Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Tangible Media: Removable Storage of Image, Sound, Motion and Data
Grooves
Mattel-O-Phone

Title:

Various

Date:

1965

Material:

Plastic, paper label

Dimensions:

4 in. (10 cm)

Company:

Mattel, Inc.

Location:

Los Angeles, California, United States

Messages for the Mattel-O-Phone toy telephone. The phone came with five two-sided records. Each side held four messages in interleaved grooves. The record played from the inside to the outside. When the stylus was dropped on the inside of the record near the label, it would fall into one of four channels, which guided it into a groove containing one of the messages. This is the same mechanism used in the Mattel Future Phone five years later.

The Mattel-O-Phone was successful, leading to versions featuring Barbie, Peanuts, Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose (Coopee 2022).

Lead-in grooves for the four messages
References
⌃  Back to citationCoopee, Todd. 2022. Mattel-O-Phone (1965). Toy Tales. Feb. 21, 2022.