Mighty MINY! Exploring the MINY six - 0 - one vintage reel to reel tape recorder

MINY tape recorders are highly collectible -- yet almost useless -- vintage portable 3-inch reel to reel tape recorders. They may seem silly to us today, but MINY was a quite serious, and rather clever company. The MINY six-0-one vintage reel to reel tape recorder is an example of their attempt to create a truly serious dictation machine, but they didn't quite get it right.

********

Sponsored by:

Sponsored by ClydeSight Productions Ask and Receive Digital Subliminal Perception (DSPP) Personal Growth Subliminal Messages Software. End shyness, awkwardness and embarrassment and get what you want and need. Visit http://www.clydesight.com/DSPP/AR.html TODAY!


********

This video explores the MINY six-0-one (601) vintage RIM drive 3-inch reel to reel tape recorder/dictation machine. Being an inexpensive unit, MINY engineered the machine to be very simple, almost too simple. They coupled a very complex electronic control system with a terrible DC bias six transistor amplifier controlled by a remote box! The actually tape recorder has no mechanical linkages to manage the tape movement. MINY instead tried to make the motor do all the work, entirely by rotary motion!

Explore the curiosity of the unusual but somewhat pioneering vintage MINY 3-inch reel to reel tape recorder and discover what MINY wanted to have happen, and what actually DID happen, due to the test of time!

This MINY six-0-one vintage reel to reel tape recorder will soon become a part of the Vintage Tape Recorder Hall Of Fame collection, with its own exhibit. Be sure and visit (where we add new tape recorders to the collection every month) at:

http://www.vintagetaperecorderhof.com


*********

Copyright Disclaimer:

This is an educational video, a critique, and report on an historic piece of vintage audio electronic equipment that is no longer manufactured or sold in stores. It is covered by the Fair Use Section of U.S. Copyright Law:

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

The selection of original music is NOT played by the MINY vintage tape recorder. It is a digital music selection of an original composition called "Siren Song", by Tim Thompson -- in a new arrangement performed by his XV Orchestra.

The original full version (about 2 minutes long)can be played by your computer's built in MIDI synthesizer. It is available at the ClydeSight 2.0!, the Fun and Games Cat Site in Clyde's amazing mythological adventure: "The Idiocy and the Oddity"!

You can hear it here:

http://www.clydesight.com/epic/chap13.html

Enjoy!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• clydesight
• MINY
• six-0-one
• bidirectional
• vintage
• reel
• to
• tape
• recorder
• DSPP
• subliminal
• messages
• software
• personal
• growth
• Ask
• and
• Receive

[thatmuse76]

In theory it's a great design. I am just wondering if the accountants at Miny led to some what I would consider short cuts. There are a lot of Muntz characteristics to this machine. Sure why use a resistor to control rewind when you can just turn on and off certain batteries to achieve the (sorta) same result.

[clydesight]

@thatmuse76 Thanks for your comment!

This is probably the strangest tape recorder I have ever seen! I don't know what they were thinking when they designed it, but it seems pretty clever to me. Wish it had a better amplifier though.

[stratocat9999]

I've seen a lot of Miny recorders over the years, but this is the absolute weirdest one I've ever seen! Nice find!

[clydesight]

@stratocat9999

Thanks.

Yes, MINY is weird anyway, but this one takes the cake. It is a great lesson in how to be innovative and think "outside the box". Just a bit more quality and they would have had a winner and perhaps could have become a real serious player in the TR market. It shows how a good idea can have great potential, but the follow through is just as important. In this case, they didn't follow through, so their brilliant idea came off rather frustrating. Pity.

[thereelmaster]

when i saw this vid i simply fell in love with that tape recorder, amazing!!!

[clydesight]

@thereelmaster

Thanks for your comment. Yes, this is an appealing, if relatively useless machine. Cute, almost good, just barely makes it to "okay". But, appealing none the less.

[clydesight]

@netsurferx1 Yes, there are MANY possibilities for what this machine could have been. AIWA did make a rim drive stereo unit. It is highly collectible and completely useless.

[clydesight]

@CassetteMaster There are some portable mono 4-track machines out there. Panasonic made a few. They are completely incompatible though, because only a few of that type of machine was made.

The MINY is kind of neat, except for the amp. These rim drive machines seemed to always cheap on the amp.

RCA isn't much better. They have a shoebox cassette recorder out now that is absolutely hideous. There's no excuse for that in this day and age.

[clydesight]

@CassetteMaster

The motor couldn't stand 9 volts. It's really cheap. There are two little copper wires that act as motor brushes (no carbon pads, just the wires!).

So if the thing ran at 9 volts, the electrical system of the motor would fail completely in a short period of time.

Nice idea though, and I certainly thought the same thing!

[CassetteMaster]

Also, they should  have ran the rewind motor at a full 9 volts.