NEC rm-1250e ... JCPenney 681-3884 ... Palladium 494-798 .. which one came first .. Palladium 494-798 | The Boombox Wiki (wikiboombox.com)
I would guess they were all about the same time but in different markets. In the U.K. few people would have heard of JCPenney and Palladium sounds like a name for a cheap transistor radio at a market. NEC wasn't high profile in the consumer market but did sell Betamax VCRs and some of the very first satellite systems in the U.K. I was commenting on the Electronics Weekly forum that I remember when NEC was the worlds largest semiconductor manufacturer; bigger than Intel.
I know the NEC brand for electronic components mounted on many brands such as Sony .. Pioneer etc. Personally I had this Nec Boombox bought in Naples in 1987, Unfortunately it has been lying inoperative for many years and as usual looking for components I discovered that it is a relative of these other two that I personally did not know.
Nice box! I have a feeling that box has a pretty nice build quality, NEC was like JVC in the late 70's over here in the USA, they had a great name with some cool products but quickly disappeared, although you could see their electronic components inside a lot of other brands. Like Longman said, their little TVs and VCRs seemed like the last products in our market. I think NEC did a lot of contract manufacturing, and maybe still does, so it wasn't as important to have have a brand name out there. Here's a list of some of the products, the 60's Coke Machine Radio is really neat. https://www.radiomuseum.org/m/nec_j_en_1.html
I look at the button pattern and think Tanashin, although there are so many combinations of buttons, so it can be something else.
One of the old members AO used to school me on the transports, he knew the type and manufacturers, maybe we'll see a siting from him?
What people now refer to as a Tanashin mechanism is usually a cheap copy. The originals, with Mabuchi motors and solid metal flywheels were better than the ones people complain about today. Someone (maybe Westlife) recently contacted them and they said they haven't made a cassette deck mechanism for years
