Techmoan discusses a piece of audio equipment that I used to know very well in my radio days. A Spotmaster broadcast tape cartridge deck.
The sample he has could record as well as play tapes. Those were used in the production studio at the station where I worked and I had one in my little news room.
I produced a countless number of carts for news broadcasts. Those were either taken from phone calls recorded on reel tape and edited onto cart, or dubbed from cassette recordings I made in the field.
In the broadcast studio there were Spotmaster decks that only played tapes. Those didn’t have a VU meter. Another difference was they had a large, square play button that lit up when the tape was running. Much better for working live on air.