I found out last night that not only had Ellen never used a record changer or 8-track tape, she'd never even heard of a record changer, and had never seen an 8 track tape player in action. When I look out on the internet, I can't find any real pictures of either thing (if anyone else can, please post links in the comments). Seems like everyone just assumed you'd know about this stuff, so nobody has bothered to record it.

I believe this is why we don't know how the pyramids were built. Everyone knew how they were built, so nobody bothered to write down how it was done. Gradually people died off without passing on this knowledge, and suddenly nobody knew how it was done. So, in my own personal effort to keep some of this "70s tech" alive in the memories of man, here's how it worked:

Record Changer

Imagine a turntable with a really tall spindle in the middle, say, about 4 inches (10 cm) tall. There were two thin, flat pieces of metal sticking out the spindle about 1/8 of an inch on one side. Imagine a triangle stuck to the side of this spindle, with a really long base and a really short "top point" offset toward the top of the spindle, split at the peak. It reminded me of a bird's beak, with a really short "top" and a really long "chin". If you've ever seen Mystery Science Theater 3000, think of Tom Servo's head stretched really thin. Anyway, the top part of the "beak" was free-sliding, but the bottom part wasn't.

You took about four or five LPs (or 45s... it was originally created for 45s and 78s, when otherwise you'd be getting up every 5 minutes to change the record) and stacked them on the spindle. The lower part of the "beak" held the records up in the air. An L-shaped "arm" was then locked over the top of the records, I guess to hold them in place. You'd push a button or pull a lever on the turntable, and then magic happened.

The bottom part of the "beak" would pull inward just slightly, causing the first record to fall on the turntable with a "PLOP". As I recall, the whole stack didn't fall down because the lower part of the "beak" actually moved through the spindle to the other side, allowing the first record to fall but "catching" the rest. The tone arm (the part that holds the needle) would then magically levitate off of its holder, move just far enough to be at the beginning of the record, and then gently sink onto the surface. Music would then begin to play.

After the record was over, more magic happened. Suddenly with clicking whirrs the tone arm would levitate, move completely out of the way, another record would PLOP into place, the tone arm would move back to the start, and then sink again to the surface of the record. The top "brace" arm must have had some sort of sensor on it that could tell if there were more records waiting to fall. If there weren't, the tone arm would sink back to its holder and the system would shut off.

I used to watch my own record player do this for hours as a kid, trying to figure the whole mechanism out. In the 70s, double albums often would arrive with sides 1 and 4 on one disk, and sides 2 and 3 on the other. This was a huge pain until you realized that by stacking the two disks on top of each other on one of these changers, you could hear two sides of an album without getting up to switch the disks (think about it). The original Star Wars soundtrack was like this.

8-Track Tapes

8 Track is a ubiquitous sign of the 70s, but do you remember how they were used? You had tape in a big cartridge, say about 6 inches long by about 4 inches wide by about 1 inch thick (15.25 cm x 10 cm x 2.5 cm). The tape itself was about 1/4th of an inch wide as I recall. The front of the cartridge was where the tape came out and ran past the tape heads, but there were no spindles. Other than the opening at the front, the box was smooth. You got it to play by pushing the tape most of the way into a slot. Eventually you'd push it past something solid and you'd hear and feel a thunk, and then it would begin to play. You could, and lots of people did, stick an 8 track tape in a player and have it run all night. 8-tracks could hold more music than albums, so there were lots of cases where you had a double album but only one 8-track tape.

Unfortunately you couldn't fast forward or rewind the things. There wasn't anything to grab on to. Instead, the tape was segmented into 4 sections (with 2 stereo channels, hence "8 track"). Each section was underneath the section before it. As the tape ran completely through its loop, a metal strip would pass under the tape heads, closing a switch which moved the tape head down to the next track, which would then begin to play. At the end of the 4th track, the tape head would move up to the first and the whole thing would start again.

You could also force the player to go to the next track, typically by pushing a button on the player. In fact, this was usually all there was to an 8-track player... a slot, a volume control, and a big button labeled TRACK. After you'd played a tape through a few times, you got a feel for where each song was on each track, and how they related to each other. The manual TRACK button could then be used as a kind of primitive fast-forward. For example, when Doobie Wah was playing on track 1 of your favorite Frampton tape, you knew Do You Feel Like We Do was on track 4 and Baby I Love Your Way was on track 3 at roughly the same time. When you got really good at it, you could play DJ and mix your own tape.

The #1 advantage to an 8-track tape player was it would fit in your car. Before then, you had radio, or you had nothing at all. But there were lots of disadvantages too. You couldn't record on 8-track (at least I don't think you could, I don't remember anyone owning an 8-track recorder), and not being able to fast forward or rewind was a bummer. They were big, easily 3 times bigger than the slightly later cassette tape. If your tape or your player got misaligned, you got "crossover" and could hear other tracks while the main track was playing. Finally, the lubricants used to keep the tape running smoothly would eventually wear out, and then your tape was no good.

What Happened?

The cassette tape we all know and love/hate was invented by Phillips in the early 70s (1974, as I recall). It could do everything an 8-track could do (play music in cars), plus you could fast forward and rewind it, as well as record. Of course, the music industry threw itself a hissy precisely because you could record, as it was quite patently obvious to anyone with half a brain that cassette tapes would herald the utter destruction of the music industry and therefore the whole US's, if not the world's, economy (sound familiar?) It took putting a tax on all blank tapes sold (4 cents, I think) with the proceeds going straight to the record companies, before they'd all shut up about it. We still pay the tax to this day. In spite of the hissy fit, cassette tapes took off and 8-tracks were rapidly delegated to the dustbin.

Record players held out quite a bit longer. Cassette tapes sounded bad, really bad at first. Lots of hiss, no real dynamic range, and all kinds of artifacts from the transport mechanism. An LP record was much quieter, even with all the pops and clicks, and had greater dynamic range. Lots of people (myself included) chose instead to purchase albums and then record them onto tapes to put in our cars. This, of course, triggered another hissy fit from the record industry, and it took a supreme court ruling this time to shut them up (do a search for "fair use" on the internet). Cassette tapes eventually got better, but never as good as a really good vinyl press on a high-quality turntable.

But of course records were fragile, a real pain to keep clean, and still had lots of pops and ticks to annoy you. Phillips and Sony came out with the Digital Compact Disk in 1983, solving all these problems and more, and albums followed 8-tracks into the trashcan of history.

Of course, albums are now making a comeback of a sort, but this time as a musical instrument rather than a method of playback. I know that one day my kids will look at me slack-jawed while I explain to them that yes, I once owned a turntable, but I used it to play music instead of make music.

And of course by then we'll all be hearing about how the latest holographic crystal recording technology will herald an apocalypse for the music industry that could threaten the entire planetary economy with complete collapse.

Some things will never change.