man, that player is so well built you really dont see metal used like this very often i just love that sliding back-plate.

I miss the electromechanical aspect of old tech. Real buttons and knobs, whirring motors and gears.

"...a meeting between a number of people discussing big hair." LOL

Look at those tiny, little adorable cassettes :3

I still have tons of lectures on microcassette from college. I had a professor with a Russian accent that was impossible to understand. I always had to listen to his lectures a few times to absorb them.

'Your policy is now cancelled and we have taken all of your money.' LOL Another entertaining video.

I love these "mad technology from yesteryear" reviews. This device really does look elegant. It makes we want to hold it and press those buttons.

Why i love you channel. + Excellent presentation and deep analysis of each product that you review. + Excellent quality of video and sound. + Crystal clear voice and pronunciation.

This thing in the 1980s was very advanced. No wonder it was $400.

Person A: "Do you use a dictaphone?" Person B: "No I use my hands thank you." Childish it may be, but that joke elicits a chuckle out of me every time.

Transcription is still used in some medical offices, even sometimes on micro cassette, but it's been mostly phased out in the last decade. Used by doctors describing their visits, and replaced mostly by EMRs. I managed a fleet of digital ones and the entire scripted, automated system to get the files to transcription department, typed, and into the database.

I think the Pico cassette was intended less for dictaphone interoffice use and more for say someone traveling and stuff. It's a lot smaller and more portable. Be useful to take notes later or to dictate to yourself. Really cool piece of kit though

In Bulgarian any portable voice recorder is called "dictaphone", which I just released is a brand name. Neat.

I have a Pico on my desk. Had it since the early 90's, no idea what it has on it or where I got it, never had anything that played it. I just loved it's tiny size and kept it as a novelty. Ironic given I've had dictophones late 80's products and never twigged. You solved a mystery of a cute little cassette for me.

Whenever you record, you sound exactly like James May! lol

It's like the Micro SD card of 1985! And wow that is such a convoluted system for getting a letter typed up. You'd be better off just hand writing it!

It has a James Bond spy-isa look and size. The Dictaphone is simply gorgeous!

Love your channel. It's like listening to radio 4 where it feels like the presenters are in my home.

Can I use your dictaphone? No, use your finger like everyone else. I'm sure this joke came out about the same time.

that little thing is quite impressive 1980s spy gear!

this looks like a james bond toy

The sound quality is actually amazing for how old the recorder is. I've had smartphones with worse microphones

Great humor in this episode, along with the always top-notch informativeness. I was totally unaware of all of the small-cassette formats mentioned besides the microcassette, and I was historically a heavy user of cassettes.

You always have the wildest, coolest stuff that I've never heard of. Love it! Subscribed.

What a stunning piece a working history. It does look beautifully made and rather tactile. Great video and thoroughly enjoyable flashback in time.

Set the time machine to 1985? I thought you needed 1.21 gigawatts for that....

I love your blast to the past videos, keep up the excellent work!

Oh man, you're awesome! I can't wait to watch some more videos that you've made!

I enjoy seeing older technology products

love watching this videos, sets me back to the good old times for a few minutes :)

Another wonderfully put together video. Excellent stuff.

Glad I found your channel! been watching all your stuff. Great work!

One of your best. I lived at that time. I worked with these dictaphones. Damn, how old I got! 😩

I love this channel! I always geek out everytime I watch your videos. :D

Love the styling on this thing. Beautiful.

fantastically very small. good video as always. congratulations on the channel and the videos, do not lose one.

I must say, this is giving me an amusement and also it is teaching me a bit of history.

Man this is so cool!!! When you played back your voice recording it sounded like it was recorded during the Apollo missions or something I love that little white noise effect behind the human voice

I love these "Future technology of yesterday" videos. I am subscribing, keep them coming, Techmoan!

Your explanation of the workflow involved in sending a communication in a 1980s office was marvelous. I don't think people today often stop to realize just how tremendously computers have increased productivity. With the recording, internal mailing, typing, and posting... how many letters do you figure an employee could get out of the building in a day? A dozen? 20 maybe? And today, they can send that many emails in an hour. And even more remarkably, they work longer hours, and are paid about the same (average salary of the lower 90% of the US economy rose by only 1% since the introduction of computers to the workplace). Anyone who thinks greater technology will enable us to work less or increased productivity will get them better pay hasn't been paying attention.

