decle Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Some more progress on reviving the tape deck on @Ron The Cat's K/C. I felt it probably deserved its own thread this time: Still not certain what is wrong or why it's improving (I'm primarily focused on documenting the tape drive behaviour at the moment), but when the result is that we get to see and hear Jack after 40 years, who cares As you can see things are still not great as the options following the introduction fail with "BAD TAPE". So thankfully my and Ron's state of unfitness will remain for the moment and we're not obliged to "kick yourself in the backside every day". 19 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 Neat! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 The resemblance is uncanny: 4 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfy62 Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 13 minutes ago, JasonlikesINTV said: The resemblance is uncanny: The guy on the right looks like hes ready to start dancing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+atari2600land Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 The guy on the right looks like the Incredible Hulk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IMBerzerk Posted November 12, 2020 Share Posted November 12, 2020 LaLanne was a small man, but incredibly fit at a time when most people didn't know what a gym was. Here he is at 70... Pulling 70 boats. I couldn't pull 1, let alone 70. https://youtu.be/skRb-oND3qA 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari_Bill Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 That is great. Really enjoyed getting a look at that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lathe26 Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 Awesome video! Thanks for sharing! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cmart604 Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 8 hours ago, JasonlikesINTV said: The resemblance is uncanny: Aaaaand I've just figured out Jason's cosplay outfit for the next PRGE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JasonlikesINTV Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 6 hours ago, cmart604 said: Aaaaand I've just figured out Jason's cosplay outfit for the next PRGE Like I have the hips for that. Wait, you mean the one on the right, don't you ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Intymike Posted November 13, 2020 Share Posted November 13, 2020 Pretty impressing. Wii Fit's grand dad. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
decle Posted November 14, 2020 Author Share Posted November 14, 2020 I've put together a second video of Jack in action. This gets a bit further into the fitness test before it turns up its toes. I've also taken a direct feed of the Intellivision audio and mixed it in with the ambient sound, so Jack's vocals should be better. A few things to note... If you ever have the chance to listen to a K/C tape you will notice that the non-BASIC ones like Jack LaLanne have a weird tone at the start. This is notable because it is at a different frequency to program data (~1400Hz rather than 1500Hz). It is now clear what this tone is for. It is played back through the TV so that you can set the volume of the two channels on the audio tape as we see at the start of Jack LaLanne. This is done using two dials on the left side of the K/C, one each for the pre-recorded audio and the user recorded audio. I'm not sure if Jack is Year 2000 compliant, but as you can see I can set a current date of ??20 and a birth date of 1970 (presumably). So either it is compliant, or I'm in for trouble later, or I'm a Time Lord. You will notice that Jack mentions music playing when doing the exercise, this is also mentioned in the manual, but as you can hear no music plays. And there isn't any music on the audio tracks of the tape. I don't think the tape has started to have problems at this point so I don't think it is because some electronic music has failed to load, but perhaps I'm wrong. I'd be really interested if this music is intended to be generated by the Inty or if it was supposed to be pre-recorded and was then dropped for some reason. It doesn't seem that the intention was that the user recorded some music onto the recordable audio track, as it's not mentioned in the manual (this would have to be done using the K/C because the user recorded track is on side B of the tape and any music would have to be recorded backwards in order to play forwards on the K/C. It would also nuke anything on the user recorded data track). Once I get to investigating the audio side of the tape interface it should be possible to see whether the K/C is playing the pre-recorded audio at this point, with the intention that it contains some music. Finally, when the tape does fail it seems that it might be a mechanical failure. If I try to rewind the tape from this point the tape deck really struggles, suggesting the tape is binding. However, if I remove the tape it is not obviously stiff. I've tried a few things to free up the tape a bit, including fast forwarding and rewinding the whole tape, playing it all the way through on a regular deck, a bit of percussive maintenance to settle the reels and opening it up to make sure the slip sheets and rollers look OK. The results are unclear, sometimes things seem to improve a bit, allowing the video above, sometimes they regress. If anyone has suggestions for means to improve the mechanical playback of tapes that don't involve the application of kitchen oil or silicone lubricants I'd be interested to hear them. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted November 14, 2020 Share Posted November 14, 2020 I don't have any helpful suggestions but I can tell you that the music that plays during exercises is ay3-8914 music. Not sure if it's the same for the fitness test. Does anyone else have a working keyboard component? This seems to be the first video of either Jack Lalanne or the Conversation French programs. Awesome work. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron The Cat Posted November 16, 2020 Share Posted November 16, 2020 (edited) Congrats Decle ! Been a few years now since we first met up and you began tinkering with the KC and it's dodgy 4-track cassette deck. Can't believe we finally got to see Jack Lalanne boot up and invite us into his gym (pretty darn woofy smell by now I suspect) , an historic achievement. Something I have waited for since 1981 when first saw the brochure advertising it. We did fail to consult our physician before hand though as the marketing blurb advised .... Edited November 16, 2020 by Ron The Cat 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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