
A 1970s Teenager's Bedroom (1998) - smacktoward
http://www.rocketroberts.com/stereo/stereo.htm
======
setquk
I love reading things like this.

My bedroom started looking like that somewhat later in the mid 1980s, kicked
off by the winning of some car speakers in a primary school raffle. This
inevitably raised the question of what to plug them into. Collecting discarded
junk from the 1960s-1970s at jumble sales and car boot sales solved that
problem and I learned a lot.

I think that I was privileged to have had a childhood in the age of ubiquitous
junk availability. It kept me off the streets and lead to a technical
profession and some life long interests. It’s actually more difficult to get
hold of stuff now thanks to electrical safety regulations, skips being locked,
eBay pushing the prices of trash up and general lack of repairability of
anything.

A footnote: 30 years later my bedroom is a radio shack and just as messy and
I’m blessed that I found someone understanding enough to put up with it :)

~~~
jacquesm
I _still_ can't drive by a dumpster without scoping it for goodies. That's a
habit I'll probably never lose.

~~~
setquk
Likewise. My wife has commented that she knows I’m not looking at other women
when my head turns when I’m driving :)

------
JohnBooty
I love the cool old audio gear!

For the last 4 or 5 years, I have gotten heavily into the audio hobby. I've
got to say, it's one of the most enjoyable hobbies I've ever taken up.

I know "audiophiles" get a bad rap with their needlessly expensive speaker
cables, but I assure you 99.9% of hobbyists you'll find online are
_vehemently_ opposed to that kind of snake oil garbage.

I also assure you (from one engineer to another) that the matter of "what
sounds good" is actually a fairly objectively understood thing. It's not like
art or wine tasting where things are almost entirely subjective.

Audio does not need to be an expensive hobby. Even if you're buying new
equipment, you can put together an absolutely fantastic system for a few
hundred bucks.

The best part is that audio gear doesn't become obsolete.‡ We as a human race
have been building loudspeakers and amplifiers for about a century now and
it's a fairly mature art. A kickass stereo you build today will sound great in
10, 20, 30 years.

If you're willing to do a little DIY work, you can buy DIY speaker kits that
outperform commercial offerings 2-3x the cost. This is a great cheap ($100)
starter kit with lots of reviews online, and a video on the product page that
shows you how to put it together. Compares well with $300-$500 commercial
speakers.

[https://www.parts-express.com/c-note-mt-bookshelf-speaker-
ki...](https://www.parts-express.com/c-note-mt-bookshelf-speaker-kit-pair-
with-knock-down-cabinets--300-7140#lblSimilarProduct)

 __If anybody has any questions about the hobby I 'll try my best to answer
them or at least point you in the right direction. __

\---------

‡ It doesn't become obsolete _for the most part._ Once you get into fancy
digital codecs and home theater stuff, well, that's still an area of rapid
flux. But good old RCA red-and-white L&R analog connectors (or the stereo mini
jack, which is only a $3 adapter away) are still king in the world of stereo
music.

But what about all the hi-def audio stuff you see these days? The good news
and bad news is that it's indistinguishable from good old 44.1khz/16bit audio
like you'd find on a CD. Those engineers were _very_ smart; 44/16 audio more
than covers everything the human ear can hear.

~~~
isostatic
48khz please! Not because of the extra frequency, but because of compatibility
with video :)

And RCA? What's wrong with balanced audio on an XLR?

I saw a lovely post on Facebook about how a freelancer had brought in
something odd, that could only get the audio out of via analog.

He proudly came out with his crappy £50 RCA cables. We had to tell him that we
only dealt with balanced audio. My friend went to the stores and found the
most beat up converter she could find, and some ropey looking cables :)

~~~
jdietrich
>And RCA? What's wrong with balanced audio on an XLR?

