Today I’m unboxing a donation from Cody Clarke. And well, it shouldn’t be any
surprise what is in here because you probably saw the thumbnail and
title of the video. Nevertheless, here it is: the Barbie Camera.
OK, and so here’s all of the things that came with the camera. I’ll start with the camera itself. Let
me tell you something, this thing is light. It doesn’t even feel like a real product. It feels
just like, you know a toddler’s toy or something. It’s hollow like there’s nothing in there.
Anyway, it looks like you can open this and it doesn’t really do anything. It’s just kind of a
fake viewfinder. And you have a second viewfinder you can actually look through up there. And you
have a power switch here and I’m not quite sure what that is. Looks like we have a microphone
port, which makes sense because one of the other items we have here is a microphone. I guess that
will plug right in there. So other things we’ve got here. Obviously this is a power adapter. This
goes to the wireless receiver. And one interesting thing I would note about the wireless receiver is
that it has a channel A and B. So I think you can set the camera somehow to channel A and
B and one of the cool things you could do with that in theory, is if you had two of the cameras
then that means you could almost use this like a live switch box to switch between the two video
sources. I don’t know if that was ever done or not. You get a rather cheesy little tripod here.
A pink Barbie video cassette. And this has been used. I’m actually kind of curious if
there’s something on there. And then the more confusing thing is this remote control. So,
what the heck is this for? I kind of get the impression that this would have gone
with one of those barbie TV VCR combos and maybe this was the remote to that,
because it certainly doesn’t have any relevance to anything else here.
If you remember a few years ago, I did a video on the Tyco Cam,
which came out in the late 1990s. It was black and white, the microphone was terrible,
and it was tethered to your VCR with a really long video cable. But, it was also like $50, which made
it very affordable. The Barbie cam, on the other hand came out in in 2001. And you can see it here
in the Sears Catalog along with a bunch of other Barbie branded electronics. And the price is $99.
But since this is wireless and color, I think that’s probably a justifiable price increase.
So I guess we need to put some batteries in this thing. You have to actually unscrew
the side of it with a screwdriver. Which, you know, I actually kind of like. Sure,
it’s inconvenient needing a screwdriver, but this is less likely to break than the kind of plastic
release tabs usually employed in situations like this. Looks like we need 6 double-A
batteries. Oh, and I just found the channel select switch inside the battery compartment!
All right. Here we go.
One thing I can say now is it definitely doesn’t feel light
any more. After you add 6 batteries, it has some definite hefty weight to it.
So the first thing I thought I’d try is just plugging it straight into my TV to see if it
works and what kind of picture it has. When I turn on the receiver it just displays a
lot of static. And there we go. Look at that! The picture is actually not bad,
I mean for toy. In fact, if not for all of the wireless interference,
I’d say this is as good of quality as many low-end VHS camcorders if the 90s.
So, the next thing I wanted to do was plug this thing straight into a video
capture device and get some recordings that way.
OK, so I’ve actually got the camera hooked up and I’m actually recording into
this. And one of the things you might notice is that I have this weird
interference pattern across the screen. It seems to get worse depending upon
where I’m at. I think it actually could be my wireless access point up there causing it.
So the next thing I wanted to find out is what sort of range this thing had. I also unplugged
all of the wireless access points around my house to see if that would help, and I think
it did help some. But as I got further away from the studio building, the interference got worse.
I think it may have been the neighbor’s wifi at this point. Of course, the interesting thing is,
the camera itself is only a transmitter. So it’s location shouldn’t actually matter in terms
of local interference. But, as I get further away, the signal to the receiver gets weaker,
which means it probably increases the gain, thus more outside noise is picked up.
So, I just about made it to the edge of my house. You can see my 9 solar panels,
which I am still planning a follow up video on that.
I also tried walking the other direction, toward the street to see if that worked any better.
The result was the same. It looks like you can get about 100 feet away from the receiver with
decent video quality. And I say decent as in, back in 2001 there would have probably been
little to no interference from wifi signals. But anyway, here we are back to the studio.
So, I really wanted to find out exactly what frequency this thing uses. But oddly enough,
the users manual doesn’t say anywhere what the two frequencies are. So, I thought I’d connect
up my SDR and scan different frequency ranges to find out. I looked in the 900 Mhz region and
couldn’t find anything. Not surprisingly, I suspect this operates around 2.1 Ghz,
which is why I think WiFi units are interfering. Unfortunately,
I had forgotten that my SDR maxes out at 1.76 Ghz, so I can’t actually scan up in that region.
But then I found this video that came out a few years ago by Signals Everywhere,
where he did in fact determine that it operates between 2.3 and 2.4 Ghz.
