Yup.. we've seen this before in our VCR repair business back in the day. it's simply an eject notice that has remote notification. It was used in high usage VCRs, usually for security recordings. It would send a notice when the recording tape was full and the unit ejected the tape, thus letting someone know at a remote location that it's time to put in a new tape.

@lifesucks247

2 жыл бұрын

This was my guess as well.

@dizzy_derps

2 жыл бұрын

I was thinking of something along a similar line. If you have a VCR monitoring say a convenience store, if an someone were to eject the tape to cover their tracks this could set off an alarm somewhere.

I'm glad you're not an archaeologist. "I don't know what this unusual object is. I will destroy it. So weird. Wonder what it was."

@resneptacle

2 жыл бұрын

I mean, it was pretty obvious from what we saw what it was, a micro controller hooked up to a micro switch to signal some kind of unknown and long gone server that a tape was inserted or removed. It's not a big secret or something completely mysterious.

Perhaps a tape counter such as a hotel where the unit is monitored. An alarm goes off if the Ethernet or power is disconnected, and a billing counter is tripped every time a tape is inserted. In my servicing days would see all kinds of nifty mods. The most interesting was the Nielsen meters.They metered up everyone's TV and VCR with a sniffer probe to determine what channel the TV and VCR was on, and then had a video detector paralleled across the video outputs. It would read the vits code, likely the closed caption data, so that they could determine what was being played. I had a contract to repair these TVs and VCRs back in the day. Didn't matter what was wrong they covered the repairs Picture tube shot, cost as much as a new TV, no problem, change it. Heads worn out on the VCR, change em. I would get about 10 units a week. Never looked at one of the meters though, they were off limits and had tamper seals on them. The reason I think perhaps a hotel set was because many years ago I stayed at a place that had a library of tapes in the room, and there was a sign on the VCR that said playing a tape would charge 3.00 per movie to the room, and they had about a dozen tapes, sitting on the shelf above the TV. Now as to the alarm, I unplugged the VCR to plug my charger in for my camera, and got a phone call from the front desk almost immediately asking me why I had unplugged the VCR, so they were monitoring it. I didn't pull the VCR out of the cabinet to see if it had an additional cable but I bet it did.

@chitlitlah

3 жыл бұрын

That's really interesting, but were Arduinos around while VCRs were still common? It seems like I first heard about them five to ten years ago.

@12voltvids

3 жыл бұрын

@@chitlitlah Not necessairly an arduino. Lotf of custom solutions available to meter up anything. I forget what motel I was staying in at the time, but it was a road trip I was on around 2006 and the place I stayed in had a VCR in the room a bunch a selection of movies and a sign that said that any use of the VCR would incur a 3.00 charge per movie. I unplugged the VCR so I could connect my video camera to review the footage I had shot that day, and the room phone rang within 1 minute of unpligging it, so they were monitoring it remotely. You know, so it wouldn't grow legs and walk away. They could have also besides monitor it, make it only work when connected to their network, and if it was stolen would not play.

@chouseification

Жыл бұрын

@@chitlitlah long before Arduino there were all sorts of small PLCs; and if you were doing enough volume, it would be worth your effort to have a small custom board created, complete with simple programmed logic controller chip to do a very simple but repeatable task. The sort of chip used in common "electronic games" like those early battery powered Mattel Football, Simon and similar 70s-80s toys would be more than enough for simple tasks. Of course those would be wired up to alarm lines vs Ethernet, but a lot of these ideas have been around for a while.

The most frustrating thing about this is that not only did he have a typo in the address bar, (169 instead of 168), he made that same mistake multiple times and managed to catch himself and correct the type everywhere *except* the address bar....even when looking at it and backspacing.

I can't believe he didn't spot the 169 error, I've never screamed so much inside.

It's probably part of an Escape room puzzle, putting in the tape triggers the arduino to notify the control room to unlock the next part of the puzzle.

@RealLatinGeek

3 жыл бұрын

This is my favorite guess. It lines up with the very one-off look of the mod, and that particular teensy cake out in 2014, which I assume is way too late for a stateside VHS duplication operation to make sense.

@Dukefazon

3 жыл бұрын

I really like this idea!

@TheErador

3 жыл бұрын

Great idea!

@performa9523

3 жыл бұрын

This is probably it. I went through an escape room that did something similar with an audio cassette deck.

@retrolabo

3 жыл бұрын

Yep I was thinking about a training video too like you have before a go kart session

Please Adrian, assemble it back. Then make part 2, "What is lurking inside of that little thing".

@laserhawk64

3 жыл бұрын

This. Absolutely this!

@tekvax01

3 жыл бұрын

that would be nice!

@coryengel

3 жыл бұрын

Agreed. “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” Gandalf

@mertuckan

3 жыл бұрын

I agree. This made me sad. It looked like a very sophisticated mod. please put it back together after the inspection. You are not a kind of guy who destroys things for nothing.

