ADC Accutrac 4000
(1976 - 1978)

Launched when automatisms were becoming an important marketing goal, the Accutrac 4000 was a first. It was advertised at length everywhere, even in Japan, and sold... ok. It was huge, bulky, but still sported a wooden enclosure - technoid black looks were for slightly later years.

However, it wasn't a technological first : Toshiba in the very early 1970s had a model capable of "seeing" the different tracks on the LPs. And it also had a cool bowl / ball / bulb receiving the remote control's IR codes. Yep. Said bowl / ball / bulb is by the way the one thing everybody remembers about the first (fairly) successful techn turntable...

A later model called ACCUTRAC +6 featured the same remote/receptor set but a more somber base ; one of its 3 available versions had remote volume control and 6 disc changer features. It didn't make coffee, though. Nor tea.

One of the taglines in 1976 was "Its mother was a turntable, its father was a computer".
I challenge anyone to add anything after that.

ps. I have many, MANY, other ads, catalogs and images around the Accutrac 4000 but cannot possibly post them all.

ps.2 Yes, Ill will bring the Toshiba online.