This little camera came out at an interesting time. Because in the year 2001,
pretty much every camcorder was still using video cassettes in one form or another. And
even though DVD had already replaced VHS as the dominant home video format at this time,
pretty much every home still had a working VCR. And we were about 4 or 5 years away
from those affordable camcorders that use SD cards like the Aiptek model for example,
that I showed in one of my previous videos. So, for a hundred bucks, you could buy your kid
a fairly functional camcorder that worked pretty well as long as you didn’t have to
be more than 100 feet away from the nearest VCR. So yeah, that was actually pretty cool!
OK, so I really want to know what is on this tape. Now, the guy that donated this to me
said that he bought it originally from eBay, so actually has no idea who the original owner was.
But you can tell that clearly the tape is not rewound, and I believe this was shipped blank.
And it’s clearly not a pre recorded tape, because otherwise it would be missing the tab there, So,
I think something has been recorded on here. So, I’m dying to know what it is.
Obviously this probably belonged to a child, so if there’s anything inappropriate, I won’t be
showing it here. But who knows, let’s. The only way we’ll know is to stick it in and find out.
I had to rewind the tape a little, but sure enough there is stuff recorded here.
I went ahead and rewound the tape and captured the entire thing. It’s about
9 minutes of video. And most of it seems to center around this toddler. And guess what,
there is no sort of digital interference because back then there weren’t a lot of
things operating in the 2 ghz range. And you know, especially for indoors video, this looks
at least as good as a low-end camcorder of the time that would have cost 6 times as much money.
This little girl is probably in her mid twenties by this point.
The video can be somewhat nauseating to watch because the camera person pretty much never
holds the camera still, like, ever. It’s pretty much always moving of bouncing or rotating. And
clearly there was no sort of image stabilization on this thing. Towards the end of the video, the
camera person turns the camera around and we can see this young girl was the one taking the video.
She’s probably in her 30s by this point.
One other interesting tidbit is you can see the image on the TV VCR combo
at the other side of the room. In fact, she points it straight at the TV at one
point. So we actually know exactly what kind of VCR was recording this.
I saw one unexpected detail at the very end of the recording,
which was seeing this Nintendo DS on the table. And since that didn’t come out until 2004,
that means this recording isn’t quite as old as I thought. So this camera had already been
out for 3 years, possibly even discontinued by the time this particular recording was made.
So the next thing I wanted to do is take these things apart, starting with the receiver.
And one of the first things I noticed is that the antenna is completely fake. It’s literally
just a decorative piece of plastic. It kind of reminds me a bit of the old Motorola Flip
phone. For those that don’t know, the antenna on these is completely fake as well. We didn’t
know this in the 90s, of course. Likewise, the microphone is also fake, there’s nothing in this
flip part of the phone. Instead, the microphone is actually hidden right there under the END button.
So, I was kind of curious where the real antenna was. Looking at the board, at first I thought
it might be this piece of metal here. But then I realize that was tied to ground so it’s probably
just a heatsink. So then I realized the antenna must be this little wire here. So there you go!
And now I’ll take apart the camera itself and have a look at what makes it tick.
And there we go. No surprise, there isn’t much in here. I do
think this rotating power switch is quite a clever design. I wasn’t expecting that.
And there is the same little dinky antenna just like the receiver has. I actually wonder if this
antenna were to be vertically oriented along with the one in the receiver if the signal would be
better? Anyway, lets have a look at the camera module itself. There’s only 3 wires coming out
of this, so I can pretty much guarantee this is a standard composite video module. You could easily
do a composite mod on this camera if you wanted to eliminate the interference and use a wire instead.
OK, so I thought I’d try out the little microphone and just do a little like selfie news-reporter
style reporting. And just kind of walk around the studio and see, you know, what we can see. OK, so
the first thing I wanted to mention is that Petscii Robots for MS-DOS is now available.
I’ll be doing a big follow up video to that soon, but if you want get in on that before the stock
runs out, now would be a good time. Speaking of that, those Chewy boxes down there are actually
full of MS-DOS robots because I’ve been trying to get ahead on the stock. So, I have a couple
hundred of them built up. So moving along, let’s talk about the Commander X16 for the moment. So,
actually what it’s running right now is the map editor for a realtime strategy game I’m working
on, which is going to be called, ha ha ha, Planet X16. I think you’re going to like that!
There willl be a follow up video to that here in a few weeks. Speaking of, here’s the X16 in its
prototype case, which actually has the clear top on it, although there’s an opaque top as well.
You’ll be seeing a big follow up on that. Also cartridges. So yeah. Not a lot else, everything
else is pretty much the same old, same old. Oh, actually, I will walk outside right quick. So,
looking at my solar pergola, This will be the last time that you will see it with no solar panels on
the edge here. And that’s because I have new solar panels, little skinny ones coming, which I’m going
to fill in the extra space. All right, and so that about wraps it up for the Barbie camera,
I hope you found it entertaining. And well, as always, thanks for watching!