I'm just 15. But I LOVE old stuff like this. Seeing these old Hi-Fi devices and all these old Cassette players and the old unknown formats really hits that special 20th century kid in me. Thank you for all the great information and I'm excited to see more!!!

You're too funny. Love your channel, so much great content!

Thanks Matt for another interesting review. Those still shots of the Typing Pool and electric typewriters really brought back memories for me. Cheers Kym

Great quality chanel.Thanks mate!

A guy comes up to my desk and says 'Can I use your dictaphone?', I tell him 'No, use your finger like everyone else.'

Back in the day I was thinking of buying one of those, but I was holding out for the femto-cassette.

Very nice machine with some really great options for the time. I particularly like the que feature.

... and as always, thanks for making videos!

Thankyou for the explanation of why the Dictaphone even existed in an office environment, you may be interested to know some places still rely on the same process for letter writing. You wont be surprised to hear they are a Government office. Though while the typists still listen to tape atleast they type into a Word Processor nowdays :)

Lovely video. Thanks for sharing....

Makes me want to acquire a microcassette recorder to do my interviews with so I can baffle the interviewee with obsolete technology. We recently cracked open an old cabinet in the newsroom of my student newspaper that had early-2000s digital cameras. Cameras these days have come a long way from 3-megapixel sensors and 128-megabyte capacity, to say the least.

I wish more things were as well built as this Dictaphone. Solid metal all around, looks lovely and stylish, and is super simple in its design. Nowadays there's planned obsoletness, plastic on everything, and if it's not then it breaks at the drop of a hat

excellent video. Just loved the technology. These videos are historical snapshots of technological progress. Keep up the good work. BTW I enjoyed your video trailer too .. bit nostalgic LOL :)

I get why they are very hard to get hold of, those pico-cassettes: one medium sneeze, aaand it's gone.

This channel is amazing.

I have one of those tapes around from back in the day. So tiny and they were not cheap to buy at the time either.

I remember having small cassettes that I used with a voice recorder, but I don't remember which model was it, I adore your channel man, you're incredible!

I had a mini-cassette play/recorder back in the late 80s - early 90s for high school. I loved that machine. I never knew there was anything smaller than what I had.

I really enjoy your look back in technology. Great stuff indeed. Thanks for sharing! Wil in Huntsville ALABAMA.

Another brilliant video

Very nice Video....just stumbled across your channel and had to subscribe instantly.

I was hoping you'd make a video about this. Thank you.

Techmoan I hope you never stop making videos about obscure and forgotten technologies. If your channel didn't exist, I most likely never would have found one that did anything quite like this, and my life would be dull and pico-cassette-less.

My dad had one of these when I was young. I used to love playing with it.

I love watching you review inadequate gadgets for some reason

Less than 10 years ago, dictaphones with cassettes about 2x the size (maybe more) of this picocassette was still widely used in a hospital (in Norway) in which I worked. The doctors would dictate what would go in a patient's journal, and the typists (I was one of them at the time) would type it out. Eventually they transitioned to a purely digital format (no tapes, except ) and eventually to voice recognition software, turning typists into proof-readers. I quit that job several years ago, but I hope the voice recognition software has improved, because that thing was turning out some real gibberish at times... Anyway, really great video and channel!

Thanks for the cool videos. I was a teen in the 80's, loved audio, but good lord the cool stuff was expensive.

they used to sell these at raidio shack. as well as recorders but no more, rest in peace tape recorder. :( you were my first form of music entertainment.

Beautifull piece of old technology.

Thanks from the U.S. for putting a quarter in for size comparison. :)

You really do sound like James May. Just found your channel, really fun and I have the same love for old equipment.

I love all this old audio tech even though I am not into hifi or anything (I happily listen to deezer on my phone with pair of decent sennheiser headphones). The technology behind this all is quite interesting as is the history and you present very well here even to those of us who didn't even know this stuff existed ever :)

That cassette is simply ADORABLE!

i love your voice and the way you talk!

so beautiful micro dictaphone!

