2018-12-31 (Epsilon 23-06) Friendly interrogation

[Naldru]

My eye was drawn to the tape recorder in this strip, the UHER  4000 https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/rec/uher/report/index.htm#bag.  I swear that it looks familiar and that I used one very similar to it in the 1960's or 1970's.  Was it popular in the United States?  The main thing that struck me was the location of the buttons and the tape reels.

[Tapewolf]

My eye was drawn to the tape recorder in this strip, the UHER  4000 https://www.cryptomuseum.com/covert/rec/uher/report/index.htm#bag.  I swear that it looks familiar and that I used one very similar to it in the 1960's or 1970's.  Was it popular in the United States?  The main thing that struck me was the location of the buttons and the tape reels.

Apparently, yes.  I know the Nixon tapes were played back/erased on a UHER 5000, and the intelligence services used tape decks from Switzerland (Nagra/Kudelski) so it wouldn't surprise me.  US-built tape decks tended to be big and chunky studio machines, I'm not aware of many portable ones.  Uher and Kudelski seem to have cornered the market for portable machines as far as I know.
The Uher 4000 was especially popular with reporters, but were also used by the police.