@iguanac6466

3 жыл бұрын

I'm just looking at him rip it all out screaming WHY?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!

Oh Adrian, I can't believe you typed the wrong IP address... Now we'll never know... 😥

@6581punk

3 жыл бұрын

Plus the port option didn't work, it still went and used port 21. I think the telnet syntax was wrong.

@spacewolfjr

3 жыл бұрын

@@6581punk port 23 (21 is ftp)

@TheErador

3 жыл бұрын

Telnet uses a space not a colon @adrian

@TheErador

3 жыл бұрын

Also there was a path written under the ip ... /teensy_vcr

@Colaholiker

3 жыл бұрын

@@TheErador Which makes no difference if you can't get the socket connected due to wrong IP address and port specification in the first place. ;-)

In case you didn't know this, auto MDIX is baked into the 1000Base-T standard, so as long as one end of the link is Gigabit ethernet, you don't need a crossover cable.

@jammi__

3 жыл бұрын

Many earlier implementations had the auto-crossover too. I can't remember many ethernet ports I've had without it, even on 10BaseT

@jammi__

3 жыл бұрын

@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Since the late 90s, most switches have had auto-crossover. Practically it's like when the use of switches rather than hubs became the standard, auto-crossover became the standard too.

@UberAlphaSirus

3 жыл бұрын

Interesting.

These mods were used in the casino surveillance business to alert the surveillance operator of the vcr status. Sometimes even to just automatically go to record when the tape is inserted. Back in the day it made sense when casino's had hundreds of vcr's. It was not a good thing when a vcr shut down, stopped recording in a sensitive area.

Why would you tear it all out and almost destroy it before even trying it out?

Definitely used for tape archiving to digital to notify when it's done playing.

@electronraygun6346

3 жыл бұрын

That's exactly what occurred to me as decades ago I thought about hacking a similar system using a keyboard controller to stop a video capture app when a tape was ejected from a VCR. I never did as I just set the capture to stop depending on the length of the tape.

@tlowery04

3 жыл бұрын

This. Probably used in a vhs to dvd conversion business. If you could figure out how it was setup it might be pretty valuable to someone.

@shaneshannon6874

3 жыл бұрын

How would it archive anything when it wasn't connected to a video source?

@shaneshannon6874

3 жыл бұрын

I wasn't thinking and it just hit me, maybe if it had external hardware, but what was the micro SD for??

@electronraygun6346

3 жыл бұрын

@@shaneshannon6874 The way I imagined this would work in a duplication store would be you have banks of these VCRs all connected to a server/pc. You put in the tape to be duplicated and log the customer details and the VCR number. When the tape is finished and ejected from the machine the VCR/Arduino sends a signal to the server telling it that it's done. Perhaps there were PCs used to copy and burn to DVD. At the end the networked VCR could "tell" the PC to stop capturing. Then you go to maybe a spreadsheet and you can see which tapes have finished duplicating and where to find them. Alternatively, this was used to pirate DVDs onto VHS many moons ago! Each VCR checking in at the end of the process so you knew that the tape had spooled all the way to the end indicating a successful duplicate :-)

You should start a series called "Watch me destroy this thing because I don't know how to use it."

@DarrenBoxhall

3 жыл бұрын

Most infuriating video I have seen for a long time

@alexcust3791

3 жыл бұрын

Only an american

@iandouglas4992

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah really, let's just break everything before trying to figure out what's going on.

@dejanpetkovski8761

3 жыл бұрын

Maby you should first try before destroy it and if push the switch maby something happen.

@CMDRBlueeagle66

3 жыл бұрын

@@DarrenBoxhall Agreed. Rip it all out before switching it on. This video had me pulling my hair out.

6:20 - What!? Why cut it??? Why don't you hook it up to something and see what messages it boadcasts or something? Don't destroy it right away! 11:02 - yes, how this was not your first thought?! How about using the USB port to plug it into your computer and see some serial messages when you press the switch?

@cambridgemart2075

3 жыл бұрын

Wasn't the USB port just for power? No reason to believe it's coded to output anything over USB.

@Dukefazon

3 жыл бұрын

@@cambridgemart2075 Yes, the USB was just connected to power the board but in the case of Arduino you can communicate with the board through USB too, see the standard output messages (if there are any) and such.

It's killing me that you didn't check it out before ripping it out. Running nmap to check it for running services, then netcat to get service headers would've given you some clues.

@Trevorodunne

3 жыл бұрын

I nearly cryed when I saw him doing that

@horaciodelre2210

3 жыл бұрын

I feel the same!!!!

@666hobart

3 жыл бұрын

If dude knew anything IT related then maybe...

