Pocket phonograph: the proto-walkman

Here's a sweet video of an early walkman ancestor, the Mikiphone pocket phonograph, a superb gadget that unpacks and assembles in seconds, quickly filling the room with the dulcet tones of your be-bop combo.

Mikiphone Pocket Phonograph (Thanks, Bill!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Darren Garrison

Darn, just missed it!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190283177336

And only $1,800 out of my budget! (Okay, $1,850).
Fritters

Gracious, what does a needle with that much obvious weight behind it DO to your vinyl? 0_o
devophill

@2- It can mess it up pretty bad, but it was designed for shellac (or whatever non-vinyl substance 78s were made of).

Also, captcha? Seriously? Was comment spam a big problem, or are we just helping out old, elderly OCR bots?
kyoob

pssst, typo in the title – phono… not photo…

/Chris
takeshi

I keep a pocket photograph of my wife with a voodoo doll and some needles.
Spikeles

Omg.. just had a Fallout 3 flashback when the song came on, started looking around for Super Mutants and expecting Three Dog to come on and tell me to keep fighting the good fight!

Oh, and the phonograph is pretty cool too.
The Unusual Suspect

Feh!

http://rocknrollgraffiti.blogspot.com/2007/07/hip-pocket-discs-failed-to-ignite.html
The Unusual Suspect

Also:

http://wfmu.org/MACrec/MT.html
The Unusual Suspect

And if you’re a purist, and want to play full-sized records:

http://www.newgadgets.eu/2008/06/27/sound-burger-portable-record-player/

http://www.gadgettastic.com/2008/04/01/vw-camper-van-portable-record-player/

Okay, I’ll stop now.
Anonymous

:( i cant log in with my name….

anyone know what is powering the spinning? did he wind it before the start of the video?
ill lich

Cool for curiosity value, but not efficient: too many parts to lose, too much assembling required prior to use.

Vestax and Numark have been making battery powered portable phonographs for years now, and they play 78s too.
hastepost

The Thorens Excelda (1930′s) is a much more robust portable. Looks very much like an early Polaroid when folded up. Hand crank spring drive, full sound, about 200 bucks.

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/themes/recordplayers/thorens_excelda.html
Anonymous

Well that’s cool and everything but it takes a minute and a half to set it up.
dragonfrog

That is amazing – I must go out and get a hard-sided satchel with 13″x13″ interior space so I can carry LPs with me. Then I can have recorded music anywhere I go, within minutes. The future is now!

Incidentally, does anyone know what kind of stylus that thing is using? All kinds of stuff used to be used – steel or copper (wore out after a couple of plays), cactus thorns (wore out even quicker, but didn’t damage the discs so much), eventually diamond.

I suspect that any damage to the disc would come mainly not from the stylus material, but the fact that the tone arm has to press down hard enough to power the sounding box purely through mechanical vibration.