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just totally unnecessary for line level
signals over short cable runs in domestic environments. Balanced cabling
doesn't sound any better, it just has better EMI rejection.

~~~
isostatic
Sure, and you never get EMI sources in a domestic environment, say mobile
phones.

If you're building a system from scratch, you may as well use balanced audio,
the driver costs under a fiver.

------
andrewstuart
A fairly rich teenager.

"Kids these days" wouldn't understand but the ordinary family didn't have the
money to buy anything they wanted, unlike today where middle class people can
largely by most of the ordinary day to day consumer electronic stuff without
much thought about the money. I'm not saying everyone can, but certainly in my
middle class life in the 1970's there was no money for buying teenagers a
bedroom full of electronics.

I had to beg and wait many years till we got a home computer.

~~~
mhandley
I also had a bedroom full of electronics in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I
certainly wasn't a rich teenager. All the audio gear was given or scrounged.
For example, I got given a very good turntable by the father of a friend of my
parents for free, when he upgraded his. I didn't even know him, but I'd got a
reputation for knowing about electronics, and it was starting to become a
little flakey. People would just give me old gear, if it developed an
intermittent fault. Old gear was pretty easy for me to fix, but getting it
repaired professionally was expensive, and so they replaced things and gave
the old ones to me.

My mother worked for a company that made cash dispenser (ATM) machines. Every
now and then, they'd scrap some old machines, and she'd tip me off. I'd raid
the bins behind the company, and carry off whatever I could carry -
professional grade power supplies, AC motors, all sorts of electronics that
I'd de-solder components from and re-use.

We'd also raid the local council dump when the workers weren't watching. A
surprising amount of stuff got thrown away that could be fixed and re-sold to
friends for a little extra pocket money.

Sometime around 1982, aged 15, I saved up and bought a Jupiter Ace computer.
It had 3K of RAM, and was programmed in Forth. That summer, I wrote a whole
load of games for it, and sold them on cassette through a computer magazine.
That paid for the computer several times over. It was never a popular machine,
and I think I was one of only about three people selling games for it that
summer.

Then my school threw out an old teletype. I got permission to take it. There
was no printer available for the Jupiter Ace, so I resolved to connect the
teletype. Trouble was there wasn't an RS232 interface available for the Ace
either. I'd built a TTL-logic parallel board for the Ace from scratch. To get
+/\- 12V for RS232 I used one of the cash machine 24V smoothed power supplies,
used second hand cash machine transistors to switch the power via a parallel
port pin, and wrote an RS232 implementation in software in Z80 machine code
(hand assembled, as I didn't have an assembler). Eventually it all worked. I
must have been the only owner of a Jupiter Ace that had a 1960s printer
attached.

The Jupiter Ace had one of those crummy rubber keyboards. I'd scavenged enough
cash machine keypads, so I desoldered all the keys from them, etched my own
circuit board, and made a proper keyboard. That made programming much nicer.

Anyway, my parents weren't wealthy, and I certainly wasn't. But you should
never underestimate a resourceful teenager.

~~~
ams6110
About the teletype -- I didn't think they used RS-232, but a current loop
(like a telephone) with some early pre-ascii (5-bit?) encoding?

~~~
mhandley
It's been a long time, but I'm fairly sure it was 110 baud RS232, 7 bit ASCII,
all upper case.

I think it was an ASR 33, or at least I recall it looking like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33)
Unfortunately I don't have it any more - my parents threw it out a few years
after I left home.

Wikipedia certainly implies the ASR 33 used current loop. If I recall
correctly, mine had a DB25 connector, which likely indicates RS232, and is
probably how I figured out it was RS232 in the first place, as information was
hard to come by back then. I do know I used a 24V power supply from a cash
machine, using a potential divider to create a +/\- 12V signal, which is
consistent with the model I had having an RS232 interface. Getting the timing
right in software was a lot of trial and error.

