Zoltan

unknown

Zoltan was almost complete when he arrived. Here he is shown holding the envelope containing the belts for the tape player.

The tape that provides the voice for Zoltan is one of the earliest endless loop tape cartridges and was invented by Cousino. The lubrication on the tape that allows it to slide against itself as it winds on the outside and is pulled from the center was gone and the tape was binding. Worse, the original tape head mount was missing.

I mounted the tape head and then found it was broken. I removed the original tape from the cartridge and arranged a reel-to-reel tape deck to play the original tape, outputting the audio to a Macintosh 8500. This Mac is unique in that it has line level in and out and records audio CD quality sound. We saved the audio to CD for posterity.

Then we purchased newly lubricated endless loop tape and recorded the audio back onto the reel-to-reel from the Macintosh. Finally we hand wound the tape back into the Cousino cartridge. New belts, a new tape head from a telephone answering machine, and some new capacitors finished the effort.

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