This might sound like a dumb question for those of you experienced in this area, but what is this thing? (shown in attached jpeg)
I saw one very similar but older-looking at a weekend market today, and it sparked my curiosity. The man who was selling it couldn't speak very good English, so it was a bit hard for him to explain it to me. Is it for looking at negatives? I've heard of Hi-8 cameras. Is it from the era before that? Or is it for still photography? He said you put the "film" in the bottom of it, wind the handle, and it comes up on the screen. Here's a link to a site selling one similar to what I saw:
This is ("was" is more likely) used for editing Super 8 and 8mm film therefore dual 8. Although they were the same size the sprockets were spaced differently. So the spindle in this editor had two sets of teeth on either side depending on what type of film used in the editor and you could take out the spindle and flip it around changing the gauge. The newer Super 8 came in a convenient cartridge for shooting. Regular 8mm came on a 16mm size spool that you had to thread through the camera and and when the spool was finished one side you'd have to rethread and shoot the other side of the spool. Get it? two sides of 8mm. Of course when it came back from processing it was one film reel.
And folded to the sides of the editor in your thumbnail are the arms that you would have the film reel on the left and the take-up reel on the right
Obviously your movie was viewed on that screen so you could see what you were editing.
I only made two films in super 8 and even then it was becoming retro.
I hope my terminology is correct but that's it in a nutshell.