... of dinosaur entertainments

In the sixties, Yours Sincerely ( Y S ) and his siblings' only home entertainment was the radio. We had a German Grundic which operated on a huge 12 v dry cell battery. Those days there were very few bands, and the family's favourite was a "Hokkien, Cantonese and Hakka" comedy, popularly known as " Four Friends" Of course, the volume was set to high since it was for the whole family to enjoy. In the outback of kelantann, there was no "Rediffussion" (Pay radio channel) to enjoy like in bigger towns of Penang or Ipoh. Very few people could afford a portable transistor set and to have one was a luxury like today's kids having an ipod or stuffs like that.

When Y S was in Form Five, he longed for a record player. A low range portable National record player cost about RM 50.00 those days and that was a lot of money. It took Y S all his years of accumulation of "anypows" money to get a record player (Red packet money gifts which you got once a year during the new Chinese lunar year. The biggest amount Y S used to get was miserable RM4.00 . So, you can imagine how many years of hard saving .)

With the record player, you had to buy gramophone records. The LP or Long Play cost about RM5.00 ( a pirated, of course) and contained about 10 songs while a SP (Short Play) cost RM2.00 and contain one miserable song on each side. Of course, they came with lots of statics and other noises. If they were roughly handled, they developed scratches which produced more noises.

In later years the tape recorder became popular. You could tape up songs and it was cheaper than buying gramophone records. Y S' brother bought one second-hand tape recorder and that was the attraction of the family. Of course, there was no CDs those days, not even the obsolete cassette but big rolls of plastic tape wound round a spool, and if you were not careful, or when it was a bit old and over stretched, the tape over mounted the spool and got entangled. Moreover when the tape was overused the sound quality deteriorated and you might hear " Oooo Carooool I aaam buut a foooooooool ......ooool.......... " To forward or backward the tape called for great patience and long suffering unlike the present CD or DVD. Technology has come a long, long way.

Those were the days .........