Episode: 3794
Title: HPR3794: Retro Karaoke machine restored
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3794/hpr3794.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 05:25:14

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,794 for Thursday the 16th of February 2023.
Today's show is entitled Retro Cariochi Machine Restored.
It is hosted by Archer 72 and is about 8 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is I fix the cassette tape mechanism to a resale shop Cariochi Machine.
Hello this is Archer 72, welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
In this episode I found an NTEX Electronic Singing Machine Cariochi Model 1820 in the
thrift shop.
From worthpoint.com it was made in Taiwan in the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
It incorporates an 8-track player and a cassette tape recorder.
It also uses the Bucket Brigade Device, BBD Echo, Power Supplyed by 120 volts AC.
It also uses 10 D cell batteries or alternatively 12-15 volts DC.
As a side note, NTEX made handheld games and they have manuals on the internet archive
and I'll leave a note for that.
The first thing I noticed when I tested this machine in the store is that the control
knobs were pretty noisy.
So I picked up some contact cleaner and worked especially the volume knob.
So that helped a lot with consistent playback so it wouldn't be static when I turned
the volume up and down.
Besides that the 8-track tape did play right off but the cassette side of the machine
did not.
So I figured based on what John Colp had said in a previous episode about cassette players
that the belts might be bad.
There were about 8 screws holding a panel in to access the back and when I first looked
in I saw that there was only one belt in the cassette side and it was just hanging there.
Initially just thought I would need one set of belts so I ordered those off I Amazon.
To get to these belts on either side there were 3 screws holding the tray in place.
In other words the assembly that held both the 8-track and the cassette electronics together.
The two thinner belts were easy enough to install without pulling the assembly further
apart.
When the tape player still didn't turn I realized that there was a flat 4mm belt that fed
around the flywheel and also to a spindle which looking back I probably should have cleaned
up with alcohol because in this porting picture you'll see that it's a little bit gummy.
There were 3-4 screws holding the cassette assembly together to where I could replace the
flywheel belt.
I had to be careful getting it back together though because there were 3 pulley wheels
in an assembly that led to a switch on the PCB and also when I put it back together
I couldn't forget to put back the connecting rod to the cassette tray and before I started
taking this apart there was a cover for the cassette tray that was held in by two thumbs
screw.
The final check to make sure the cassette side turned freely now that I have it put back
together I can show you what the 8-track side sounds like.
Unfortunately I can't actually play music off of it to show you because it's copyrighted
but I can demonstrate the mechanism and the button that changes the tracks.
I can play something from the cassette side.
I pre-recorded this from the free music archive.
The title is Cyborg Lost by Modern Monster.
Now I'm ready to capture audio from the line out which I noted on the back that there
were both the line outs were red in color so that kind of indicates that it was made
quite a while ago before the standard became red on the right and white on the left.
I used a sabrent audio capture device because on the netbook that I repurposed from a previous
show it only had a single channel for the microphone input and also this capture card captures
at a higher bit rate and it's unknown as to what the microphone input bit rate was on
the netbook.
I'm using a record to capture the flack output and I thought it would be a nice play on
words to name the script capture the flack.
If you have an idea what this is a play on words from then feel free to leave a comment.
This is captured using the a record utility.
It names the file with a time and date stamp and the command is as follows.
A lot of audio capture.
A record L find device to use this works for finding the microphone input or the USB external
sound card.
Soundcard system fault code and card equals device USB audio device USB audio default audio
device.
Capture the flack.sh.
File equals dump, dollar, date plus percent f percent h percent m percent s sabrent sound
card in dot flack.
A record device equals USB fault code and card equals device rate equals 96000 channels
equals 2 new meter equals stereo USB fault code and card equals device duration equals 300
format equals that file type 1 flack o dollar file.
Thank you for listening and feel free to leave a comment on here or all any of the other
3,790 shows and also there is only 5 days until the next free slot as of this recording which
I am recording on February 11th, 2023.
Until next time.
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On the Sadois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International
License.