Edit: this page indicates that RS232 was available as an option on the ASR-33
teletype:
[http://bytecollector.com/asr_33.htm](http://bytecollector.com/asr_33.htm)

~~~
raphlinus
I had one of those too, an ASR 33 with RS-232. I connected it to an Intel
SDK-85, which had optional RS-232 stuff on it. Fun times!

If I recall, the teletype was sourced from the Green Bank Observatory, which
had some really impressive old equipment - racks of hardware with nixie tube
displays, all that kind of stuff.

------
tluyben2
In the early 80s I used to, every tuesday morning at 6, with my nephew, go
past all the houses in our neighborhood because that was the time when people
put out their non-organic garbage. We used to find stacks of stuff like in the
picture, so my room did look like that. In those days you could find serious
treasure if you had interest in electronics; big boxes with circuitboards in
front of the tv repair shops (we had a few in the village), many machines or
boxes with beautiful old switches and electronics inside (wish I had those
still). Every few weeks we would find an something with tubes inside which was
a great find. Very rarely we would find a game console or handheld game. Good
times :) We didn't have any competition for years so it was like christmas
every week.

~~~
jlg23
> we had a few [TV repair shops] in the village

Oh grandpa, is this dementia? Everybody knows that electronics cannot be
repaired but must be replaced every two years! ;)

~~~
tluyben2
Hahaha yeah, my grandfather brought the last tv he bought to the shop he
bought it from and was rather baffled they recommended to him to buy a new one
without even _trying_ to repair it.

------
piker
> 40+ years of service out of a piece of gear... most of the junk sold today
> would be lucky to last 1/3 that long

Recognizing the reel-to-reel was refurbished from the junk yard, in the
context of a picture of an entire corner of a teenager's bedroom dedicated to
(at the time, relatively) expensive equipment for playing music and
communicating with people, this may be a bit tone deaf. Maybe the "junk" sold
today would indeed last 1/3 the life span of some of this stuff, but it would
cost an inflation-adjusted fraction of the price and fit into a low-to-middle
income teenager's pocket. Other than the speakers, of course.

~~~
Clubber
I agree stuff was more expensive relative to today, but I wonder how the cost
would fair compared to the buying power of the average income at the time.
Also, I suspect most of that stuff was second hand.

~~~
emodendroket
Not very well. Whatever else you might say of the current economic
arrangement, we're definitely awash in cheaper consumer goods.

------
__david__
I still have the 12" subwoofer cabinet I built in high school almost 30 years
ago. It's gone through 3 amps and a couple drivers over the years, but it's
still my main subwoofer in my current home theater system. I wish I'd taken
pictures of its evolution from particle board with discrete amp to nicely
veneered with rounded edges and integrated amp. I don't ever think of
documenting stuff like that…

------
Luc
For some reason I especially love the motorized planispheres. All you need to
do, really, is to stick the star chart onto a clock that moves fast by about 4
minutes a day. Neat little project for a kid.

------
ACow_Adonis
I can't help but ask...what's the equivalent net worth at the time of all that
stuff?

I'm a little bit in awe at the prospect of having so much stuff as a teenager
:)

Is it super accepting parents and he just scrounged what he could somehow,
parents/family in the biz/already hobbyists, super rich parents/family...

Was it all actually exceptionally cheap?

Help me understand how this happened...

~~~
fit2rule
I think back in the 70's there was less resistance to the idea of kids
(teenagers) doing chores and having odd jobs as a way of making spendable
income .. these days, its kind of resisted as it means you're too poor to be a
proper member of middle-class consumption society, or something.

Still, I think its a definite ethical difference - back then, kids developed
the skills to survive in capitalistic society pretty early - paper routes, odd
jobs, etc. These days, it really seems like raising kids to deal with
capitalism involves turning them into rabid frothy-mouthed commies who only
want to tear down the state and replace it with non-work-required utopia...

~~~
jonhendry18
"these days, its kind of resisted as it means you're too poor to be a proper
member of middle-class consumption society, or something."

I suspect a lot of kids are busy doing things that look better on a college
application.

