In the late 70's I worked at an automated radio station. The automation system was the size of four refrigerators stacked side by side, each sporting a reel-to-reel player on the top. For a monthly fee the radio station got a library of reel-to-reel music and every week or so a couple of new-release tapes would arrive. Tapes like AOR #8 (Album Orientated Rock) and Top 40 A (which took turns with B). The computer played from the decks according to a pre-programmed schedule, providing a few hours of music.

There were four cart machine carrousels in the racks jammed full of commercials. Each held twenty four carts (think eight tracks without the puck wheel) with one of the slots cued to play the next ad. After playing, the cart would slide out, the whole rig spun noisily to the next programmed slot, and that cart slid into the player to wait for the computer trigger to play.

All of this was run by a computer. Not a computer in the sense you and I picture one. This computer consisted of a series of large cards slid into a cage. No operating system, hard disks, floppies, or even a normal monitor/keyboard. It had some status LEDs and a numeric pad which you laboriously typed codes to program a day's worth of radio. The one luxury was a display which showed what was playing, the next few items scheduled, and flashing text when things went wrong.

Things often went wrong.

By design or by accident the CPU card cage was above the large power supply drawers. This wasn't an efficient system by any means and the heat put out by these power supplies kept that corner of the building nice and toasty, including the computer boards. The automation system was subject to two nasty ailments (the virus equivalents of the day): static electricity and heat.

Static was a problem in the low humidity of Nebraska. The building had low-pile carpet and you could generate enough static electricity walking across the room to knock the station off the air. Grounding mats and signs were the main defense.

Heat was a slower and less predictable problem. The chips on the CPU cards were socketed. That means they weren't soldered in securely but instead pushed into little sockets on the board. Most likely because they kept getting zapped by static electricity and being replaced. There never is a perfect solution though and the heat, or reaction of dissimilar metals, caused the chip leads to carbonize and lose contact with the socket. Every couple of months the computer would start losing its mind and it was time to "massage the chips."

To be a radio station chip masseuse one needs to have a small screwdriver, patience, and lots of time. One by one the computer cards were removed, each chip on the card pried up slightly with the screwdriver, and then a firm push and wiggle with the thumb to reseat and massage the chip back into place. A good massage could have the automation back on the air in a half hour or so. Too many shortcuts, not enough thumb action, or stubborn chip legs and you'd have to start all over again.

That was an automated radio station. Most folks probably never knew it was automated, just thought of it as a rather lifeless and heartless (ie. professional) place on the dial. It didn't have dead air when an announcer forgot to cue up the next record or turn on his microphone. It didn't play Don MacLean's American Pie when it needed to go to the bathroom. In fact it only played the music it was programmed to play: some sort of demographically targeted middle ground for middle America.

The sister station wasn't automated: announcers playing music and making mistakes...live. Current music was pulled off of racks in the control room, older music was stored in a separate room in alphabetized mail-slot racks for the 45s and oversized cubes for the albums. Commercials were pulled out lazy-susan racks and played according to a printed schedule.

As a rule the vinyl was soon scratched and worn. The tapes had a half-life of under two years: whatever magnetic induced sparkle made them once sound crisp faded as they fell off the charts. Most radio stations also had a basement or back room full of old albums, 45s, and tape. It would seem like a gold mine of music. Oddly enough some strange transmogrification took place back there and nothing was recognizable or enjoyable. Undead music.

I made a few mix tapes from the old reel-to-reels. I'd make a cassette labeled AOR, MOR, or Southern Rock. The quality was pretty bad and it took a lot of searching and tape changing to compile a mix. The end result was good enough for a road trip but not a replacement for the long term.

After leaving radio I quit smoking and channeled the cigarette money into buying new music cassettes. It seemed like a fair reward. Then CDs came out and I reluctantly started buying those. Technology hadn't changed all that much, each format had good and bad aspects, but you still put a single media into a player to listen and had to carry around piles of them to maintain a good selection. Only the price went up.

In the internet nineties, I bought a 100 CD jukebox player for my office. I could stick part of my collection into it, select random play and have uninterrupted music while I programmed. Pretty cool. The player was a bit noisy, sort of like the old cart machines, and the random function wasn't really all that random. Still, it was like having my own radio station without the commercials.

It took over twenty years to reach that point.

In the span of a few years music technology changed dramatically. All of my music lives on an iPod, mirrored on a couple of computers. The physical media lives in boxes in a basement closet (CDs, LPs, Cassettes), no doubt transmogrifying. New music comes from the iTunes music store or from independent artists.

I also own an automated radio station. Hooked to the iPod is a little white plastic gizmo called iTrip that broadcasts stereo FM. At work the iPod plays over a set of powered speakers but at the end of the day I slip it into a pocket and the car radio and home stereo are blasting tunes from my "station."

It's the strangest thing.

You could have a mix party with a radio randomly tuning among the iTripping iPods: mixing, blending, with everyone trying to figure out if it's their music playing. I had this strange thought that everyone is emitting music and when two or more people get together the iPod could cross-index the playlists and play the intersection of tastes.

Oh, and so far no static induced core dumps or chip massaging required.

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