I love old media. The physicality of them and - more importantly - what people did with them. I’m more excited by ‘blank’ media than prerecorded ones. We’ve all seen Jurassic Park, we’ve all heard Ray Charles, but have we all heard someone singing along in their kitchen to Christmas carols? When was the last time you played a game of Bamboozle from 1995?
Its these nuggets that I love discovering and I collate what I have both on my Youtube channel and over at the ReelArchives website. I have an awful lot more to share (seriously, someone please take my ebay account off me) so do check there for updates.
It’s also been a wonderful opportunity to learn more about mechanical devices. I’ve dealt with computers all my life but never really dealt with cogs, gears and motors. And springs. Them bloody springs.
What kind of stuff do you collect?
Any and all. At the moment in the library I have:
- Cassette tapes
- VHS tapes
- Teletext pages
- Betamax tapes
- 8-track tapes
- Minidisc
- Reel-to-reel tapes
- 8mm / Super8 film
- 16mm film
- Laserdisc
- Various home movie camera formats
- Slides
Are you able to digitize them all?
I’ve managed to get a workflow for most, but not all (mainly anything projection based such as 8mm film). I haven’t quite got the Betamax functioning properly at the moment either so that still eludes me.
What are your faves?
I’ve found Teletext wonderful to recover. Its complicated but utterly rewarding - theres some real nuggets in there including adverts for surprisingly small companies.
But ‘blank’ reel-to-reels can’t be beat. Whether its trying to work out the air data of an old radio program, or listening in on someones living room after they forgot to stop recording something off the telly, its a real rabbit hole and I’ve learned so much about things no-one else cares about while researching these things (the Bolivian cocaine industry in the 1980s and the Adult Literacy efforts of the UK in the 1970s are peculiar highlights).
What else would you like to capture?
Aside from the media I already have, currently these are on my capture wishlist:
- Microfiche / Microfilm
- Non-standard over the air (images from weather satellites, ISS chatter etc)
I’ve got some stuff, are you interested?
Yes! I’m always interested in donations of media or players. Click below to get in touch.