~~~
throwawayjava
edit: The data justify this hypothesis. School enrollment in July skyrocketed
from 10% in 1984 to 42% in 2016, and enrollment in advanced coursework has a
similar curve to it.

Anecdote time: I grew up in an area with a good mix of blue collar and white
collar families. Reunion season is coming up so I reconnected with some old
friends. There's actually strong INVERSE correlation between "had a typical
summer job" and "success in the marketplace". Most of the
doctors/lawyers/engineers/software people didn't work typical teenager summer
jobs and are now doing very well, both financially and in life (families,
houses, health, hobbies). A depressing percentage of the people who did work
summer jobs are still working those same jobs.

The people who are doing the best had a summer activity, but not a typical
teenage job (or even a job). E.g., freelance programming, prestigious
math/science camps/competition prep, volunteering and hospitals and in
research labs, etc. Years later, you see the dividends paying on an early
investment in increasing the value of one's labor.

IMO the blend of protestant work ethic and capitalism on display in the parent
comment can be a dangerous one to teach kids. That fantasy is not how the
world works. No one gives a damn how hard you work; what they care about is
what you get done for them. Otherwise we'd all be digging trenches with
spoons.

------
ilamont
Mid 80s I started out with 2 giant Sansui floor speakers encased in wood (like
these: [https://www.bonanza.com/listings/Rare-Vintage-Pair-Of-
Sansui...](https://www.bonanza.com/listings/Rare-Vintage-Pair-Of-Sansui-
SP-55A-2-Way-2-Speaker-System-In-Wood-
Cabinet/555042527?goog_pla=1&gpid=18283950120&keyword=&goog_pla=1&pos=1o2&ad_type=pla&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4tS8nbbs2gIV0FqGCh0rqQ6_EAQYAiABEgJrl_D_BwE))
that my father had gotten at the PX while stationed overseas, along with a
discarded Yamaha AM/FM receiver. Those speakers were awesome, but after one of
the woofers blew the no-name replacement I put in was not able to do the
original sound justice.

Tape players were always a challenge. I never had enough money for good ones
(reel to reel or cassette), so I just repurposed my base model Walkman. The
Yamaha receiver/Walkman combo was the source of many mix tapes of stuff I
liked on FM radio, usually classic rock and Dr. Demento.

One issue with 80s-era LPs was a lot of major labels started using the
cheapest possible materials in the pressings and those horrible plastic bag
sleeves instead of heavy paper. Indies were better when it came to quality,
but when CDs started picking up steam I was happy to switch.

Lots of weird stuff could be found in people's trash. Once I got an old 50s or
60s era waveform monitor, another time I picked up a vintage typewriter from
the 20s that after a little restoration kind of worked (but it was torture
pounding those keys, frankly).

------
Aardwolf
I wish it would not stop at 1980 but continue with more pictures into the
90's!

What are those round things that are slightly slanted downward at the top
shelf? In the first picture there are three of them, in the third pic (late
1976) still three with the middle one having a blue frame and brown circular
lines on the white circle, in the fourth pic (January 1977) only one remaining

~~~
propogandist
Here is a video showing the evolution of rooms (and Playstation) from '95 to
just a few years ago:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=W7vaMAtGSFM](https://youtube.com/watch?v=W7vaMAtGSFM)

------
JoeDaDude
This reminds of two photogrpahs shown in the book "Ham Radio's Technical
Culture" [1]. The photos show two ham shacks separated by 50 years and how
they basically look the same.

[1] [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ham-radios-technical-
culture](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/ham-radios-technical-culture)

------
mathnode
I started to work as a teenager around 2001; my bedroom was an Amiga and SGI
graveyard. It got quite hot in there.

~~~
agumonkey
I wish I had old SGI nearby.. god damn. I "only" have a thinkpad church :D

------
jeena
There is no bed in those pictures, I kind of expected a bed.

