brent@itm.UUCP (Brent) (04/03/84)
This is a non-existant line.
Cassettes #4
You'll recall that King Instrument was making pretty good cassette
loaders as we left this saga. Enter "the two Daves". One was a
mechanical whiz, the other an electronic whiz. They modified the
old King series 700 winders: installed fancy servo controlled motors,
vacuum columns, a different splicer mechanism, etc. They did this
under a couple of different company names: "Domain" or "D & D".
So everyone bought their King 730 for $10,000 and sent it off to
the two Daves, along with a check for $12,000. What did they get
back? A more reliable machine that ran twice as fast. All was well
with the cassette world.
Alas, out story takes a dark turn: Though the two Daves were
tape winding wizards, they were poor business managers. King bought
them out about three years ago. Bought them out for essentially nothing.
The two Daves were on the King payroll, and that was about it. They
then designed the ultimate winder: the King 790. It does everything.
It's a fun machine to work on because it has one of everything on it:
it has motors, pneumatic cylinders, vacuum columns, motors, a
microprocessor, LED displays, servos, you name it. It can wind
a C-60 cassette every 7 seconds. That's 281 feet of 1/8" X .75 mil
tape. That's a peak winding speed of over 1500 inches per second,
or over 85 miles per hour. Yes, it screams. It stops on a dime and
has the most hyper set of servos I have ever seen. Like they have
been on speed for three days.
Cost? $26,000 each. CBS records west of here in Carrollton, Ga.
has three dozen of these machines. "Thriller" keeps 'em busy.
Everyone uses them. They sell like hotcakes.
But wait, what of the two Daves? The story gets sadder. More later.
--
Brent Laminack (akgua!itm!brent)