@Knaeckebrotsaege

2 жыл бұрын

Also typing the correct IP in the browser at 13:37 (how ironic) probably would've helped (he said 192.168 but typed 169 instead and never corrected it before ripping it to pieces)

I was hoping you'd fire up wireshark/tcpdump to see what it might have been sending out

@robhopkins2602

3 жыл бұрын

Agreed, setup wireshark and see what IP it was reaching out to, then mimic that IP and port so it could start 3-way handshake and start communication (setup a local listener to mimic the original so you can see what it sends )

@dparks256

3 жыл бұрын

I was also curious, but I guess it’s channel 2 so just quickies.

@WareWolf801

3 жыл бұрын

I figured he was headed in this direction, and was surprised that he got the address wrong in the web browser trying to access it. Nobody tries ssh? Hello? Port scan for whatever addresses are identifying on the network segment. 10.x.x.x could also be possible, and the sticker/info on the side of the vcr is wrong. Different setup could be loaded from the sd.

@drawdebono77

3 жыл бұрын

Ha! After what everyone saw him doing here to that vcr, you think he actually knows what you are talking about, or even knows that it exists?

Ah! I wish you had used nmap to scan for open ports! My parents bought one last VCR in the TiVO age and that thing was amazing because it autodetected and fast-forwarded through commercials.

A new generation of DIY videos. I mean: Destroy-It-Yourself...

I do some volunteer tech work/“inventing” for a library. We did a similar mod to machines used for tape “archiving”. Basically there are a bunch of machines playing back into a recorder. We’re using esp8266 with W5500 Ethernet modules, to report the machines status. Just very basic stuff like power on/off and if it’s running. We have them submit their status to a very simple server, which can alert the operator via a push notifications (using pushover) to their phone.

@spacewolfjr

3 жыл бұрын

What do you use for a recorder? Like a USB to Composite video capture?

@eDoc2020

3 жыл бұрын

I would probably try to do it for free by monitoring the video output. A solid blue screen for X seconds probably means the VCR is done playing.

@absalomdraconis

3 жыл бұрын

@@eDoc2020 : And _then_ you run across a tape that was several seconds of text on a blue background, with bleed-over resulting in the letters also looking like light blue, breaking your system. The best choice is one similar to what was done here.

@eDoc2020

3 жыл бұрын

@@absalomdraconis Yes, that is a possible drawback of the approach I mentioned. However I think that is incredibly unlikely. I would use a long timeout like 60 seconds and to the image comparison on the computer, with fairly strict thresholds. If the tape had a recording of a solid blue screen of the same color lasting 60 seconds there could be an issue. But even then, momentary tape dropouts and other sources of noise would probably reset the timer. There's usually a good bit of head switching noise at the very top of the image when playing back VHS, which is usually cut off by a TV's overscan but is very visible on a digital capture. Every type of in-band signalling can be fooled. My method could be modified in a few ways to make it virtually foolproof. One way would be to have the PC play random tones into the VCR's input. When the tape stops the PC will hear the tones. By comparing them to the tones it just generated (which would not be known in advance) we can be very confident the tones were not prerecorded. Another way is more VCR-specific. When my VCRs hit end of tape they will automatically rewind, eject, and power off. The lack of video signal when that happens should be detectable. In reality if I had a bit of equipment budget to hack stuff into the VCR, I might tap onto the existing reel rotation sensors. This would detect any situation resulting in change of transport state. When the pulses occur regularly, the tape is running normally. If the pulses occur rapidly, the machine is rewinding (or possibly fast-forwarding). If the pulses stop, the tape is stopped, ejected, or paused. Assuming the VCR automatically rewinds at end of tape and freezes the transport when it detects a jam or other error, these can be detected separately. Only monitoring the tape insertion status (as done here) would not detect playback errors and it also wouldn't alert you a tape is done until the tape is done rewinding. By sending an alert when the tape is still rewinding the human can prepare the next tape ahead of time and insert it right when the previous one is done, eliminating wasted time on the machine. If you don't care about future people using the tape, you could also skip the rewinding process to save even more time.

@thesmashtvnetwork

3 жыл бұрын

@@absalomdraconis that a data disk if you had a card you be able to read the tape on pc

This is the most infuriating video I've seen in ages: Find something fascinating, utterly mess up the investigation of what it does, then destroy it for no reason. Really disappointed.

@Mind-your-own-beeswax

3 жыл бұрын

Agree. What a hack

@waterfallhunter634

3 жыл бұрын

I agree this is like watching the 8-Bit guy. these guys have a little bit of knowledge about a lot of stuff but don't really know what they are doing.

