Philips Roller Radio Cassette Recprder

[George 1978]

It seemed that every young lad had one in his bedroom, except myself. The Philips Roller Radio Cassette Recorder was everywhere in 1987, especially in kids' bedrooms.

They also did them in yellow as well as red (did they do green and blue as well?) Other than that, they varied very little, and I believe that only Philips made them.

I am certain that every bedroom scene in late 1980s children's television drama had one, and even that Adrian Mole wannabe in the Findus Crispy Pancakes advert from the same time had one, accompanied by the empty pancake boxes stuck on the bedroom wall behind him. I just ended up with your actual standard black radio cassette recorder as seen in the Argos catalogue, or in Comet or Dixons.

I am certain that 5.00 pm on a typical 1987 Sunday afternoon would mean that people around the country would put a transparent TDK D90 into the machine in order to record the latest Stock, Aitken and Waterman, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys etc entry in the charts on a Sunday afternoon, while making sure that Bruno Brookes or David "Kid" Jensen's voice did not ruin the tape. (If you grew up in Nottingham like I did, I shall add John Peters' name to that list as he did the lunch time Top 30 at Sunday lunchtimes on Radio Trent).

I really wanted one myself, so that I was the same as other kids, but I never got one. Mind you, I did get a hi-fi for Christmas 1987 along with a few tapes and records that year (Paul McCartney and Mel Smith and Kim Wilde's Comic Relief song to be precise), but it wasn't really the point.

I managed to get one from EBay as late as 2013, and sadly it stopped working just a short while after receiving it, which is probably why the original owners got rid of it in the first place.

Did any of you use or own a Philips Roller Cassette Recorder? Was it any different from any other radio cassette apart from how it looked?

[Richard1978]

Re: Philips Roller Radio Cassette Recprder

I remember Weetabix had a competition where you could win one.

There was also a CD player version with 3 round pods.

[CrystalBall]

Re: Philips Roller Radio Cassette Recprder

Philips started making fashion-oriented portable audio products like these in the mid-1980s to refresh their brand identity because they were losing out to the likes of Sony and Sharp, particularly with younger buyers. There was a whole range of these eye-catching products, including personal stereos. Personally I think that Japanese machines were better. These Philips radio recorders were known to have an issue with cheap orange plastic gears which bent and cracked very easily and the drive belts quickly turned to goo. I had a 1983 Ferguson 3T20 in silver and a 1985 Sony CFS-3000L in red which were both very good machines. The Sony died in the early 1990s when my sister accidently kicked it while it was on the floor and broke the cassette controls. The Ferguson? It's still going!