One persons trash is another persons treasure

One of the things I got was a Sony Mavica.
You know, the one seen on LGR.

I figured I need a quick win after driving for 10 Hours to pick all that tech up today and chose that one for that goal.

It seems to be in good shape, but somewhat loved.
Has some minor scratches on the surface, some slightly bigger ones on the bottom, and fingerprints on any surface that shows them.

But I didn't really have a quick win.
My multimeter measures the battery as completely flat and I don't have a charging cable.
I already ordered a new battery and an external charger, because It's likely toast.
And I'll have to sort through the boxes of cables tomorrow, hoping to find the OEM charger for the camera itself.

The camera also had a floppy disk still in it.

When trying to look if there's anything on there, I found out that my only working floppy drive isn't working anymore.
So I bought a replacement for that one as well.

I really hope I find that charger tomorrow, if I don't, I'll have to wait till Wednesday for the new battery and charger to arrive.

I'm currently sorting trough all the cables. The most modern one I found by now is a VGA to DVI Cable. <3

I feel bad for whoever won most of the Apple-stuff. I ended up with all their Power Supplies.

Update: I found one cable that's more modern than the DVI: A USB 2.0 Extension cable.

But as I feared: No Mavica Power Supply.

I fear that I'm jinxing it by calling stuff easy wins.

But we start of good: There are no batts in it and the terminals are clean.

Let's put some AAs in to find out how bad the belt is.

Let's test the radio first. That way the belt stays working for a while in my mind.

The Power LED comes on.

And FM Radio works perfectly fine.
The tuner dial is a bit stiff, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's intended.

The Audio dial is spot-on no crackling no nothing.

The reception inside the house is a bit crap.
I can't really move away from the Window.

I basically have to wait until the sun goes down for Skywave to take effect. Then I should be able to test the AM radio.

Exciting!

Now for the thing I'm dreading.

Testing the tape player

The playback controls work. They're as satisfying clunky as they should be.

The Supply Reel rotates just fine. FF and REW also seem good.

Dry-run succeeded.

Now let's put a tape in it.

And it just works.
Don't know about wow and flutter because I don't have a way to test that.

Is it weird to be a bit disappointed?

I guess I was too quick with that diagnosis.

I listened to an audiobook and that was fine.
Listening to music on it is a chore.

The playback speed is neither right nor constant.
New belt it is then.

Back to trying out AM again.

I can hear two stations that are probably in Romania, based on the frequency.
It's with a lot of atmospheric noise.

And yea, that's it in terms of AM.

Going outside would probably make it better. But it's cold and dark there.

I got the replacement battery for the Mavica in and a new floppy drive.

The new battery is extremely snug, and I had to (very carefully) use a flat head screwdriver to pry it back out again.

I wrapped some kapton tape around it now to use as a pull tab.

The floppy had pictures on them, of course.

They look like they've been taken in the make-up room on a TV set. (Or that's what I assume because I got the camera from a TV Studio)

All the pictures have people on them, so I won't post them here.