@Grnch1

3 жыл бұрын

Pissed me off too, totally ruined the mystery. I want the 15 minutes of my life back. This is the first video I stumbled upon by this guy, and it's definitely going to be the last, cause I'm not subscribing. Thumbs down. P.S. I do realize that by commenting on this video I'm boosting the "engagement" or whatever. I guess enjoy the temporary blip while it lasts, cause I ain't coming back, and judging by the rest of the comments, looks like others feel the same.

@drawdebono77

3 жыл бұрын

What is upset me the most is the fact that he is actually having fun while destroying it, thinking he's gonna magically find out what it is for disassembling it instead of connecting everything and trying to make it work. I'm pretty sure that if he had that kind of skill, he wouldn't destroy something before trying to turn it on and investigate the mechanics; second, he wouldn't try to cut a couple of soldered arduino boards with those tools, knowing he would left them unusable; third, if he had those skills, he would be more professional at handling this kind of modified hardware and lastly, he wouldn't be doing SideshowBob videos on KZread, he possibly would have a decent electronics repair shop and making videos would be his hobby.

@Whatareyoueven42

3 жыл бұрын

Would you all like some tissues?

Eagerly awaiting the reassembled part 2 :)

You typed 192.169 in the browser.....not 192.168.

Adrian :O Oh no... 192.169.1.252:8000 !?!?!? It should be 192.168.1.252:8000 as you yourself said when you typed it in! :P Also the Telnet command in Windows does not use the format with a colon but instead use a space between the IP number and port... So that command should have been: telnet 192.168.1.252 8000 in order to test! I second the demand that you put it all back and test it correctly! :D

@HFkepley9312

3 жыл бұрын

i completely agree

@Spongman

3 жыл бұрын

it literally told him 4 times "could not open connection to the host on port 23"

@cyberwolfe

3 жыл бұрын

I think he should have tried port banana.

You didn't have to be so destructive about it. It's a neat little mystery to solve. Should have left it in there and debug. At least do a port scan, dump the traffic first before ruining it. So sad to see this video

Can you solder it back together and use the correct IP address and ports ? See if it is running a webUI

I can't imagine what situation would have Adrian tape a session of Bionic Commando, but I'm really glad he did.

I used to mod domestic VCR's to alarm record.Time lapse units were too expensive for the domestic market in the early 90's.I had some wealthy clients that had CCTV cameras but wanted a cheaper alternative to a TL machine.A simple job using a triple 5 timer and connecting an open circuit input from a PIR or Infra red beam to the record and stop buttons.The good old days.lol Subscribed.

Following along as you discover this weird hack has been awesome. Thanks

Late run VCRs are a lesson in cost reduction when you compare them to early 80s machines.

@BilisNegra

3 жыл бұрын

Which is only natural. I'm an '80s child, so I recall how expensive VCRs were back in the middle of the decade, and can figure a few years earlier was even worse.

@SidneyCritic

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah the tape transport mech unit looks like the same unit as in a few of the newer VCRs that I've repaired, ie, probably shared by different manufactures.

@BilisNegra

3 жыл бұрын

​@@SidneyCritic Maybe in later years there was something comparable to the Tanashin mechanism (something quite basic that works, but it's not particularly great) which is the only one you can get for audio cassette players since years ago?

@BilisNegra

3 жыл бұрын

​@@commietube_censorship_sucks Hey, the Funai name in this context really rings a bell to me as something I probably have heard about at some point, but too much in passing to make a solid remembrance. Thanks for that, I guess this is what I was looking for!

You put in the wrong IP in the browser (192.169.1.252 instead of 192.168.1.252)

@Vinnievidivici

3 жыл бұрын

This! :D

@JohnTannerinDerbyshire

3 жыл бұрын

Gutted!!!

@ToTheGAMES

3 жыл бұрын

Even though the typo, telnet was correct and would have responded on that port. It doesn't recieve anything on there. Edit: Telnet command seems wrong too, on Windows there shouldnt be a colon, but a space.

@questionlp

3 жыл бұрын

@@ToTheGAMES There was a colon between the IP address and the port, which isn't the correct format. You can see that it was trying to connect to port 23 and not 8000.

@Okurka.

3 жыл бұрын

I'm starting to think KZreadrs make such mistakes on purpose to get more comments.

My guess is that it was used to "digitize" VHS tapes into digital video files. Insert VHS, microcontroller tells PC to start recording/encoding, VHS plays until done, ejects tape and microcontroller tells PC to stop recording. Completely automated process with the only input being insertion of a VHS tape every few hours.

@richardcranium5839

3 жыл бұрын

possible on a dedicated pc with the input run through a card that can handle ntsc video input

"Wow, look at this mystery mod. Who knows what this thing is? What did it do? Why is it there? Eh, who cares about all of that. Let's just destroy it instead." WTF? D:

@IDPhotoMan

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, umm What the Hell? At least fire it up first lol

I think it was part of a vcr bank used with select o vision in a hotel.

