[QuadList] What is it????

Fri May 13 23:59:41 CDT 2011

Hi Folks,

In answer to the some of questions that this Great quiz created, I must give some vital history. 

I moved to California, in 1971, and arrived in August. The group from Elk Grove, where placed in two old Fairchild buildings, at the corner of Middlefield & Wisman roads in Mountain View, Ca ( 12 southeast of Redwood City, down historic HY101) and engineering was also combined with some of the engineers from the Los Gato's lab which was still designing the Instavideo 1/2" Consumer product.

I was there for three months, and early in November, we got the word that we were ( Ampex Corp) in Big financial trouble, at the Fiscal 1/2 Year, we were losing 40Million$ on a projected 240M$ in sales. I was the only product manager for all products from Elk Grove and Carlos Kennedy was product manager for Instavideo.

The only good part of the job in Mountain View, was the Wagon Wheel Bar & Restaurant, diagonally across the street where it was said the IC concept was born, many years earlier.

We bailed out of those buildings by early January, and I moved to Redwood City.

They closed down major operations, wrote off everything they could, laid off everyone who wasn't needed. 

Those days created the basic statement, "That only the Optimists brought their lunch at Ampex", since many questioned whether they would still have a job by noon!

So this was the environment that was driving the Broadcast Div of Ampex when in late 1971, the TBC790 & the (Quad that never was, the VR-1400) were conceived. No extra effort or redesign was expended, and even the DTBC effort was on shaky ground. 

I moved from the Helical (Elk Grove Products) products group to the Quad group, because a product manager in the Quad group could not get along with the Manager of Product management. 

I had only looked at a few quad schematics, messed with an Amtec/Colortec while trying to make them work with the VR-7900. I had never operated a Quad. 

So I had the VR-1200's, the VR-3000, and all quad accessories and the "Nova" engineering project that became the AVR-2

So, we were in a desperate survival mode, cutting every corner, not spending an extra dime on anything.

So, that's why some of the things that were done in that period may not have made good sense, or even seemed like being done the "Ampex
Way". 

OBTW, the loss that was reported at the end of the Fiscal Year in May of 1972, was really 90 Million$ on sales of 240M$ which was bad news for a publicly held company.

I survived, introduced the AVR-2 @ NAB 1974 in Huston, Tx and at 1976 at the Board of Directors meeting, the Chairman of the Board, leaned on the AVR-2, and said that this machine had brought the company back in two years, farther than he thought we would be in 5 years.

So, that's a little slice of Quad History from almost 40 years ago.

Bye for now,  Bill & Gewyn & Ginger (whoof...whoof)

--- On Fri, 5/13/11, Don Norwood <dwnorwood at embarqmail.com> wrote:

From: Don Norwood <dwnorwood at embarqmail.com>
Subject: Re: [QuadList] What is it????
To: "Quad List" <quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com>
Date: Friday, May 13, 2011, 8:08 PM

And once again, Chris is the winner!!!!

Bill Carpenter told us about a mini buffer (TBC) that was 
designed for the VR-1400, a VR-1200 fitted with the new TBC to replace 
Amtec/Colortec/Velcomp/ProcAmp, but the machine never became a product 
due to the development of the AVR-2. However, the TBC design went on to 
become the TBC-790, intended for use with the VPR-7900.

Ampex used some of the modules from the AVR-1 as well as some 
newly designed modules, but the card cage design of the TBC-790 was different in 
several respects from the AVR-1.  For one thing, there were coax connectors 
in the AVR-1 back plane, but not in the TBC-790, so the coaxial connections that 
would normally have mated with connectors on the rear of the modules were 
instead routed to connectors on the front panel.  I suspect that was done 
to save cost, however, another difference has always puzzled me.  For 
whatever reason, the card frame in the TBC-790 is "upside down and backwards" as 
compared to the AVR-1, so the re-purposed cards (which were not re-labeled) have 
connector pin numbers that are opposite of what you would expect.  

Otherwise, the mechanical design of the modules is unchanged 
except for the extruded aluminum handle that runs the length of the module 
instead of the "loop" handle on the AVR-1.  It's the same design as used on 
the AVR-2, VPR-7900 and VPR-7800.  Here's a pic of the module installed in 
a TBC-790 with jumpers between modules taking the place of the back-plane 
connectors in the AVR-1.

Interestingly, in the TBC-790 manual, for the modules that 
were "borrowed" from the AVR-1, there was no re-working of the drawings to match 
the new configurations for the TBC.  The pages from the AVR-1 manual were 
simply copied, ignoring the changes in the mechanical design and the pin 
numbering!

Don Norwood
Digitrak Communications, Inc.
www.digitrakcom.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: 
  Chill315 at aol.com 

  To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com 

  Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 10:37 PM
  Subject: Re: [QuadList] What is 
  it????

  Then there is only one answer.  It is for the TBC that was designed 
  for the VR-7900 type A machine.  

  Chris Hill

  In a message dated 5/13/2011 10:25:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, dwnorwood at embarqmail.com 
  writes:

    Hi Chris:

    No, I didn't say it was for a quad, just that it was 
    "firmly rooted in quad history".  You got part of that answer 
    right!  And Park got the 1" TBC part right.  And Bill Carpenter 
    told the whole story not too long ago including how this fits with the "quad 
    that never was".  I figured one of you guys would put the pieces 
    together!

    Don Norwood
Digitrak Communications, Inc.
www.digitrakcom.com  

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: 
      Chill315 at aol.com 
      To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com 

      Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 10:13 
      PM
      Subject: Re: [QuadList] What is 
      it????

      Yes I did notice that the module was missing the pull handle.  
      The card does have the 28 pin connector that the AVR-1 used.  The 
      63.5 micro second delay line is used in the drop out compensator of the 
      AVR-1.

      The front connectors are what throw me for a loop.  So I am at a 
      loss.  

      It is for a quad you say so that does not leave much left.

      Chris Hill

      In a message dated 5/13/2011 10:09:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
      dwnorwood at embarqmail.com writes:

        Hi Chris:

        Almost a winning answer, maybe the best so far.....but 
        you'll notice that this module design (mechanical, not electrical) is 
        slightly different from the AVR-1.

        Don Norwood
Digitrak Communications, Inc.
www.digitrakcom.com  

          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: 
          Chill315 at aol.com 
          To: quadlist at quadvideotapegroup.com 

          Sent: Friday, May 13, 2011 9:54 
          PM
          Subject: Re: [QuadList] What is 
          it????

          This is the one line delay module that was used in the AVR-1 / 
          ACR-25.  

          Chris Hill
          WA8IGN

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