately began missing my old Handy Caset II. I have optic nerve hypoplasia which leaves me legally blind. I grew up with these 4 sided tapes and loved that tape deck. It was awesome back in the day.

Tuesday Techmoan? Awesome! Keep up the good work fella! Always interesting.

I'm happy watching with my ears.

Really sorry to hear about your sight deterioration. You've provided many hours of education and entertainment to me and others over the past few years; and I have no doubt that you'll continue to do so for many years to come! Wishing you all the best.

I'm really glad to see more people on youtube talking about the actually very interesting and extremely important topic of accessibility features

Oh wow I remember having that during middle school. I'm visually impaired and they didn't switch from cassette for a while.

Sorry to hear about your sight problems.

I think its really cool how a company is still helping vision-impaired people with wanting to hear stories, what's going on with America and the world in magazines, so its really cool how companies like APH are helping with that!

Fascinating service for the blind I had no clue existed. Those folks go home every night with righteous pride. (You broke a little piece of heart in all of us. Take care. Thanks as always.)

I used to read newspapers for the blind, didn’t know they made magazine stuff like this too!

16:27 Techmoan dabbles in Nightcore

This video was fantastic! Every Product Manager should watch it. It blew me away how great this product must have been for its customers. It seemed to solve every problem and done so in ingenious and simple ways.

Working in optics now for a few years certainly has opened my eyes somewhat to those who are partially sighted~ Amazing video as always- hope everybody else enjoyed too! :)

16:27 it goes full on anime intro music mode 😄

3:43 Sounds like The Chipmunks are having an argument :D

I'm very sorry to hear about your challenge regarding eyesight, and I'm extremely grateful for your videos.

Vaporwave is indeed still a thing! There are actually MANY Vaporwave albums on cassette and it’s the reason I’m here :D

"And the device itself" Thought I was on Ashens channel there.

Reminds me a little bit of the "TalkBoy" from the Home Alone films that Argos sold back in the 90s. Wonder if you could find one of those?

This is a really nice machine all things considered. Here in the states, the library system provided a much larger, but still portable player free of charge, as well as every book imaginable to the blind and disabled. The standard machine was the same design for as long as I can remember going back at least 35 years or so. About 10 years ago a digital format began replacing the cassettes, pretty much a very robustly built mp3 player that reads from a USB flash drive, with the books coming on a flash drive in a case roughly the same size as a cassette tape... As far as I can tell this was done so the same plastic mailers could be used. In addition to the tapes for books they also until quite recently provided magazines on flexible records, and also provided a "portable" player for those. Growing up with a blind parent this stuff was all common place in our home. In general cassettes were used for books, intended to be sent back to the library, and the records were used for weekly publications and you just kept them or tossed them out when you were done. As a side, recording into the computer at normal, or even double speed then manuluipulating the tracks was something we did from time to time, to save books onto the computer, long before the library started providing them that way.

That looks like a lot of effort and research went into that device. The attention to detail is great!

I’m sorry about your eye D: A family member went though something similar, and I know it can be fairly scary :/

15:40 so vaporwave...

I have a friend who is blind so I really appreciated this. It's good to have a focus on people with disabilities and making sure that we don't leave them behind when it comes to tech. I often listen to her talk about frustrations with this so I really want a bigger focus on it. I hope you make more videos with a focus on this kinda stuff :)

Never would have realised you had sight issues. Thanks for letting the viewers (and listeners) know and share it.

Now you need to do a "take apart" video so nerds like me can see the mechanism.

13:21 When my subwoofer starts destroying walls

I didn't know about your sight. You are truly gifted with your videos.

Fascinating tech. I was gifted a mid 90's era Teletype some years ago by a friend (cleaning out their garage, they found a box of tech stuff and they knew I was interested). After learning a bit about their history and usage, I found it to be a really interesting little piece of tech. They're still in use to this day, too, just like the machine you showed.