Seeburg Corporation (Chicago) has manufactured Jukeboxes, Slot and
Arcade machines for over 70 years.
Starting with 78-RPM platters, to 45s, to CD’s & solid-state
memory players. Seeburg was
the first in the industry to manufacture players for use with 45 RPM
records which dominated the industry in the 1950’s pushing Wurlitzer
almost out of the business.
Seeburg was also the first to manufacture continuous play record
machines for home and business (the birth of elevator music).
The Seeburg V200 is a 472-pound jukebox with a
70-Watt mono amplifier pushing into (4) 8ohm speakers.
It has a laminated plywood cabinet accented with Korean-War
chrome (a thin chrome process due to shortages after the war, finding
one without pitting is rare).
The electronics chassis has external connection points for remote
selection terminals as well as a remote volume and reject port making it
popular in diners and bars.
This model was also first in the industry to offer 200 song selections.
The V200 was the last of the line in glass domed
(curved glass) jukeboxes.
Models designed after 1956 went with a more traditional flat glass look.
The styling of the V200 is rumored to have been designed to
resemble “Robbie the Robot”, a popular science fiction character of the
day. Also notable on the
V200 is the Cadillac style grill.
The V100 and V200 models employ an ingenious
anti-skip turntable arrangement.
The record rotates vertically to minimize record skip due to
floor vibration. However,
this same feature made the jukebox sensitive to horizontal impact.
In the TV series “Happy Days” Fonzie was often seen changing
songs on a Seeburg V100 with snap of his fingers.
Not far from reality, in the 50’s it became common place to
reject a record on a Seeburg simply by rapping on the side of the
jukebox. However, this is
not good for the stylus or records.
Another state-of-the-art feature designed into the
V200 was an AVC (automatic volume control).
This circuit was used to control variations in volumes from
record to record. Standards
for dynamics weren’t adopted by the industry until 1957.
Before then, record volume could vary as much as 20dB.
The V200 was also the first to use a DCU (Dual
Credit Unit). This was
needed to allow for multiple play of the same record.
The early jukeboxes would only play a selected record once even
if multiple people selected it and paid for it.
Up to 10 selections of the same record could now to stored.
One of Seeburg’s most notable features was the use
of a solid-state storage media called “Core Memory”.
This is what made 200 song jukeboxes possible.
This type of memory was developed in the late 40’s for use with
early computer and control systems.
Core memory uses a matrix of ferrite’s that are magnetized to
store information and demagnetized to erase it.
The V200 uses a matrix of 10 rows and 20 columns to store its 200
possible selections. Like
an elephant core memory never forgets.
A selection made today could stay in memory indefinitely even
while being unplugged.