@ajgomez9140

2 жыл бұрын

Exactly what it is..it’s was used to provide on-demand movies to rooms..you place movies in VCR’s the system would automatically remove movies from the guest tv menu once they were all being watched

Immediately recognized Bionic Commando on that VHS cassette.

@gregwalterscheid

3 жыл бұрын

For some reason I was thinking karate kid

I'm so frustrated that you destroyed it especially after making a typo trying to access it on the command line. Would have been a brilliant mystery to solve. I demand you rebuild it 😔

@cubey

3 жыл бұрын

Shitty behavior for the sake of views.

@martingallen

3 жыл бұрын

@@blitzwing1 Thank you for your feedback random person

@kbhasi

2 жыл бұрын

It's making me want to file a Chromium bug (as he appears to use Google Chrome) asking users on the error page to check the typed URL, as Firefox has suggested that for years but Chrome doesn't seem to.

@resneptacle

2 жыл бұрын

There is no real mystery behind it. A microswitch hooked up to a micro controller stating either on a website or pinging a server that a tape was inserted or removed. This thing alone really doesn't tell us much in any way without the whole server and network infrastructure it was part of hooked up. On its own, it's literally not much worth apart from looking at the rather interesting DIY construction.

@martingallen

2 жыл бұрын

@@resneptacle but trying to work out what the infrastructure was would be an interesting thing.

fyi -- the telnet command is IP address followed by a space and then port number, you don't put a colon in between the ip and the port #...

@tux1968

3 жыл бұрын

Came here to say this.. he was going to the same default port every time.. the error message even said so on the screen.

@skonkfactory

3 жыл бұрын

@@tux1968 And he mistyped the IP address in the web browser.

@martinwhitaker5096

3 жыл бұрын

I was sooo shouting at the screen watching that....

Yeah, I think your suggestion of what the board did was pretty much spot on. The original thread announcing the teensy 3.2 was from September 2015, so the only other reason I can think that anyone would need a VCR that did something when the tape ejected would be for a surveillance system. If they had two VCRs, when one finished, it could send a command to another microcontroller which transmits a record signal via an IR diode to the second VCR. Then presumably the operator would pop in a fresh tape and when the second VCR was done, it would signal the first VCR to start recording. If they had a bank of four, you'd only need to replace the tapes once a day.

About 25 years ago, I bought a crap midi hifi from a charity shop for £5, I found 9 ounces of hash inside.

@elvinhaak

3 жыл бұрын

you got good worth for that 5 pounds!

@scotttait2197

3 жыл бұрын

Pitty wasn't 9ibs for 5 pound lol

In regards to the plastic protrusions on the back, you are exactly right. Those are indeed for holding the power cord. It would have been coiled up and secured there during packaging at the factory. They are basically to make the packing easier, and perhaps cheaper.

@imark7777777

Жыл бұрын

I always wondered that but never saw it done. All I can think of is maybe just some generic mold that never really got used in the states or any of the VCRs I saw packaged.

My best guess is that it was used for digitization of old tapes. Maybe it stops the recording and summons the owner when the tape is done. European VCRs use a SCART connector which has a "switch signal" on pin 8. Most VCRs output 12V on this pin while playing. This is how I did my digitizing of old tapes. When the VCR is playing a tape, pin 8 let's the TV switch to AV and back to a TV station once the tape stops. I used a 12V relay connected to the space bar of a keyboard. When the relay is off, the space bar was pressed stopping the recording.

As others have pointed out - the IP address was typed wrong when you tried to connect through the browser, and I think telnet was still trying the default port each time too. If you still have the bits and pieces and get bored, I'm sure it would be very interesting to assemble it again if only to see the weird custom... whatever!... that is on that thing. If its some kind of tape duplicating setup there can't be many of them around; maybe it was some kind of illegal duplicating scheme or something! Would be super interesting to see :) Anyway really video as always, very random and interesting!

Did you ever try the correct web address, all I saw was 169, not 168.

@DoctorWhom

3 жыл бұрын

14:11 omg even the telnet command was wrong, as it clearly said its trying to connect on port 23 even though he thinks he asked for port 8000

About the hot glue: Yeah, the original owner was probably able to source some "good stuff". I've done archery, and I use(d) hot glue to glue the "field point" arrowheads onto my arrows. The typical craft-grade glue that you can get just about anywhere came unstuck way too easily, so I had to seek out stronger hot glue intended for carpentry. Eventually the companies that sold the carpentry stuff just started sourcing ordinary craft grade stuff, so I had to start getting my glue from actual archery stores. Anyway, you can compare the strength of "strong" hot glues like Kimsha or Ferr-L-Tite against the hot melt glue you can get just about anywhere, and there's a pronounced difference. With my arrows, that difference was being able to pull my arrow out of a target with the head still attached every time, versus the head being lost in the target almost half of the time. I guess the force of the arrow slamming into the target was enough to break the bond of the craft grade stuff much more easily than the carpentry/archery stuff. So yeah, not all hot glue is created equal.

