ITC DCM-1

[frankberry]

With only one push button on the front panel, I doubt that it's a Digital Cart Machine.
Too bad that there is no information about this product on the internet.  Perhaps it was something which was custom-made.  One-of-a-kind.

[knowbetter]

With only one push button on the front panel, I doubt that it's a Digital Cart Machine.
Too bad that there is no information about this product on the internet.  Perhaps it was something which was custom-made.  One-of-a-kind.

you may be half right..

"Right at the end of the cart machine era, ITC was trying to make the shift over to digital audio and automation.  I saw their contraption at the NAB.  It was a strange beast, and not very well accepted.  As I recall it used a bunch of those little modules all run by a central controller. "

[SFM-Ptgal]

This is also a strange beast, looks like an Odetics 

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/hardware/Carts/1K.htm

[markbohach]

With only one push button on the front panel, I doubt that it's a Digital Cart Machine.
Too bad that there is no information about this product on the internet.  Perhaps it was something which was custom-made.  One-of-a-kind.

you may be half right..

"Right at the end of the cart machine era, ITC was trying to make the shift over to digital audio and automation.  I saw their contraption at the NAB.  It was a strange beast, and not very well accepted.  As I recall it used a bunch of those little modules all run by a central controller. "

I remember seeing the demo of the ITC Digital System. It was a but clunky and horribly overpriced. I think the little box is a control head for the system- similar to the "fish finders" that the Radio-Systems-Orban Airtime system used. When Orban dumped it's hard drive system to Enco, the fish finder was renamed the "brick" and continued to be sold as an Enco add-on
device.

Other early systems also used some funky hardware- Audisk had the "dreamer" keyboard. This contraption went in line with the keyboard and was an early hot key device.

For those who weren't blessed to see one in action, the Audisk was a marvel. Once set up properly, the thing just ran
and ran. When it died, look out- all the boards were proprietary. I understand there is still one running up in Michigan...

[ChiefEngineer]

Tim Valley installed the first one in Indiana at a station I worked at in Evansville. It had an amazingly large hard drive for 1987.  May have been a couple 120 meg hard drives. Worked well except for the closures.  We had closures running to receivers at the transmitter site some 500 feet on the hill away from the studio.  Static electricity. One spot that said stop in and say hello repeated in such a way you heard : say hell until after 20 minutes a listener called. The silent sense never triggered because audio was playing.

They fixed the static with extra caps across the triggers.  Station wouldn't move the rf cable to the receiver near the automation.