------
djrogers
So many things salvaged from the town dump - now that’s forbidden most places
due to liability concerns.

~~~
reaperducer
Yep. I got my start in computers by reading binders of PR1MOS and IBM
documents taken from dumpsters. We used to call it "trashing."

------
jonjojr
It almost looks like my bedroom, but I grew up in the 90s. I didn't have the
financial resources so I had to gather a lot of my components from trash day
or flea markets. But hey I got CS degree out of it so there is that.

------
sizzzzlerz
Replace the audio gear with ham radio and CB gear, his room doesn't look too
different from mine during that same period. I had a combination of donor
gear, graciously offered by some older hams, a couple pieces of home brew, and
wires. Lots and lots of wires. CB was hot at the time so I had to have that as
well. Fortunately, radios weren't terribly expensive. Dad wasn't really happy
about another antenna on the roof, though. In any case, all that served me
really well when getting my EE degree.

------
jboles
This is pretty much what my room looked like, except the speaker boxes and hi-
fi equipment were instead stacks of Pentium 2/3 mini towers, monitors,
motherboards, hard disks, etc. I used to go around the loca streets on council
hard junk pickup night and salvage desktops etc that people had thrown out due
to maybe one broken component. Fix them up, build a working machine and give
them away to people, while at the same time, souping up my own collection :-)

------
titzer
FTA: "An old Revere reel to reel recorder (salvaged from the town dump by my
father) is now mounted on the wall. This unit was from 1957 and despite having
no cabinet, worked quite well. It was only mono, but at 7 1/2 ips the sound
was actually pretty good. I had this recorder up until around 1999 when I
finally retired it permanently. 40+ years of service out of a piece of gear...
most of the junk sold today would be lucky to last 1/3 that long."

:(

~~~
dsr_
I just retrieved my father's 1965-ish Akai stereo reel-to-reel, along with two
dozen commercially recorded reels. One of them is the Beatles' Magical Mystery
Tour. It sounds nearly identical to my CD - just a little wobble from the very
very old tape stored in garages for decades.

------
jacquesm
That's a lovely post. I've moved around a lot when I was a kid so I always
ended up tearing things apart and putting them back together in new
configurations. I'd feel right at home in that room. A couple of weeks ago I
spotted someone selling their Quad stereo set on the local Ebay equivalent for
an amount that was almost embarrassing. Top of the line kit back in the day,
still sounds great today.

------
exergy
Holy shit, never thought I'd see Rocket Roberts on the front page of HN. I
loved loved loved following him. Him and October Sky were two things that gave
me a final push to take up engineering at uni. His backyard observatory is
still my favourite page on the internet.

------
TootsMagoon
That smell of warm electronics....

------
samstave
Wow - Do yourself a favor and look through the rest of his site:
[http://www.rocketroberts.com/joe.htm](http://www.rocketroberts.com/joe.htm)

He has some amazing content on there - go down his rabbit hole.

------
api
I had a room like that in the 90s with early PC gear, modems, and electronics.

------
taylodl
He was just building out his system in preparation for Rush's 1980 release
_Moving Pictures_.

I bet he beamed with joy when _Tom Sawyer_ played!

------
billsmithaustin
I’m glad I didn’t have a setup like that when I was a teenager in the 70’s.
I’m deaf enough from excessive Led Zeppelin volume as it is.

------
Clubber
I wasn't a teenager for a few years yet, but mine looked similar except with
Commodore stuff.

~~~
madengr
I had my C64 hooked up to an old reel-to-reel deck.

------
jk2323
This guy seems to have had a nice tube amplifier. At the first look I thought
he had mine:

[https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/N3MAAOSwLApZ3LWg/s-l300.jpg](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/N3MAAOSwLApZ3LWg/s-l300.jpg)

They still sell for about 500 euros for a used one. But it is not the same.
Can anyone identify the amplifier?