How could you destroy something so glorious?

@BBC600

3 жыл бұрын

That too really upset me for some reason.

It could be a part of a VHS to digital ripping system. The micro would signal the capture machine to tell it when to start/stop recording based on the switch input?

I recommend using Putty to connect a raw TCP socket. The first few bytes it sends (assuming it starts the conversion) can be a strong clue. I've done this myself in the past. Other folks suggest Wireshark to help with auto-detection.

Awesome bionic commando footage! I think we need more of this vintage gaming Adrian black footage!

I have seen something pretty similar. I work in home automation. Sometimes people have all the video equipment in a rack in the basement, so the only way to automate a vcr is to have a trigger that tells your if there is a tape inside or not.

Instead of testing it out while hooked up to try and figure out what it did, you ripped it all apart instead. What the heck, man? It's too bad this VCR didn't go to literally anyone else instead of you. Sheesh.

@jordanhagan1996

3 жыл бұрын

Just thinking the same thing. He destroyed it for no reason.

@garystinten9339

3 жыл бұрын

Ben heck would have sussed it out

There is a mod shown on the Norwegian Creations website of hacking an old VHS player. They used a bigger Arduino, but looks like the same concept.

@d.r.1402

3 жыл бұрын

What did it do?

@Sheevlord

3 жыл бұрын

@@d.r.1402 I found the article. It's unclear what this was for - all they said is that they added the functionality to detect when a cassette was inserted, and also the ability to tell the VCR to eject the tape from the arduino.

@therealjammit

3 жыл бұрын

These guys? kzread.info Can't seem to find anything about a VCR though.

@MisterMsk

3 жыл бұрын

@@therealjammit It is on their website. I posted the link but somehow it was removed. Google search find the article, thou.

Maybe a hotel motel type deal so they can charge you everytime you use the VCR.

@dunebasher1971

3 жыл бұрын

How many hotels/motels were still using VHS VCRs in 2015? It can't be any earlier than that, since the Teensy 3.2 wasn't available until 2015.

@stanpatterson5033

3 жыл бұрын

I never saw a hotel room with a VCR in it. I guess I was staying at the wrong places.

@TheJeremyHolloway

3 жыл бұрын

@@dunebasher1971 you'd probably be surprised how many hotels/motels still have analog televisions in the rooms and piping SD cable channels to the rooms.

This may have been a mod to auto start and stop recording from VCR to a capture card on a PC. I've done similar myself with a bunch of our home video. It worked by a script looking for a new insertion to auto start recording and stop once ejected. Though mine was directly using a pi to do this via gpio and USB encoder.

@HFkepley9312

3 жыл бұрын

basically same to be used for archiving a tape library as creating DVDs and running servers like Plex where becoming more popular

Isopropyl alcohol often will cause hot melt glue to release it's bond. I'm sure you know this by now. Light mist of the stuff and it gets under the glue and it normally pops right off.

@stanpatterson5033

3 жыл бұрын

Try to find any of that stuff, lately? Nobody, I mean NOBODY seems to have that or hydrogen peroxide on the shelf since the whole Covid thing started. Seems that the higher-ups were afraid that the general public would try their hand (using those two products) at making homebrew sanitizer.

@jeffm2787

3 жыл бұрын

@@stanpatterson5033 Just looked on Amazon, I can get 99.9% from MG chemicals in a couple days. Lots and lots of different brands in stock. Shelves might be another issue.

This looks like a setup that was similarly used in adult "movie theaters" before dvd and digital were more common and cheaper. It probably let the clerk or staff on hand that the movie was over in the private booth or theater and they either had to pay for more time or leave.

If I remember correct, this kind of mods were also used in VCR's which were part of a CCTV network (to record the camera footage). This kind of switches were used to send an alarm to the server (and eventually on to the owner/admin) that the tape was ejected should be changed. In most cases there were several VCR's standing in a rack and did the server system activate another VCR to continue recording.

Chances are that one of the voltage outputs of the VCR's power supply circuit (on the left) is between 5V - 5.5V and could directly power the mod without the need for an additional power adapter. Would have been even greater mod if the person soldered wires there for power. Even if 5V was not available, add in a cheap step down voltage converter USB module to the 12V - 14V output. That typo in the browser and not using telnet properly had me yelling at the screen.

A very mean parent wanted to check how many videos their kid played while they were at work, lol.

Kind of a shame the IP was typed in wrong in the browser, the more I hope there will be a follow-up to this video! Interesting insight to what they did with the VCRs for mass-copying!

