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CU Medallion [64959]
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Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me
Jun 15, 2020, 11:33 AM
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thinking about the advent of VCRs back in the day. I bought one of the first ones available when they first hit market, mostly to record Monday Night Football while I was working rotating shifts. I would invite my coworkers over to my apartment (single man back then) when we got off at midnight, and we would watch the game, hopefully without knowing how it had turned out. Of course, there were always jealous types who went out of their way to try and find out, and ruin it for us because they weren't among the invitees.
That machine cost me $1200 dollars. It would come on at ONE preselected time, record off ONE preselected channel, until the tape ran out. Whooeee, man, it was a revelation. By the time VCRs went the way of the dinosaur, you could literally buy a cheap one for around twenty bucks that would do far more than my original $1200 machine. Ah, the good old days.... 
Addendum: When I first got that VCR, I still had only a black and white TV. (Yes, those did exist, younguns.) I bought my first color TV shortly after, and remember being amazed that my older VCR tapes had actually recorded in color! Yeah, I know, Duh.
Message was edited by: 76er®
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All-In [37570]
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Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me
Jun 15, 2020, 11:41 AM
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A buddy of mine went one step further and bought a Sony BetaMax VCR for more than you spent. He swore at the time, that it would be the wave of the future. It would outlive the VHS versions and anything else that came along.
We all know now, "There's always a bigger fish."
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CU Medallion [64959]
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I actually owned a Betamax as well, a little later on. No
Jun 15, 2020, 11:50 AM
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doubt the Betamax picture quality was better than the VHS machines, especially in slow motion. But, the fact that their tapes were smaller limited the max record time to five hours, where you could get up to eight hours from some VHS tapes. This is pretty much the reason Sony lost that war. It literally cost them millions, if not billions of dollars in sales over the course of time.
There was a similar situation later on with DVD compact discs. Sony had Blu-Ray, and if I remember right, the competing format was HD (High Definition). Sony did whatever it took, and won that war. Blu-Ray became the "standard" for high def DVDs.
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Legend [19590]
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Sony actually took a loss on every playstation they made
Jun 15, 2020, 12:13 PM
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to make sure they won the Blu-Ray- HD DVD war.
They included a Blu Ray player in every Playstation and did not mark up for the feature. They realized many people would use the PlayStation as a disc player before buying a separate Blu-Ray player while consumers would have to buy another piece of equipment if they chose HD DVD.
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CU Medallion [64959]
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Why, those devious, scurvy knaves.
Jun 15, 2020, 12:21 PM
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")
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Orange Blooded [4086]
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Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me
Jun 15, 2020, 12:10 PM
[ in reply to Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me ] |
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Sony lost on betamax because it was a closed standard owned by Sony and they made anyone who wanted to make betamax vcrs pay them a hefty licensing fee.
VHS was technologically inferior but was an open standard that did not require a licensing fee.
That's why vhs took over the market.
Unlike Apple products, the betamax technology and marketing advantage wasn't big enough to justify the price.
Sony, like Apple, pretty much always used proprietary interfaces (like power supply connections) and a closed market model but couldn't sustain it.
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All-TigerNet [12233]
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Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me
Jun 15, 2020, 11:42 AM
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I bought my first VCR to start my sophomore year at Clemson. I think there was one other VCR on the whole hall even though video rentals had started to take off. My new second generation GE VCR had a wired remote that plugged into the back.
Some years later when I was dating my wife, she had one of those first generation VCR's in her apartment. That thing still had manual turn dials for selecting TV channels. Oh the memories....
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CU Medallion [64959]
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Yep, my original RCA Selectavision had two tiny clicker type
Jun 15, 2020, 11:45 AM
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rotary tuners, one for VHF and one for UHF. The machine was a big as a small suitcase.
The second machine I bought was a high dollar Betamax. MISTAKE! Betamax quickly went the way of the Dodo, extinct. That machine had a CORDED remote, about a twenty foot long cord. Man, that newfangled stuff was GREAT!
Message was edited by: 76er®
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CU Medallion [64959]
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Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me
Jun 15, 2020, 12:02 PM
[ in reply to Re: Technology marches on. A poast by another TNetter got me ] |
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Hey tabby, love the cartoon in your profile. Ever wonder how the first ever zombie movie came up with the premise of them having an insatiable hunger for BRAINS...?
All the subsequent zombie movies seemed to take that as a starting point.
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