Century 21 Props Century 21 Props
The Ultra Probe interior in Dragon's Domain has a set of four small tape drive units mounted on the standard wall. With the large tape drives on the port wall these are the only tape drives we see in the series- reflecting the era in computing as tape drives were replaced by hard disks.
They were created for the film Thunderbirds Are Go! (1965), and were scaled to the puppets. They were then used in two episodes of the Thunderbirds TV series.
In the series Captain Scarlet (1966), they were used in several episodes.
And again in Joe 90 (1967), and The Secret Service (1968)
In UFO, these small tape drives were in the wall of Skydiver, and featured in the titles of every episode. There were 6, the top 3 being yellow, the lower 3 being white/red/white.
They then appeared in Jason King (1971), in the computer room of New Scotland Yard in two episodes (with all the different types of UFO tape drives). They are sitting on top of other Skydiver panels.
They appeared in Blofeld's oil rig control room in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), but are only glimpsed in a few shots.
Later they appeared in Doctor Who serial "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" (1974) and Blakes 7 episode "Redemption" (1979).
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Page copyright Martin Willey