That industrial/graphic design is gorgeous

I love the sound of the Picocassette, it has a really nice retro touch (of course) that some games (bioshock with its audio diaries) try to use. I would like to have one.

Failed technologies are neither here nor there; but neglected ones, such as electrostatic speakers, are inspiring, glamorous &c

Your "time machine" looks dope. Visually it's gorgeous. If I ever make something with time travel I'm gonna keep it in mind and credit you 💙

I have a regular Compact Cassette based Dictaphone and they are hilariously well built. Unlike that treasure, mine has seen years of hard use; I plucked it from my university's electronics recycling program (basically one step above trash) and squeezed a little more service out of it myself. It's only just now, years later, that it's begun to to go funny and develop wow, like the tape speed is fluctuating.

Amazing!

I can't wait until I am an old man watching a video of some one who dusted off my old Tascam DR-40 and wax on romantically about how "advanced" it was. Keep up the great videos!

Another brilliant retro tech video from Techmoan :) I should subscribe to your youtube

I love how the recording sound.

Would had been cool to have back in the day, but the price tag of $400.00 would had been too steep to many, and you're right about having to replace the dictation machines as well. Never knew of this format before. Thanks for doing a video on it.

Year i was born, seems like a tradition in the 80's and early 90's, make something nice and shiny and either stick some wood on it or some faux leather

That microphone on that little machine sounds 500x better than half the microphones kids use when gaming. ( T ^ T )

Beautifull Cassette.

I had a two speed VOC microcassette handheld recorder from Radioshack dating back to the early 80s that my parents gave me to play around with. I have no idea what they used it for in the past...

amazing these things can be found unopened!

I find this stuff particularly interesting due to the nature of it, and you still see it today with these tiny computers like the Raspberry Pi, and about 10 years ago it was phones, and before that, pocket digital music machines. People like talking about them as flops, but a lot of these machines are simply companies trying to find a good niche. I've been following the "Pi clones" thing for about a year now, and some of it is very intriguing. Whether it be NVidia's one with the built in AI learning processor built in, or the more expensive offerings with better processors and more memory that attempt to bring a desktop PC experience into a box the size of a packet of cigarettes. People call them flops, but if no one tried, we'd never get anywhere. So yeah, err... got kinda long winded there, but thank you sir. Getting to see attempts at innovation from before my time(or at least in this case, before I was old enough to understand) and let us all see the innovations that led us to where we are today.

If i'm not mistaken, theese been used in old telephones, as a answering/recording machine. (I remember having Panasonic wall set with that inside.) Clever thing too, as it managed the tape space between your voice answer and records, completely without supervision. Also, must outline, that i adore the "interaction" of sort, when you use the device that's being reviewed for the audio part of review itself. Gives it very atmospheric flavor.

Aww so so cute.

it is just like the transformer's soundwave... i could'nt believe that there's a smaller type of cassette tape that exists in the 80's

This is really nifty for the mid 80s.

I experienced a bit of a shock when you stated word processors weren't in use in the mid-'80s. Dedicated word processors have been in use since the 1960s. But so far as computer-based word processing is concerned in the mid-1980s, heck, even the lowly Commodore 64 had word processing programs available at that time. And of course, Microsoft Word has been in use on more professional level computers since the mid-1980s as well. I'm enjoying your videos. Kind of addicting.

The quality is pretty good for such a small cassette!

Q: Can I use your Dictaphone? A: No. Use your pencil like everyone else...

Hey man, I just discovered your channel a few weeks back and I totally love your videos on old/cool/forgotten gear. I am also a huge fan of vintage mechanical pieces of gear, nothing can't beat the thrill you get from manipulating some solid switches and levers, right? I have two of those (cool switches, that is) on my tube amplifier for guitar (by Fender). I just love to enter our rehearsal space on Tuesdays and fire up this 50 watt, 6L6 loaded monster by flicking the on/off switch :) Then the tubes heat up (more often than not I stick my nose up against the cage that guards the intestines of the beast and watch them glow), and when we're ready to play it feels so great just to flick the standby switch to let the sound get to the speakers. Lol, got a bit carried away here, but anyway... Thanks for your videos! I'm having a blast watching them :)

That really is amazing