Hi. Rob here, back when I was turning 19, in 1964 I wanted a new 8mm movie camera. I had worn out my wind up silent one making a goofy syfy movie with friends and Brothers over a summer. (actually tried to put sound from a tape recorder on film afterwards as Kodak came out with magnetic stripe service. They pushed a 8mm sound projector that could record sound on that mag stripe (1/16th of an in) great for travel films etc.. Also Universal and other film companies with big libraries, made "headline" (short 12 or so min 8mm movies in sound) that were sold in film and dept stores or by mail.
I figure they came close to doing what Fairchild did with a sync camera -but then came up with the S8 cartridge which made it so easy to do movies,. Not only was the picture a tad bigger due to smaller sprocket holes but they came out with a sync sound version in mid ? 70s. Anyway back to the Fairchild, yes, it was advanced for the time, but a tad late. It had early germanium transistors, that got noisy, I had to smack the camera when I heard static!.. Also there was small Nicad battery inside the camera - another new tech at the time, and it like all those older nicad setups, they "learned " bad charging habits. Ours didn't hold a full charge when it got older and it would run down at end of film which would make the film seem it was going faster - (24fps dropped down to prob 18, 15 etc. this is going to make it difficult to sync the sound the way I have to do it - sync sound to pic in Computer. I'm trying out a guy with a pricey sprocketless LED scanning system and having it set for 24fps- There are a few units custom made with led lamp, speed control on motor, and a HD vid camera shooting into the lens barrel or using an optic box - you have to adjust the speed control to get rid of the frame sync issues btwen projectors and video . I have a rig like that for Super 8 film .
So its something I've been wanting to do for years, these new "retroscan units " area pricy but great for old film - a lot of my old Fairchild films were over played by my younger Brothers while I was off to college, USN, etc etc. and many areas where sproket probs. more later If anyone is out there.