Uploaded November 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Optisonics "Sound-O-Matic Universal" may look like a mere cassette player, but it does a lot more! This "PowerPoint of the 1970s" box works with actual film slides. Even if you are too young to remember slides, you may have seen them in a movie. Before flat panel TVs and projectors were in homes and businesses, slide projectors were more common. They were used for both business presentations and also for showing photographs in the home. And that's where I became familiar with them: family photo slide shows...
A company named Elco in Pennsylvania (and later, HEC in Tuscon) produced the Optisonics brand of equipment. The pitch was simple: narrate your presentation and get it perfected on a cassette tape, then the machine plays it back for your audience, advancing the slide projector automatically. This technique was useful since a slide carousel could hold 140 slides which was a lot of details to remember and recite in the dark. With this box, you just click "play" then sit back and enjoy the party.
In researching this, we found several techniques for controlling slide presentations, such as use of open reel recorders with foil sensors. Due to its relative simplicity, I found the Sound-O-Matic Universal to be easy to use since there were only a few buttons.
It works by recording a special tone on the cassette as you narrate the slide slow. During playback, the tone activates a relay that advances either one or two slide projectors.
Today, automation like this would be done with program code. When I think about devices that used this type of tape-based automation at its peak in the 60s and 70s. I always think of Walt Disney World. Disney's the Tiki Room, the Hall of Presidents, and the Carousel of Progress all have this type of automation at their inception: 1960s tape-based control tones to move the "animatronic" robots.
Thanks for watching our video! If you like vintage technology videos, be sure to subscribe! Thanks!
0:00 Intro
0:48 What does it do?
1:05 Kodak Slide Projector
1:35 At the Movies
2:40 Optisonics History
3:00 Using the Sound-O-Matic
3:20 Demonstration 1
3:47 Automatic Pause Feature
4:37 Dual Projector Control
5:24 Repairing Advance Mechanism
5:45 Demonstration 2
6:54 Conclusion and Robot Takeover
What type of vintage technology do you want to see? Click on a playlist below:
1. 8 Tracks: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucd6yxn4GzQOfABy-Vmw3cpA
2. Cassette Decks: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucdJDN5Lfx5op7xV9osZF0tk
3. Reel to Reel: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSuccP6Go_KGdDZMS2uWBSfqcD
4. All of the above and more: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucd6hFidGPdOIOYVkEqTTeoA
#Cassette #1970s #Kodak #slideshow #powerpoint
The Optisonics "Sound-O-Matic Universal" may look like a mere cassette player, but it does a lot more! This "PowerPoint of the 1970s" box works with actual film slides. Even if you are too young to remember slides, you may have seen them in a movie. Before flat panel TVs and projectors were in homes and businesses, slide projectors were more common. They were used for both business presentations and also for showing photographs in the home. And that's where I became familiar with them: family photo slide shows...
A company named Elco in Pennsylvania (and later, HEC in Tuscon) produced the Optisonics brand of equipment. The pitch was simple: narrate your presentation and get it perfected on a cassette tape, then the machine plays it back for your audience, advancing the slide projector automatically. This technique was useful since a slide carousel could hold 140 slides which was a lot of details to remember and recite in the dark. With this box, you just click "play" then sit back and enjoy the party.
In researching this, we found several techniques for controlling slide presentations, such as use of open reel recorders with foil sensors. Due to its relative simplicity, I found the Sound-O-Matic Universal to be easy to use since there were only a few buttons.
It works by recording a special tone on the cassette as you narrate the slide slow. During playback, the tone activates a relay that advances either one or two slide projectors.
Today, automation like this would be done with program code. When I think about devices that used this type of tape-based automation at its peak in the 60s and 70s. I always think of Walt Disney World. Disney's the Tiki Room, the Hall of Presidents, and the Carousel of Progress all have this type of automation at their inception: 1960s tape-based control tones to move the "animatronic" robots.
Thanks for watching our video! If you like vintage technology videos, be sure to subscribe! Thanks!
0:00 Intro
0:48 What does it do?
1:05 Kodak Slide Projector
1:35 At the Movies
2:40 Optisonics History
3:00 Using the Sound-O-Matic
3:20 Demonstration 1
3:47 Automatic Pause Feature
4:37 Dual Projector Control
5:24 Repairing Advance Mechanism
5:45 Demonstration 2
6:54 Conclusion and Robot Takeover
What type of vintage technology do you want to see? Click on a playlist below:
1. 8 Tracks: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucd6yxn4GzQOfABy-Vmw3cpA
2. Cassette Decks: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucdJDN5Lfx5op7xV9osZF0tk
3. Reel to Reel: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSuccP6Go_KGdDZMS2uWBSfqcD
4. All of the above and more: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvdr2fcSSucd6hFidGPdOIOYVkEqTTeoA
#Cassette #1970s #Kodak #slideshow #powerpoint