@derwildeKnut

2 жыл бұрын

and used Telnet wrong! Telnet is not accepting Ports with IP:PORT, you need to use the -p switch

Just something this bloke has put together to make this seem soooo interesting

Man so cool just to stumble upon someone's old project

Now knowing what it is, we can date the mod a bit. The Teensy 3.2 was released in September 2015, so the mod was done sometime after that. Perhaps a bit more recent than I'd expect, so some kind of archiving project makes a lot of sense.

You typo'd the IP in the browser. This is so interesting! Hope you do an update and try accessing it with the correct IP.

Could it be a camera trigger to start it recording if the camera senses movement ?

I remember that strange button lay out on the front, I definitely had one of these but I’m pretty sure it was either dark gray or black.

@granitepenguin

3 жыл бұрын

/me looks at the black one sitting on top of my 1990 stereo stack

That is some serious overkill for detecting a switch. I would have just ran right from the switch to an available serial port. It would make sense if they had over 10 machines to monitor, but even then you could run a bunch of machines to an IO input on a micro that's then hooked up to the network.

Good job you didn't post this on Reddit. "I found this mystery box inside a VCR" :D

for security system? to notifiy someone when tape was popped out?

@billfusionenterprise

3 жыл бұрын

I thinking that too, for a smart crook who thinks ejecting tape will be all and another device starts and alarms

@MrScotttraynor

3 жыл бұрын

@@billfusionenterprise also for the store to insert a new tape/etc?

@billfusionenterprise

3 жыл бұрын

@@MrScotttraynor another use sure

@BilisNegra

3 жыл бұрын

Nope, although I'm not knowledgeable about security cam taping, obviously dedicated stuff will have that kind of thing integrated. And this is a modern mod, why would anybody do that for cam taping when there must be tons of old security gear being dumped or sold for nearly nothing? And that's assuming there's any reason why anybody would use VCRs for that in this time and age.

@billfusionenterprise

3 жыл бұрын

@@BilisNegra old gear?

FYI: Telnet uses a space instead of a colon to seperate the IP and port & you mistyped the IP in the browser [192.169... instead of 192.168...]

@balika011

3 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure if he didn't notice or just trolling us

@newagederpderp

3 жыл бұрын

@@balika011 Probably didn't notice, seeing as he never realized "oh, i typed it wrong lol" and he typed it correctly while pinging and telnet-ing it

@balika011

3 жыл бұрын

@@newagederpderp He also made the typo in the telnet window too first

@newagederpderp

3 жыл бұрын

@@balika011 That typo he corrected, but the one in the browser he never corrected, unless I missed it

Should've used a Dremel to remove the switch and a paperclip to power on the Teensy.

@waterfallhunter634

3 жыл бұрын

Great 8-bit guy reference I love it

FYI you got the telnet syntax wrong, there is no colon between the IP address and port.

I had to use one of those and yes you are very close . they was for a internet live media mainly for schools and movie theaters.

As others said, my mind jumps to some kind of surveillance or security system empirically connected to the VCR, rather than a tape duplicating facility. Good luck in finding out about it !

I hope this doesn't devolve into another Dave Murray 'IBM controversy'. :P

@wizdude

3 жыл бұрын

Oh no you di-int 😂 😂 😂

Maybe from an Escape Room? Makes something in the room happen by inserting the Tape?

My first thought that this was likely some kind of DIY remote monitoring device for ejection since there were no other input devices connected to that little controller board other than the switch. That little controller board probably has no UI of any kind. The client software would likely just connect to some IP and port and wait for data. Transport protocol may very well be UDP, since it's much simpler. BTW, Telnet command takes IP port, not IP port. Although, as I mentioned before, it's not very likely there's a UI of any kind. What I would do is use netcat or a comparable tool to read data from the specified IP and Port and see if anything comes up when pushing and releasing that switch.

Can you hook it up to the Arduino IDE and see if it says anything on serial monitor?

What a hugely over-engineered way to read a switch. lol I was hoping it would be a neat video capture setup that sent it via Ethernet. Interesting, though.

Good old Bionic Commando, what a classic!

i have seen this before, was on a recorder for a security cam system at a off-license or liquor store (depending where you come from), that i used to work at. The recorder sat in the back office, when the tape finished it made a buzzer sound in the store and also brought up a message on my till, so i knew to go and change the tape when needed. I'm also pretty sure it notified the boss at home as he always seemed to know if either the cams weren't on or you forgot to change the tape, which i always thought odd given that it was back in 1998...

Could it be some kind of audio video splitter to copy tapes . Late vcrs had some copyright protection built in . Some kinda bypass.

Hi, i think that this server send only the info than there's a tape into the VCR...Nothing more. There is only a switch. At the start i was thinking this was a mod like storage on VHS over the lan :D

Thanks for sharing and love your stuff Adrian but honestly I’m really disappointed your solution to finding out what it does is to cut it up instead of first try it out and play around with it while assembled.

Yeah, I definitely think that this could be some kind of tape transport control/monitoring type mod

Could it be used for monitoring? E.g. if you have a bunch of security cameras each with its own VCR a computer could check that tapes are inserted.

Is that a Teensy rather than Arduino?

@szaszafaja

3 жыл бұрын

i was screaming at my phone that its a teensy 3

Maybe it was so a remote computer could alert someone if a security camera tape was removed

@hiredgun7186

3 жыл бұрын

this

@bernierm

3 жыл бұрын

That makes sense. Eject the tape, rob the register. And no pause button so they can't stop the recording that way

12:02 I'd go with signal cable routing instead. The cables plug in at the right, but those cable guides allow you to route them to the same general location as the power cord, so you can have everything come out the same cable access hole in an entertainment setup.

In 1988 I worked at a video rental that used a VHS Recorder to backup their computer system every night. I never saw how the VHS Recorder connected to the computer, but an ethernet cable would make sense. So my guess is this VHS was either used as an antiquated backup device, or it was used to record from a cctv camera via POE.

@imark7777777

Жыл бұрын

I've seen a couple versions of that back up backup System occasionally, I can't remember exactly but I think they used a special box that processed the data into the video portion. Over composite. But part of me would love to see some sort of weird modern tape archiving backup system with VHS tapes and like ethernet USB-C thunderbolt!

You should put it back together.

Adrian - love your videos, but as like others in the comments, wanted to voice that I felt this video was a bit rushed as you made a few mistakes you normally wouldn't have. Wrong IP in the web address bar, wrong syntax for telnet in command prompt, and like others, would've been nice to see you investigate it a bit more before disassembling it. Nevertheless, keep pumping out cool videos!

i used a videotape to back up computers at one time, could this be a digital to analog back up system ?

From what I can see , it gets its power to power up when the main cord is plugged in. The only connection is to tell when a tape is installed or removed. Their is no interface too the video or sound to the vcr. So it couldn't play, record or know what is going on. Except for the tape is in or out with most likely a time stamp and where it's at, from the internet connection.

VCR mystery?! Do tell more!

@adrian Take a look at this: www.norwegiancreations.com/2017/02/hacking-an-old-vhs-player/ I think this may have been used for an Ethernet based security system. Inserting a tape would trigger the system possibly turning on cameras/alarm etc. The VCR would record the security footage from the cameras.

it is probably to detect if any errors occurred, probably to raise an alarm so some one would attend to it, these VCR's would eject a tape on the 1st sign that an error occurs, jammed tape etc. I believe it auto ejects at the end of the tape as well. Others auto rewinds, this ejects the tape as far as I can recall. I have two similar models will check them and let you know.

i was *not* expecting to see some VCR repair today!

@Okurka.

3 жыл бұрын

Repair?

So you didn’t actually took the time to run nmap? :O

The way this video turned out makes me sad. Hopefully whoever gave/sent this to you never sends you anything else. You sadly botched this completely. :(

@adriansdigitalbasement2

3 жыл бұрын

It wasn't sent in, it was picked out of the trash. The VCR works which is all I care about really.

@DenebTM

3 жыл бұрын

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Love your content usually, and I don't really blame you since this is not your kind of thing, plus it's a second channel video and maybe you were in a rush to get something out, but still - would have been nice to see you try a little harder to make it work than this at least - not even realising that *you typed 169 into the address bar instead of 168* before cutting it apart entirely just stings. Seeing this hack in action would have been infinitely cooler than looking at the very generic hardware it was made of. I hope you'll follow up on this.

@noalear

3 жыл бұрын

@@DenebTM I could slap that thing back together in 5 minutes and it'd be perfectly fine. Just resolder the posts and superglue the switch back. It didn't look like the arm of the cassette loader even hit the switch, though. I wonder if it had something to do with whatever was on top of it. Not that it could really provide any information other than a single boolean statement.

@drawdebono77

3 жыл бұрын

Well, guess you were the lucky winner of the response of a guy frustrated by being beaten up for recording his stupidity for a KZread video. For me, this is at the same level of response as the one that TheVerge guy started giving to everyone who told him his "instructional video about building a PC" was totally ignorant. You know that "african-american" (black) dude, Stefan Ettiene. He started answering "I still own that pc, and is working better than a lot of pcs of people that critizices me own." Here he says, I don't care, it was trash and I only care for the VCR working. Yeah sure, just after almost a hundred comments telling you how stupid was what you did. Nothing but a childish response. Someone mature with a little humbleness, would say, Ok, I admit it, I made several mistakes, unfortunately, they were so huge, I can't reassemble this device the way it was to correctly analyze it.

You have got to get the mod working!!!!!!

I don't care about VCR repair, but I find his videos very relaxing. Subscribed:-)